Genie or Genius?

I love computers. Without computers I wouldn’t be able to telecommute. I also wouldn’t be able to blog or (worse) read others’ blogs. But, after today, I need to refine that thought a little. I love computers until Something Horrible Goes Wrong. Today was my first day back from vacation. In other words, this was not a day that could be wasted on Something Horrible Goes Wrong. I had lots of work to do, work that involved, among other things, accessing and printing PDF files. But instead of accessing and printing PDF files, I spent a good deal of the day wishing I were back in an office.

Parts of life were just grand when I worked in an office, for instance, that part in which your printer suddenly decides that every PDF file must have its own special language only the computer and printer understand. This language includes lots and lots of recognizable letters, but none that when strung together form any recognizable words. Oh yes, and the printer's discovered the drama of making frequent use of question marks and exclamation points as well. Quite obviously, it's decided it’s had enough of that silly old WYSIWYG nonsense. What it sees and wants is far more important than what you do.

What’s grand about this when working in an office instead of working from home is that a wonderful genie from the M.I.S. department can be called, and this genie will come to you and fix the problem. Everyone in every M.I.S. department for every place I’ve ever worked is well aware of how I feel about them, but in case you, dear reader, are not, I will explain to you that if we celebrate Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Administrative Assistant’s Day, I have no idea why we don’t celebrate M.I.S. Genie Day. And, like the mail room assistants I mentioned in my Post Office Bother post, I should have spent more time bowing down to them when I had the chance.

Now, instead of having these wonderful people who just walk in and fix my computer woes, I have to email or call our helpdesk and pray I understand whatever he (if you were paying attention, you may have seen his cameo in Aladdin) says I need to do to fix the problem, so I can do it on my own. I’ve long since given up on worrying about looking really stupid, mainly because I can’t look much stupider than I already do, being someone who, yes, has made the mistake of thinking something horrible has happened, only to discover she’s accidentally unplugged a cord. Therefore, I’m sure every time I call, I sound just like a frightened first-time parent calling the pediatrician, especially since, when looking stupid is no longer an issue, weeping uncontrollably over the phone is still an option.

Unfortunately, throwing the printer down the stairs or out the window still isn’t an option (I, not being Pete Townsend, able to destroy my work instruments with nary a thought to the cost). It’s too bad, because after downloading two upgrades, doing some scary removal and reinstalling of our web client, which I was sure would cut me off from the office for life, and rebooting my computer about a thousand times, I’m still going to have to see if Berlitz has any Printerese interpreters. It would be so nice to just throw the whole thing down the stairs and forget about it. Even nicer would be to find an ancient-looking bottle at the bottom of the stairs with rubbing instructions.