Story 161: Connection Failed

            “I can’t believe that Thanksgiving is a week away.”

           “I know, right?  It still feels like I’m just getting over summer, and Halloween was a blip even though the decorations were everywhere since July.”

            “Yeah… Yep, just got the notice that most of I.T. will be unavailable on November 24.”

            “Oh, man!  They’re always unavailable for something – what is it this time?!”

            “…?”

            “Oh.  Right.  Never mind.”

            *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *         

            “Since it’s Tom’s birthday next Wednesday, I’ll mail his gift tomorrow so it should arrive a day or two before then.”

            “That’s a good idea – he told me he'll actually be out of town on a ski trip on his birthday, so you might even want to mail it now.”

            “Sure – thanks!  By the way, I have an extra ticket for that concert on Wednesday, if you know anybody who’d want to go.”

            “Hm – what about Tom?”

            “Tom?”

            “Uh-huh.”

            “For the concert next Wednesday.”

            “Yeah?”
            “Wouldn’t that be a little impossible?”

            “I don’t see why – he likes that band a lot.”

            “Would he be able to see the show from the slopes?”

            “Ohhhh….”

            *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *         

            “I have a meeting at 2:00, so I need to move our other meeting to right now.”

            “No can do – I have a meeting in five.  How about 4:00?”

            “Got another meeting then.”

            “Hm.  Mind skipping lunch today?”

            “Yes.”

            “OK.  I’m taking my lunch after this meeting coming up, but I should be done around 1:50.  Want to do our meeting then?”

            “I have a meeting at 2!”

            “Oh, right.  How’s tomorrow looking?”

            “Terrible.  I have meetings all day.”

            “Um-hm.  So would 3:00 be all right then?”

            “!”

            *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *         

            “That new finance manager is so nice – I think she’ll do well here.”

            “I haven’t met her yet, but I hope so.  That last guy was an absolute troll.”

            “I’ll say.  Oh look, the newsletter’s in: here’s a picture with the new hires this month.”

            “Uh-huh, I’ve met all of them, except – who’s that lady on the left?”

            “…The new finance manager.”

            “Right!  Heh, heh, heh, hoo boy.”

            *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *         

            “It’s A applies to B except when there’s C; why can’t you remember that?!”

            “Sorry, the mind’s synapses fail to fire sometimes.  I’ll try harder.”

            “Please do – we really can’t have any more mistakes.” (Leaves)

            “Getting yelled at again?”

            “Yeah, I keep messing up the C bit.  Can’t seem to make the connection when it appears.”

            “Maybe just be on the lookout for it more often – that usually works for me.”

            “What does?”

Story 160: Junior Computer Class

(Supervisor leads Trainer to a classroom, then stops before opening the door)

Supervisor: By the way, thanks again for coming in at the last minute to replace our usual trainer.

Trainer: Not at all, I love teaching these classes – they reduce the number of panicked calls to I.T. by a good 30%.

Supervisor: True, but I do have to warn you about this group: they’re a bunch of babies.

Trainer: (Chuckles as they open the door and he enters the classroom) I’m sure they’re – (Trainer sees that the classroom is populated with 4-year-olds) Oh.  (The door quickly closes behind him as he stares at his class, befuddled.  One of the toddlers starts whinging) Good morning, class.  I’m your trainer from I.T., and I’ll be… demonstrating the system to you today.  Is everyone logged on?  (He sees that they all have computers at their little desks and that all have been logged on) Perfect: let’s start with creating spreadsheets.

(Forty-five minutes later)

Trainer: Once again, please do not put the mouse into your mouth; that type of behavior is very damaging to the equipment.  Are there any questions so far?  (General shifting around in chairs and several of the children start talking to each other) I must ask that you please refrain from sidebar conversations during our session.  (Wide eyes stare at him) Thank you.  Now, does everyone know how to generate these reports on their own?  (Several hands raise in the air) Yes, that’s good, and the rest of you?  (More hands raise in the air to join the ones still there) Do you need me to show you how to do it again? (All hands raise in the air) Right – watch what I am doing up on the projector screen, OK?

