Stories We Couldn’t Get

The stories in our year-end “What It’s Like to…” issue largely were brainstormed here at CIO. Our reporters then worked the phones to find CIOs who had had these experiences and were willing to talk about them.

Mostly, we found CIOs ready, willing and quite loquacious about their careers, technology, leadership, business and just about everything an IT chief could possibly encounter.

There were, however, some subjects that CIOs absolutely, positively would not (or could not) address. Among them:

What It’s Like to…

Come in ahead of time and under budget on a multimillion-dollar project.

Is it that rare? Must be. It may be time to start staffing those project management offices.

Take a paternity or maternity leave.

Come on, guys, and you too, gals—succession planning begins at home.

Turn over sensitive customer data in compliance with the Patriot Act.

Perhaps that’s never happened.

Beat your CEO at golf.

Either CIOs are uniformly worse golfers than their bosses, or there are some things more important than holing that 3-footer on the 18th green.

Be a woman in a man’s world.

“Sorry. Can’t help you. I never even think about it. Everything’s fine. And by the way, I love my job. I’d like to keep it.”

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  Drop a server on your toe.

There were, however, a few mouse incidents that weren’t too pretty.

Betray a colleague in order to advance your career.

“Here, let me help you with that knife in your back.”

Bury inaccurate sales figures at the request of the CFO—and get away with it!

Sarbanes who?

Call the help desk to restart your PC.

You were just testing them, right?

Take a kickback from a vendor. “Honest. I found those Lakers tickets on my desk.

I have no idea how they got there.”

Hey, somebody’s gotta be working there. We walked past that big tipped “E” in Houston one night and saw a light on in a window on the 17th floor. But the phone just rang and rang and rang.

—As not told by Scott Berinato, Alice Dragoon, Allan Holmes, Meridith Levinson, Christopher Lindquist, Stephanie Overby, Susannah Patton, Thomas Wailgum, and Ben Worthen.