Recently my son asked me to do something extremely technical with a PC..
Me : “Goodness Tom, I don’t think I can do that” I said humbly, watching his disappointed face for signs of retreat..
Tom : “But...., but..., you used to do this for a living?” (Insert incredulous face here)..
Me : “What?” Insert my confused face here..
Tom : “Yeah, when you was at work (Ok we have to work on his vocab I have to admit) that was what you used to do.. You know, repair PC’s and set them up for people and stuff”
I like the ‘and stuff’ bit. Maybe I could use that on my resume somewhere..?
Now rewind a couple of years, when I was gainfully employed, and I was racking my brains to try and think of these ‘and stuff’ moments that he was referring to. Nope. Not ringing any bells. Think. Think harder...
Ah yes, I think I’m beginning to remember a stellar moment when one staff member (a dear friend) had to move desks, and in turn needed her trusty PC setting up in the new spot.
Once her chair had been moved into place and all important files and documents had been carefully set up on the ‘new’ desk, I vaguely recall us all looking around blankly at each other, when we realised that it was not going to be just a ‘plug and play’ job with the old PC. Oh no.
If you’ve ever worked in a place where you are on a ‘network’ then you will know the dangers involved with unplugging your PC from its nice comfy, current (working) position, and trying to get it up and running in it’s ‘new’ position. Three feet away from where it was (working perfectly well) in the ‘old’ position.
After around about an hour and a half, of non-experts contributing such gems as “Is it plugged in?” and other very helpful bods chirping in with “Well it worked before YOU touched it”, you start to gaze longingly over to the space three feet away, and wonder if there isn’t away to just move the whole thing back again, re-position the desk and plug it in again in the hope that we can all just sit right back down again and have another cup of tea. And a biscuit. Or four.
But you know that this isn’t really a possibility, since you have rolled up your shirt sleeves, and taken on the ‘job’ of moving said PC cos “We don’t need to get IT involved, it’s just unplugging it from here and re-plugging it in over here”. Or so you thought.
Who knew that once you ‘unplugged’ yourself from the network, that you would have to search through 3,150 installed printers over the network to find YOUR printer. Course, if you had thought to jot down the name of the printer from the pull down menu it would have made things much easier. Even easier would have been to write down the path name for the printer, so you didn’t have to look through all 3,150 installed printers looking for yours.
Hindsight. Love it.
Despite this minor setback, you dismiss calls to “Call the Help-desk and log it with them...” Bah Humbug! Help-desk? I don’t think so. By golly, if I can set up a Wii surrounded by 6 million cables (OK maybe two) whilst balancing empty Christmas boxes and thumbing through Russian instruction manuals, then by jove, I can find a printer on a network.. I hope.
Otherwise you are going to look. pretty. silly.
Suddenly you are hit by a brainwave. Look up the address on someone else’s PC. Preferably someone who hasn’t got the first clue what you are doing, so that you can then look like an absolute GENIUS I tell you! when you do eventually manage to find the network printer name and IP Server address. Yep, you are going to look pretty GOOD when you do find it.
As long as the first PC you try to do this on, is the same setup as the one you are currently working on. Cos, you know if it’s not, and you start opening things up and keep hitting brick walls, well then it just looks like you haven’t got the the first clue yourself as to what you are doing.. Then you start to look like you are in over your head. Clueless. Not like a genius AT ALL. in fact. Worse still, is you suddenly develop bat like hearing and can hear people clear across the other side of the office, ”Help-desk.... Can’t do it... Obviously harder than it looks”.
So you then burst in on anyone and everyone, desperately seeking someone with the same PC version as the one you are working on. What sort of a lame company doesn’t run the same version on every PC anyway? Geesh! What..? What..? What...? What have I taken on..???
And then finally, just when you think you are going to have to give in and call the Help-desk, you find it. Jot it down. Run over to new PC location. Enter the information. Voila! Success. Test page print. You hear the printer whizz into action and then yes! You stand back, ready to accept all the accolades your fellow compañeros can bestow upon you. Job well done! Phew thank God you knew what you were doing!.. “Well, you know how it is” you say humbly, eyes lowered in your ‘modest’ look. Smiling gently. Inwardly thanking the Lord that no-one in the room can read minds, or you’d be found out for sure..
You sit down and enjoy your cup of tea and biscuit(s) basking in the glory that your new found status of IT genius has brought you. Oh yes. IT genius. at. your. service.
Back to present day...
Me : “Tom, I don’t know what you thought I did when I was at work, but I was an administrator. Shuffling paper, filing, that sort of stuff. I didn’t have anything to do with PC’s..?”
Honestly, kids these days. I don’t know where they get these ideas.
Thanks for stopping by..
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