Flashback a couple decades to the days when one company is handling IT support for four hospitals, four regional health departments and a collection of smaller healthcare facilities, all spread over a wide area — and this pilot fish is in his first week on the job there.

“I was working at the help desk when a call came in from one hospital,” fish says. “The pharmacy was unable to dispense drugs, as the server running the program was unable to boot.

“I asked the pharmacist what error message was on the screen.”

Pharmacist: “It says ‘Missing operating system.'”

Fish: Press the restart button and tell me if the error message returns.

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