|
|
|
wasted motion on a wasted day
Wednesday, September 20 2000
Word to the wise: never, under any conditions, permit the workstation upkeep department in your company to monkey around with your computer unless (of course) it is already broken. Today when I heard that folks from Information Systems would be coming around to "install" and "upgrade" software on our machines, I felt a strangely familiar sense of dread. In the days when I worked at CollegeClub, this was usually code speak for something Big Brotheresque, like (for example) forcing us to conform to Outlook as our mail software. Today I was mostly concerned about their plan to "upgrade" my installation of Office '97 to Office 2000. Within my brain, you see, an unusually large number of neural pathways are devoted to a singular loathing for the presumptuous, evil and just plain idiotic HTML export option in Office 2000. This is something I have railed against repeatedly in the past. The HTML export option in Office 97', on the other hand, is actually useful.
But when the fresh-faced Informations Systems dude came around looking to do his install & upgrade routine, I didn't feel like ruining his day. I was at a stopping point in my work so I said what fuck, do what you got to do. He said "give me 25 minutes" (strangely, without even a touch of the usual IS confidence), so I went off on a little bike ride around the neighborhood, exploring the alleys in the suburban neighborhood just north of the 10 between Stewart and Centinela. (Owing to the proximity of the freeway, an industrial district, an upwind landfill and a trailer park, it's some of the least expensive real estate in Santa Monica. This accounts for a slight increase in the normally low concentration of working class people.)
Back at my cubicle, the install & upgrade guy was taking longer than expected. More troubling, though, was my observation that his vague lack of confidence had been replaced with something more resembling guilt. When I next inquired about my machine, he said it was going to take longer than expected.
Then, as I was getting out of a meeting, I saw that the head of the IS department was just putting my workstation back together. In her hand she held my disembodied hard drive, and it was clear she was taking it with her! "Your operating system is destroyed," she announced in her no-matter-the-circumstances-upbeat English accent.
There wasn't much I could do for the rest of the day, so at around 5pm I rode my bike to Venice to go to my second job, the one for which I am not paid: installing computer stuff at Kim's apartment.
As depressing as watching my computer hard drive lying inert as a shrunken head in the hand of the head of the IIS department was the evening I put in at Kim's house. It was a complete, absolute waste of time. Early in the evening it was clear that there was no way to get Kim's computer (running Windows Millennium Edition) to accept an installation of the Earthlink DSL software. A tour of the Earthlink website provided plenty of cuddly-looking graphics and answers to the sorts of questions asked by morons, but no clues as to what to do for my particular (and I would think rather common) predicament. I knew Earthlink tech support would be no help at all, so I told Kim we needed a Windows 98 installation CD, available at my house in West LA 5.4 miles away.
That was trip #1, and Kim had basement troll Robert do the driving in his pickup truck.
But back at Kim's house, it was soon clear that the fine folks at Microsoft had thought ahead to this day and readied a special form of torture: the OEM installation disk. I've thwarted these disks before, but it's not easy and I've forgotten exactly what needs to be done. The bottom line, though, was that it refused to install on Kim's hard drive so long as there was even a shred of Windows ME still on it. I tried moving everything into a different partition and formatting C:, but this particular OEM disk was smart enough to look at the other partition. There was no hiding from its prying algorithms. I finally gave up, and then called Earthlink tech support. It turns out that they did have a DSL solution for Windows ME, and the tech support guy even told me the special password. So now I needed Windows ME again!
Having nuked Windows ME to the point where it could no longer boot the machine (but not enough to install Windows 98), I found Kim's computer in a trackless netherworld between possible existances, analogous in some respects to the Catholic concept called Limbo. Unfortunately, though, I didn't have the Windows ME installation disk.
By this point Kim seemed to really be doubting my abilities. She paced the floor and demanded an explanation for what was wrong, but it was far too complex to explain. I was dreading her questions, since every attempted answer lead immediately to another question, all of which distracted me from the task at hand. It wasn't long before I was first cranky andthen angry, screaming at Kim to be something other than an ungrateful taskmistress.
Trip #2 saw Kim driving me back to my house to get my Windows ME installation disk. We fought the whole way there. Occasionally she'd condescendingly harp at me, "Make sure you get anything else you could possibly need!"
But I was so flustered and frazzled that, in my zeal to get anything I might need, I inadvertantly forgot to actually get the Windows ME disk. I didn't find this out until we got all the way back to Kim's house.
By this point I just wanted to write off the whole night as a loss, but Kim was insistent that I get her machine up and running tonight. She had no sympathy for me at all, and demanded that we go on what would be trip #3.
Owing to my debt and her continued residence in my town, Kim still has power over me if only for her ability to torture me, and I do things for her in an effort to keep the peace. But once I'm at her house doing her bidding, basking in the excruciating radiance of her ungratefulness, I always find myself wondering what the fuck I was thinking to volunteer for such menial servitude. It feels a hell of a lot more like work than what I do in my cubicle every day.
Anyway, I drove Kim's car back to my house alone to get the forgotten CD. I couldn't bear to sit in a car with Kim for another 11 mile ride. By this point I was also pretty damn sick of the alienating stretch of Bundy Drive connecting Venice Blvd. to Santa Monica Blvd.
I stayed at Kim's house until after 2pm, regaining most of the ground lost earlier in the evening. But there was no way to regain it all; it was far too much work. I called it quits somewhere during the middle of a protracted installation, leaving the CD to bump and grind on its own. I waved goodbye to Kim and she responded coldly, pissed at all the mean things I'd said. Similar to the ground lost on Kim's computer installation, all our fighting, and screaming had lost us ground in our post-relationship healing. All the effort put into the evening had essentially taken us backwards in time, exept nobody is getting any younger.
Robert the basement troll was heading back to the Valley so he gave me a ride to West LA. We had a good chat along the way, with me giving various comic monologues about how much happier I am now that I live alone.
"Once I figured out the rhythm of the bills, it wasn't too hard. You find yourself thinking, 'You know, it's about time that I paid a bill, but what bill is it?' Then you find yourself looking around through your pile of mail, hoping to find it.
...
You know, I sort of thought that without Kim around I'd have trouble feeding myself, since she was the one who used to worry about dinner. But it's actually easier without her around. Now when I'm hungry, I make sandwich. End of story. It's the same sandwich I always make when I feel this way. I don't have to defend it, I don't have to make Kim one. I just eat it. No worrying about what's for dinner. No worrying about nutrition or getting yelled at."
These weren't exact words of what I said, but they're a good approximation.
In all fairness to Kim, she did feed me pizza tonight and even gave me some gnarly-tasting red wine.
[REDACTED]
But I was the one who paid for the beer.
Share stories of the times idiotic computer maintenance professionals destroyed your machine..
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?000920 feedback
previous | next |
