Thirty people, zero email, and a growing pile of theories. While IT rebooted, replugged, and invoked DNS, a neglected delegated mailbox quietly stacked fifteen “payment delinquent” notices from Microsoft. One card update later, the lights came back on.

Leadership’s all-hands started in 2 minutes. Our fancy 360° “owl” conference mic refused to talk to Teams. Centralized IT cheerfully suggested “turn it off and on” from 1,200 miles away. We survived—with a backup plan and a healthy fear of USB-C hubs.