I’m buried in tech edits for Networking for System Administrators, but this bit explains why I wrote the book.

I’ve been in more than one IT organization where the various groups feel frustrated or full-out angry with one other. Conflicting priorities and overly rigid or excessively porous boundaries lead to conflict, which causes bad feelings or, worse, lots and lots of meetings where tortuous negotiations pile still more processes on everyone until all progress chokes on hideous paperwork.
Who’s responsible for fixing or, better still, preventing this mess?

You are.

So is your coworker.

So is the person down the hall whom you’ve sworn an unbreakable blood oath of eternal vengeance against.

Managers cannot improve interpersonal reactions. Managers can impose formal structure and bad management can escalate feuds into open warfare, but even the best manager can’t make two clashing personalities work together without imposing structure.

When arguments keep looping over the same ground, it’s time to change the rules.

This book is on target to launch in September.

The Twisted Presents Kickstarter is delayed for stupid logistical reasons. It will launch, but not on time. Still, here’s a chunk from Heart of Coal in that collection.

Glitter’d been in the Pit for longer than I’ve been alive, and he’d loved every day of it. He was shorter than me, but his muscles had grown muscles and he didn’t bother trying to wear a shirt even off-shift. He had his own pickaxe that he sharpened himself, this monstrous thing with a giant head and a long handle that he whirled into each seam like it had personally affronted him. I liked his snarl—no. I admired it. He didn’t seem angry, but he had no trouble showing the world his fire by whacking out enough coal for all the children in Des Moines in a single shift. Not that the Pit could handle that much. We don’t even have a real train to carry our harvest back to the Workshop. If the choo-choo hits a strong headwind, the passengers have to get out and push. But the swelling heap around his feet testified that Glitter didn’t care. He lived to sweat.

If you can’t wait for the collection, you can get Heart of Coal standalone in my store.

It’s so hot my face is melting, so let’s do a bit of my forthcoming Christmas collection.

Today. It has to be today. A year ago, Mister Armand ruined Little Jake’s Christmas Eve, and today I was gonna ruin someone else’s. He’s got a wife and three kids in that fancy house of his, and she don’t even gotta work. Mom’s got Little Jake today, she’d got some thoughts on how they can spend the day, so I can do some Christmas shopping. He’s just old enough that he sorta remembers last Christmas morning and is getting excited for it again. Santa already got him that action figure he wanted, and a big coat that’ll fit him proper the rest of this winter, and even a Nintendo 64 with a stack of cartridges I got at Freddy’s Famous Fine Furniture so he can have a video game like the rest of the kids.

Plus, I got him new socks and underwear, just like Mom did for me. The good gifts come from Santa.

Little Jake won’t ever know about his big present. But he’s gonna get it anyhow.

Twisted Presents hits Kickstarter 25 July and runs for twelve days. As it should.

Reading Christmas tales while the AC is going full blast is kind of weird, but here’s a bit of The Last Multivariable Differential Christmas, from the forthcoming Twisted Presents collection.

“So,” Gillian said. “Any plans for Christmas?”

“Nope,” I said. “Just another Sunday.”

Puzzlement flashed across her face.

Idiot. She’d offered a social pleasantry, not an actual question, and I’d derailed her. I could guess her next question.

“You’ve got family somewhere, don’t you?”

“My grandma.” And my folks, back at the house I still hadn’t burned down. “But she’s busy.” Tabby was in town for the first time in years. Grandma had made it clear we were both welcome at Christmas, but our parents had constantly played Tabby and I and even Harry Junior against each other. Grandma had the only honest Christmas I’d ever known and I’d miss it, but I didn’t feel like eating turkey and waiting for a metaphorical knife between my ribs.

Not Tabby’s fault. Not mine. Just how it was.

Gillian arranged her plate, putting one of the slices of cake to the side. Yep. Another bribe. “That’s rough.”

I shrugged and reached for the pizza. “Lots of folks have it rougher.” Some parents hurt their kids bad. We’d been lucky.

Twisted Presents lands on Kickstarter next month.

Sorry I missed last week. BSDCan ate me alive, but I escaped before I got digested. Here’s a bit from a Rats’ Man’s Lackey tale appearing in Twisted Presents.

The kitchens were spacious, from the days when the manor would have a dozen family members and a staff of thirty, with fancy copper-bottomed pots hanging from ceiling racks and a big central island topped in pricey red-veined white granite. Basil and oregano and garlic saturated the air, some from the indoor herb garden, others from hanging bundles, laced through with cinnamon and peppermint. Most of the windows showed the sprawling back yard and the surrounding Georgian forest beneath pregnant gray clouds, but the one on the left still insisted it was midsummer. Our voluminous chef, Sardines, stood in front of a six foot tall steaming chemical processing plant disguised as a coffee maker, meticulously measuring grounds into a pull-out wire basket. He claimed to have hand-built the monstrosity.

I let him ease the basket in place before saying “Hi, Sardines. What’s with the peppermint?”

You can open your Twisted Present on Kickstarter in July.