Moving Day – Plus Four

Kids, I have to say that I like this place a lot. Like a lovely old British car, this place has all the “special instructions” you could ever want. The lock for the deadbolt in the front door turns the wrong way. Don’t screw the lightbulbs into the bathroom light fixture all the way, or they won’t work. Check for bees buzzing in the wall in the garage before plugging in the dryer. Point the shower head away from the window so you don’t get the doves nesting there wet. Go to Lightbulbs, Etc. off of Morena if you need to replace the special lamps in the living and dining room fixtures, it’s the only place in town to get them…

You get the idea. Special Instructions. I think The Jeepster’s special instructions are documented here. My old Ford Courier had special instructions, as does The 1912 House. The clutch sticks. Jiggle that switch. Unlock the passenger door with a key to disable the alarm. It’s all very charming and adds character to the inanimate objects I interact with every day.

If you go for that sort of thing, as I clearly do, there’s really nothing better. After all, why shell out for some security system when the basic controls for the things that a bad guy might wish to lift are too difficult to operate without a friendly tutorial? That said, the systems I’m working with right now also have certain special instructions.

My coconspirators in the I.T. Department at San Diego’s Omnipresent Charitable Organization are flummoxed by my descriptions of the headaches involved in my job. “What do you do all day?” is an interesting question. I usually answer with another; “Do you really want to know?” I support a software environment that must be 100 percent reliable, but isn’t. I rebuild the database. I restart the interface from my system to the client database. I keep the workstations running. I load paper when they can’t print (!). And, not kidding, I tell them why things are happening they way they are.

They appreciate the trust in their ability to comprehend, but they still don’t get it.

That, I knew.

But I still try. And I continue to fail. That’s what I do all day, every day. You’d think it’d get monotonous, but there’s always a new thing to try to explain. A new thing to confound my people (not users, not customers, that’s too intra-departmental for my liking).

I simply attempt to share the special instructions like don’t click the X in the window, choose File/Exit instead.

Pictures in a couple hours!

Your pal,

bob