Today, I got a glimpse into why Buffett and Munger are such sticklers for upright, ethical behavior. One of the problems is that if one fixates on the short-run, one can make grievous errors in judgment. We only have one key to a co-location facility, and it's marked "Duplication Prohibited". Back in my NC days, I had numerous such keys duplicated at the local Wal-Mart. Just a day ago, one of the admins here took the key to do a late-night install and then took the key back home with him. After the install, the site had some severe packet loss, but I couldn't go fix the site (no key). Today, I fell back on old stoopid habits I'm trying to kill, and without thinking went to Wal-Mart to get the key duplicated. The key-cutter at Wal-Mart explained that "Duplication Prohibited" really means "Duplication Prohibited". At this point, I saw things from the co-location's perspective, and that I should respect their directives. Duh. So I just wrote my contact at the co-location, asking for another key.

Also, people aren't necessarily going to warn you that what you're doing is potentially very stoopid.