So Dark the Con of the Techie....

Sometimes my own unconscious decisions amuse me.

Being in computer repair for a 21st century school, I will, at some point during the year, step foot into every single classroom in the building. I will converse with each member of personnel, and in those conversations, attempt to understand exactly what problem they actually encountered, which is often not at all what they are describing. Due to this, I will develop preferences for the people I would be helping.

My least favorite section of the building is one where their computer systems are of a totally different operating system, network system, and method of teaching and communication than any other in the entire building. Basically, not only are they of a different, and far more dysfunctional, operating system; they are run another third party system on top of that operating system to convolute everything going on. So instead of being completely fluent in troubleshooting an error on the normal systems, I have to hunt and peck around a system that is alien to everywhere outside that single room.

On top of that space being of poor software configurations, the hardware has its own design flaws. The desktop computers are designed to be compact, so everything inside is tightly packed, and when just enough dust gets inside or the box is jarred enough to have things bump into one another, the system is unable to power on at all.

Oh, and as icing on the cake: the people who staff those rooms are terribly annoying.

So, I do my best to avoid that whole little world. And it amuses me just how my brain decides to do it. With the way the hardware gets clogged with dust, they regularly go down. It is nothing to repair, I just open them up and use an air duster to clear it out, and the machine is up and running normally again.

Now, if I wanted to avoid that room and those computers more, I would just tell that group to get its own can of duster and clear out the hardware themselves. But aha, why would I want to do that? It's such a fast and easy fix, that it gives my life a far more tolerable condition. If I showed them how to do this quick fix, then all they would see is me struggling to fix problems and blowing them off for better things in the rest of the building. So long as I come down to do the dusting when it's required, and I'm in there less than five minutes, it gives the impression that I'm helpful and quick and obviously above par as a technician.

It is obvious to me, as well as anyone who knows me, that I am not smart enough to devise this plan. It is far too clever and devious for my pun-spewing self (I spent at least twenty minutes last night while doing dishes to figure out a gag for a Dalai Llama; no I didn't get one... yet). But my brain, that big gray organ 'safeguarded' by its cranial case, is just as potent as the next man's. So left to its own devices, it has taught me to endure a minor annoyance to well avoid any crucial criticism.

Who knew I was so brilliant? I didn't~