The reason for HASCS's inability to hire areplacement for Burner is unclear.

"It's hard to find someone who is qualified,"Osterberg says. "And it's hard to get them to takethis position."

"What do they say to them?" Osterberg asks."We'll pay you X amount per year, and it'll besheer hell for you."

But others argue that if Harvard were willingto offer a larger salary, it might be easier tofind a new administrator. Those with the requisiteknowledge are frequently wooed by the high pay ofthe computer industry.

Steen says this highlights the eternal tensionwithin HASCS between budget, technology andemployees.

In any other University department, an increasein workload by 50 percent (as happened at HASCS inthe past year) would necessitate a massiveincrease in staff.

Yet HASCS depends upon technologicalimprovements to enable the same staff to providegreater services to an increasing number of users.

"Of course I could always use more money,"Steen says. "But so could any other department inthe University. The question is, 'Can we make dowith what we have?"

Hiring employees isn't the easiest thing in theworld because of the cyclical nature of the job,Steen says.

The organization's workload is periodic: thefall will always be the worst time for HASCS, when1,600 new users arrive and some 5,000 old onesreturn expecting a resumption in their services.

"You come to work in September and leave inNovember," Ouchark says.

While network activity has been increasing at50 percent a year, the number of networkconnections rises by 300 percent, Ouchark says.

Steen says there is no easy solution to thefall crush.

"If you hired more employees, there would beslack for the rest of the year," he says. "We getaround it by planning and hiring lots of temporaryhelp."

"The fall will be chaotic," Ouchark says. "Weare doing everything we can to avoid it, but itwill be busy."