The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim & Kevin Behr & George Spafford

Author:Gene Kim & Kevin Behr & George Spafford [Kim, Gene]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: business, fiction
Publisher: IT Revolution Press
Published: 2013-01-09T14:00:00+00:00

* * *

My phone rings again on our drive home. Grant is asleep in the backseat. This time, it’s Steve.

Having no interest in talking with him just yet, I let it go to voicemail. Three times.

I pull into our garage and get out of the car, trying to get Grant out of his car seat without waking him up. As I walk through the house with him, I see Paige. I point to Grant, silently mouthing to her, “Asleep.” I pad softly up the stairs, at last transferring him to his bed and taking off his shoes.

With a sigh of relief, I close the door behind me and walk back downstairs.

When Paige sees me, she says, “That bastard Steve called me this morning. I almost hung up on him, but he gave me a long story about doing all this soul-searching with some guy named Erik. He says he has a proposition for you. I told him I’d pass along the message.”

When I roll my eyes, she says in a suddenly concerned voice, “Look, I know you resigned because you felt it was the right thing to do. But you know as well as I do that there aren’t many other companies in town that pay as well as Parts Unlimited. Especially after your promotion. I don’t want to move away from my family.”

She looks levelly at me. “Honey, I know he’s a bastard, but we both still need to earn a living. Promise me that you’ll listen to what Steve has to say and keep an open mind, okay? Bill? Okay?”

I merely nod and step into the dining room, hitting the speed dial for Steve.

Steve answers his cell phone on the first ring. “Good afternoon, Bill. Thanks for calling me back. I had the pleasure of talking with your wife, telling her all about what a jackass I’ve been.”

“Yeah, she said something to that effect,” I respond. “She said that you really wanted to talk.”

I hear him say, “Look, I wanted to apologize for the way I’ve behaved since you graciously accepted my request to become our VP of IT Operations. Dick thought I was crazy when I told him that I was going to have IT report to me. But I told him about how, when I first became a plant manager, many decades ago, I worked on the assembly line for a month, just to make sure that I understood the ins and outs of daily life of everyone who worked there.

“I promised Dick that I would get my hands dirty and not just delegate the problem away. I’m angry with myself that I haven’t lived up to that promise. And delegating all the IT issues to Sarah was a total screwup.

“Listen, I know I haven’t been fair to you, especially when you’ve fulfilled your end of the bargain. You’ve been a straight shooter, and you’ve genuinely tried to prevent bad things from happening.”

He pauses for a couple of moments. “Look, I just got kicked in the ass by Erik and by the entire audit committee.

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