By Mark Tennent in Reader
Posted in utilities, Internet, Microsoft, Apple on July 18, 2009 at 7:02 pm
New job day 1. I sat looking up at the Dell wondering how to turn it on. On the monitor is a button that looked hopeful so I pressed it to illuminate a tiny lamp on the button. After a few moments of waiting for something to happen nothing did apart from adding a tiny bit extra to my carbon overhead. The Dell remained a blue-black lump of lifeless plastic.
Being a Mac user since nineteen eighty-something this promoted a problem because in my experience, if the monitor is alive so should be the computer. I jiggled the mouse, a large and ugly object probably made out of left-overs from the part-bins in East German Trabant factories. Then I pressed the space-bar on a keyboard made from cheap, clickety-clackety plastic.
The tiny lamp on the monitor’s button kept its steady glow but all the screen showed was finger-prints of previous users and the scrapes where they ran their nails down it in desperation. At least the screen is LCD and not cathode ray. After years of not using a flickering, luminescent monster, LCD is a definite plus even if it is about the size of my MacBook’s. Until I could coax some activity on the screen I couldn’t start work. It was time to examine the CPU box.
You ought to see my floppy
I see the front has two slots, one with the initials DVD in barely discernible capitals, and an oblong button. Even a Mac user recognises this as the way to get the coffee cup holder to slide in and out. I pressed it anyway. Beneath the DVD was another thinner slot, also with a button.
Could it be…no, surely not… a floppy disk drive? Good Lord! Do they still make floppy disks? Apple abandoned the whole idea years ago and here I am, supposed to work with a computer with a floppy drive. How old is this machine for goodness sake? I pressed the button on the floppy drive, just in case. Nothing happened.
Where next to start grabbing my share of Lotus, destined to replace QuarkXPress, Photoshop and all software which my skills have been honed to perfection over the last twenty years? The only other recognisable elements on the front of the CPU are a pair of USB ports and USB 1 at that.
Obviously the ‘On’ button must be on the side or maybe round the back. A large, raised, oval silver area looked hopeful but yielded no results. I saw an identical one on the other side and pressed them both out of devilment, hoping that maybe the case would open so I could see inside. Nothing happened. Nor was there a button round the rear of the computer, only a sticker saying Windows XP2. The computer sat there “looking” at me in its oh-so-smug Dellness.
Look at the monkey
All I could think of was the video of Steve Ballmer doing an impression of a monkey at a Microsoft conference. His sweaty armpits leaking darkly into his blue shirt. That just about sums up this computer, old and sweaty.
No computer meant no work. Everything I needed to do in my new role was inside that computer. I asked a colleague for help, they waved their hand across the front of the CPU, pressed something and the machine sprang to life. This is not life as we know it. A noise filled the room, sounding like an asthmatic extractor fan desperately needing a squirt of WD40.
After waiting a few minutes and still nothing, I noticed some faint lettering on the screen inviting me to “Enter Password” followed by a blinking cursor. Time to make some educated guessing. I played at being a hacker for five or ten minutes, largely to make myself look busy. I was right, the keyboard is a piece of … before walking to the administration office.
Curly cords
I was walking because no-one had shown me how to work the phones yet, phones which had handsets still attached to bases by curly cords. No more wandering round making calls, tucking the handset between chin and shoulder to allow secondary, often more important pursuits such as typing, kneading bread and opening bottles of wine with one hand.
The office administrator didn’t even look at me as she said: “I haven’t put you on the system yet so you can’t use the computer. We got new ones in this year so I’ll see you on Monday next week and go over them with you.”
Logmein not Chowmein
I got home that evening, after a day spent being incredibly helpful, making umpteen cups of tea coffee for anyone who looked slightly dehydrated meanwhile cleaning the kitchen area to spotlessness. My partner suggested I installed the free Logmein on my Mac, and hope that I’ll be able to use it via a web browser once the Dell lets me in. Then I’ll be able to have a Dell running my MacPro back in my own office. I’ll also take my MacBook in case I can pick up a wireless network somewhere, and possibly put hard, yet-to-be-earned cash, to buy into the iPhone hype.
Otherwise I think I shall try to catch swine flu in preference to going back to my new job next week.
Rated: 100% (5 votes)
Loading ...Comment by - July 24, 2009 on 10:40 am
Had a similar experience at the office when forced to use a PC instead the usual iMac. Was about to crack and plead for help from the office adminstrator when the PC sprang into life. PC with and its Windows-thingy operating system were so slow I hadn’t realised that I’d worked out how to turn it on…
Trackback by - February 9, 2012 on 7:30 am
sopa and pipa act…
[…]last Oct and maintained her unbeaten file […]…
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