I Can Fix That!

I’m a computer wizard. Really! With no effort on my part at all – and no license, no degree, no schooling. It just happens. I have built-in radar or aura or something. Maybe a little bit of magic.

I’ve been helping people with their computers for years. I worked at one law firm (as a secretary) where we were switching from DOS-operated Word Perfect to Windows-operated Word. For the first time we needed to use mice, and my job was to teach the attorneys how to use them. To help them get coordinated on the mouse moves, I had them play Solitaire. I cautioned them to not double-click. There are times for double-click and single-click, and the two just never got separated in these attorneys’ minds. They wanted to double-click everything. To this day, in fact just yesterday, I am still cautioning my current attorneys to not double-click on every little thing. I have a coffee mug where a wild-haired man is shouting, “No! No! I said to NOT double-click!”

But here’s where the computer wizardry comes in. Something will go wrong for (usually) an attorney. I’ll get a frantic call to come here right now and fix this whatever-it-is. I’ll show up and stand behind them to have them repeat the problem, and, , , , , , it’s FIXED! Just my showing up fixes the problem. It’s Magic!

They lose their program they were typing in and I’ll show up and can plainly see it in their tool bar, and have them click on the icon, and MIRACULOUSLY, their program reappears.

They have a totally blank screen and call me in a panic, thinking they should just throw in the towel and go home, head in hands, failures, flops, fools, nincompoops. And I will push the power button on their monitor and all is well with the world. Sometimes, I will fiddle with the cords, climb under the desk and make lots of racket, butt waving in the air, and when they aren’t looking, I push the button, slap my hands together, and mutter, “whew, that was a tough one.”

An attorney called me at home on a Saturday, urgently requesting my help with his secretary’s computer because all of a sudden it had hieroglyphics all over the screen. Come now! Hurry! When I arrived and saw her screen I knew immediately that she had turned her field codes on. (This is in Word and the toggle switch is Alt-F9, which she had somehow hit.) So I was there ten seconds, hit Alt-F9, and told her if it happened again, to just hit Alt-F9, to which she crossed her eyes and said, “I think I’ll just keep on filing – these computers just don’t understand me.” And I knew that I would get a call again in days because those funny squiggly {brackets} came back.

My job is never done.


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