Five years after quitting, a developer's old boss called

Wade showed up at the office. He plugged the machine back in. He spent the next couple of hours booting it, checking data integrity, and restarting the print run. The boss was relieved. The day's orders were saved.

"The loss of a night's sleep was recompensed by the fee I charged," Wade said. He declined to name the exact amount.

For a small mail-order business, a downed system can mean lost revenue and frustrated customers. The story is a reminder that the person who wrote the code may be the only one who can fix it when things go wrong. And that a disgruntled ex-employee can cause damage even after leaving.