At 9:40 on a Thursday night, a tenant on the third floor gets a text. It says the water will be shut off "for maintenance" tomorrow. It doesn't say for how long. It doesn't say why. It doesn't say who to call. She has a baby, and she starts wondering how she'l
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At 7:58 on a Monday morning, the phones at a small veterinary clinic start ringing. A dog ate something off the counter. A cat hasn't eaten since Saturday. Someone needs a refill. Someone wants to move Thursday's appointment. Two front-desk staff answer what t
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The last fall cleanup of the season wraps up on a Thursday in early November. The leaf piles are gone, the irrigation lines are blown out, and the trucks at a family landscape design-build firm come back to the yard one at a time. Marcus, who started the compa
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It's the Tuesday after a long holiday weekend at a small-town veterinary clinic. By 8:05, all three phone lines are lit. A dog that ate something it shouldn't have over the weekend. A cat due for a recheck that nobody scheduled. Four people asking whether boar
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The first cold night of the year arrives on a Tuesday in October. By six in the morning, thermostats all over town are asking furnaces to do something they haven't done since April. Some of those furnaces won't start.
At a family-run heating and cooling compa
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