An Occupy 2.5 field report

By Junior Authorized Forensics Observer
Dateline: Libertyville, IL — late 1997

I was sent to a business site in the Chicago area—Libertyville, if memory serves—to assemble a server rack made by Compact. On paper, it was a straightforward contractor assignment.

The instructions, I was told, would be on-site. Specifically, a VHS tape explaining how to assemble this exact model.

When I arrived, there was no tape.

What was available were written instructions, but they weren’t for the model I was assembling. They were for an earlier version of the same rack. Close enough to be misleading. Different enough to matter.

So I did what contractors are expected to do when the documentation lies: I adapted.

I worked through most of the day and assembled the rack piece by piece. Eventually, I ran into a hardware mismatch—something that didn’t line up with the instructions I had. I showed the client the part, explained the discrepancy, and told them plainly that it wasn’t a problem. I could fix it. It just didn’t match the instructions I’d been given.

I took lunch. Came back. Kept working.

A while later, I got a call from one of my bosses. One of them—because that’s how contract work goes. Too many people with authority, nobody with ownership.

He asked how the job was going.

I told him the truth. No tape. Instructions didn’t match the rack. Progress was good. I had a clear grasp of what needed to be done.

Then he told me why he was calling.

The client had contacted him to ask whether I “knew what I was doing.”

Let that sit for a moment.

I reminded my boss—calmly—that I had already made it clear this was the first time I’d seen this rack, that I was assembling it on-site with the materials provided, and that yes, I knew exactly what I was doing given the information available.

That was the end of the call.

The next morning, back at the office, the real story emerged.

My boss found the VHS tape.

It had never been left with the client. It had been sitting in our office the entire time.

The tape explained everything.

Most importantly, it explained that the rack was designed to be assembled by two people, over two separate workdays.

I had assembled it alone, in one day, without the tape.

If they understood the work so well, they wouldn’t have needed a contractor.

Instead, they let someone else solve their problem, questioned him behind his back, and took the win.

That’s not a mistake.

They hire contractors so blame has somewhere to land if things go wrong.

This time, nothing did.

The contractor knew what he was doing better than the client did.

That part isn’t unusual at all.

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