(Twenty minutes later)

Trainer: Let me get this straight: not one of you has ever hand coded a Web page before?!  (A stuffed animal is bounced off his head) All right, we’ll take a five minute break.

(Thirty minutes later)

Trainer: OK class, I think we’re ready to start running through some basic uploads to an FTP server, that’ll be fun, right?  (A hand raises in the air) Now I know for a fact that you just went potty, so I’m afraid I can’t allow you to leave in the middle of the session again just yet.

(An hour and a half later)

Trainer: Aaaaaaaand… there’s your data!  Isn’t it pretty?  Now, are there any more questions that I can answer?  (Silence) You guys have been great, this was an excellent class, you have my office number so call me if you have any questions whatsoever!  (He grabs his gear and flees)

            Toddler: Oh no, I forgot to ask him how we can reformat that last report!

            (The entire class bursts into tears)

Story 159: Dropping Eaves App

            “So, I got that new Dropping Eaves App,” she said, waiting for a response.

           “Oh?” was all he could up with at first.  “Well you know what they say: eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves.”

            “I know, that’s why I got it.”

            “Oh?”

           “I want to hear the trash people talk about behind my back.  Knowledge is power: when people suddenly stop talking right as I enter the room, I want to know the exact reason why, so as to know the best way to get revenge.”

            “OK then, how does it work?”

            “It uses that really illegal technology to tap into other people’s phones across the world, so when their microphones hear your name being spoken, your phone records the conversation.”

            “Wow, that’s so invasive!  What if you have a common name, like Cathy, or Ajay?”

           “You can program it so only your so-called friends’ phones are the targets, but fascist dictators just have to sort through the rest themselves.”

            “Cool!  Try it out now, I want to see what happens.”

            “Oh, I always have it on,” she said, holding out her phone to show the activated app.  “This may take awhile, though.”

            They sat in silence for a few minutes until the phone alerted her that one of her contacts had said her name.  “We’ve got a bite!” she said, holding out the phone and pushing the speaker button.

            “I’m worried about her,” they heard, “she’s getting really paranoid lately.”

            “Yeah,” another voice said, “she’s been checking up on all of us a lot and keeps thinking that we’re plotting something behind her back.”

            “Plotting what?”

            “I don’t know, something – she wasn’t specific.  I’m afraid she might hurt herself one of these days.”

         “Or she might hurt one of us.  You think maybe she got that black market app and is eavesdropping on our conversation at this very moment?”

            “That’s a bit extreme… but yeah, that’s totally something she’d do.”

           She turned off the app.  “You know, privacy versus security is a serious issue that is not getting nearly enough of the attention that it should.”

            “I couldn’t agree more.”

Story 158: Oblivia’s Scary Story

            Once upon a time, there was a perfectly ordinary family who led perfectly ordinary lives as peasant farmers in the perfectly ordinary Middle Ages somewhere in perfectly ordinary Europe.  Unfortunately for them, they chose to set up farm at the edge of an extremely haunted forest that did not appreciate a human family unit coming along, clear-cutting the woods and introducing their domesticated animals into the previously balanced environment, decreasing property values everywhere.  So naturally, the haunted forest swore revenge upon the perfectly ordinary family and decided to drive them insane as its method.

            The haunted forest started off slowly to prolong the suspense: disappearing linens here, cow’s milk going sour there, sudden blights upon the crops, random screams in the night, and not a single witch in the area to blame it on.  However, to the haunted forest’s chagrin, the perfectly ordinary family was also a perfectly optimistic family, constantly turning to their faith that things would get better if they just kept at it and did not despair.  This type of thinking only drove the haunted forest bonkers, so it decided to kick things up a notch.  Soon there were blood-red moon sightings, birds acting all kinds of crazy, the 10 perfectly ordinary children walking into the haunted forest and back out again without gathering a single stick of firewood, and Poppa having an unheard-of-for-its-era mid-life crisis.  Momma prayed for deliverance as Poppa neglected the fields yet again for something he called, when he was speaking in tongues, “a round of golf,” but her prayers seemed unanswered, as they always seem to be in these situations.  So, Momma decided to get proactive.

