 in an effort to increase reliability. Another example of increasing reliability is replacing a single ASA firewall with an active/standby pair. Reliability can be an easy sell if your company has experienced an outage due to a single point of failure or if your management has experience with such a failure. Sure, there are those managers who understand that single points of failure are bad, but those who have lived through an outage caused by lack of foresight are generally more receptive to spending money to avoid having such an experience again. While citing any one of the previous reasons will make your change more desirable, combining the first (lower cost) with one of the others will make your idea as close to a sure thing as possible. If you can come up with an idea that combines all three, you will be lifted upon the shoulders of management and paraded through the halls like a conquering hero. Chapter 40: GAD's Maxims If, on the other hand, you know what needs to be done to increase performance or reliability, but you don't let anyone else know, when the failures happen, they will likely be viewed as your fault. Most engineers know what needs to be done to ensure a healthy network. Using these tips, you should be able to convince your boss that the changes are worth implementing. Maxim #3 CHAPTER 41 Avoiding Frustration I've been working in the computer and networking industries for more than 25 years, and in that time I've witnessed people getting frustrated about the same things again and again. I've learned a lot in that time, and the lessons haven't always come easily. My aim in this chapter is to try to help you avoid some of the frustrations you're likely to encounter in the course of your work, and thereby make your job more enjoyable. Why Everything Is Messed Up I can't tell you how often I've heard this question: "Why is everything SO messed up?" Of course, the language is often more colorful than that, but decorum prohibits me from including examples here. Suffice it to say that the phrase "mess