The Cautious Approach Is Sometimes Carried Too Far

Len Chattley is cautious--some say too cautious. Len has placed several warning cones around this work area just in case.

IN THE SERVER ROOM--There is such a thing as being too careful. Not the kind of careful that has you double-checking the household locks before leaving for a vacation, or the careful that has you measuring the dipstick twice to see if there's enough oil in your car's engine.

There's common sense careful, and then there's the careful that even cautious Carey Careful, voted this year's

Mr. Careful and the most careful person you know, would say "okay that's enough."

Len Chattley is one of those for whom being careful is an obsession, and the phrase "just to be sure" is heard more often than the word "shower" at a strip club.

Len, 44, works as a technical support representative for a medium-sized utilities company, and is responsible for first-level tech support and the back-up servers. Len assists utilities staff with e-mail and software application problems.

Len is a hard-worker, but has a tendency to take cautiousness to bombastic extremes.

Stubborn yet prudent, Len backs-up his backups, backs those up, and has even backed-up the backed-up backups on more than one occasion.

Len believes in having redundancies in place. Redundant servers, uninterruptible power supplies on top of uninterruptible power supplies, a portable generator, and boxes upon boxes of spare parts. RAID arrays are a gift from God, Len believes, and not wanting to abuse this gift he will mirror one RAID onto another--just in case.

Whenever Len copies data onto CDs for clients or other employees, he always burns a second copy, and stores that away in a safe place. Len even has virus protection for the virus protection programs!

Len's compulsiveness extends to his home life. His wife admits he puts warning signs on the faucets and toilets before taking a shower, and he has smoke detectors, fire detectors, and carbon monoxide monitors installed throughout the home. And he makes everyone in the home change their codes on the security system at least once a month.

He keeps an extra change of clothes at work--just in case. He also has bottled water and energy bars stashed away inside a drawer in his desk...just in case of an emergency.

Len photocopies all his receipts, statements, and personal documents, keeping the originals in a safe deposit box and the copies are locked away in a fireproof filing cabinet. Len carries around two sets of keys. His mother carries holds a third set for him, and he has a fourth, in an undisclosed location under a fake rock somewhere in his driveway.

So with all of Len's preparations, contingencies, and other back-up plans, it came as more than a surprise for him to learn that his wife Sheryl was pregnant.

"How did that happen?" asked a very shocked Len, who even had CD copies of his wedding photos in a safe deposit box at the bank. Like that writer who lost his entire manuscript, or the programmer who lost six months worth of code, They only had forgotten to protect themselves that one time.