            Grinding her teeth as the morning gruel sprouted weeds for the fifth time, she herded her 10 children into the main room of their one-room abode and locked them in: she did not care what they or any possible poltergeists destroyed, as long as nobody went wandering off to be taken by the haunted forest.  Next, she tracked down Poppa lounging in a cloth that he had tied to two trees and called what sounded like “ham uck,” and she debated leaving him there but eventually could not, in good conscience.  Instead, she lured him back to the house with promises of something he called “the big game” and she locked him in there with the perfectly ordinary children and the possible poltergeists so they could all stare at each other with nothing to do.

            Momma then entered the haunted forest, but since there was no official trail head or even human-made trails she used a scythe to cut her way through the brush, knowing that she was angering the haunted forest even more and that she could not care any less than she did at that moment.  She had no idea where to go or what to do when she got there, but she assumed that the haunted forest would be in touch with her shortly.

            Sure enough, she reached a clearing that seemed the perfect place for her to state her case.

            She opened with: “Leave me and my perfectly ordinary family alone, you gits!”

            An ethereal voice answered: “Leave… first…and… you’ve got… yourself… a deal....”

          “Never!”  She retorted.  “Lord ---- gave us that land to farm for him, and we are farming it, will ye or nill ye!”

            “Lord ----… is… a dastard....” the haunted forest stated.  “We… do not recognize… his authority....”

            Momma was working on a months-long headache, so she offered: “All right, if we ask him to move our farm farther away from you – not that far, mind, but far enough – would you then cease all the curses and wicked behavior and whatever else on my family?”

            Momma had to wait a few moments for a response: “That… sounds reasonable....”

           “Done!  We move over a bit, you leave us alone forever, `tis a deal, binding for eternity, I will tell the others, farewell!”  Momma yelled over her shoulder as she ran out of the confused haunted forest.

         Over the next several weeks, the perfectly ordinary family’s farm was relocated from the haunted forest’s edge and reassembled in the middle of a meadow: not ideal, but they no longer suffered the ongoing torments of talking chickens and Poppa racing his horse and plow at all hours of the night.  The haunted forest slowly regrew the woods that had been lost, and all was well – that is, until Lord ---- decided on a whim to build a new castle in the middle of the haunted forest.  But that’s another story....

          Oblivia looked at her watch: “Would you look at the time, it’s 7:30 in the morning, I completely talked the night away, I’m sorry guys!”  She felt a big guilty for monopolizing the party.

            “7:30 a.m.?”  One of the vampires said, then opened the window shades and screamed at the early morning sunlight peeking through.  He and his compatriots transformed into bats and flapped away.

            “Wait, what happened to Lord ----?”  Dr. Frankenstein asked; he was sitting cross-legged on the floor and was clutching one of his skeletons as he leaned forward.

            “That’d have to be told at another time, I’m afraid,” Oblivia said as she stood to stretch out the kinks; the remaining listeners groaned in disappointment.  “Maybe next year?”  She suggested.

            A mummy stood.  “Seeing as we were going to destroy you for crashing our party last night, it’d be great if you came here next year, we’d love to have you again!”

            “Aw, thanks!”  Oblivia was touched by their acceptance of her, and gladly took the goodie bag they gave her on the way out.

           She emerged into the dawn of the First of November and skipped all the way home, still wearing her Creepy Clown With Creepy Child costume and freaking out only some of her neighbors.  She thought back on all the new friends she had made last night and the meaningful connection that they had shared.

            Halloween’s the best, she thought.  It’s the one day in the year you can be anybody you want to be, and have a great time with some awesome ghouls.