Get a whiteboard. Put your task list on it, in priority order, with time estimates. Order should be based on a business decision - what's the financial risk of something failing. Backups and security are always pretty high on my list.

Get buy-in from management on the ordering, because when something breaks (and it will), you need to make sure that someone above you approved the risk ordering.

Once you have a priority order, then figure out how much it's going to cost to do each one. If mgmt considers something a #1 priorty and is only willing to fund 10% of the price to fix it, then you have a pretty clear warning that it's time to look for a new job.

When tasks are finished, cross them off but don't erase. Make sure everyone knows that things are getting done.

Don't let anyone rearrange the task ordering without a financial justification that's approved by mgmt.

You think that's pretty funny, don't you? I say it's pathetic and I hope your karma catches up to you in a big way. I talk to those AOL customers every day. Many of them are senior citizens. On average, they aren't well educated, and they don't have a lot of money. For some of them, $25 a month is a lot of money. So while you laugh your way to the bank with your paycheck, your health insurance, and all of the other benefits, remember that the people you are screwing are the ones that funded that paycheck, and the reason they are so angry in the first place is because of the way they've been treated by AOL customer service reps.

Your friend should use RAID 10 floppies to safeguard his data and to improve access speed.

A floppy SAN may be the perfect solution if multiple people need access.