Call your computer guy before you die
I have thought a lot lately about writing a book about computers. I won’t do it, of course, but I have thought a lot about it.
My computer book wouldn’t be about how to use a computer or how to buy a computer It would be made up of short essays and articles centered around how computers impact our lives in ways we never expected.
I would include articles I have written about how being a computer guy with regular clients is not a far stretch from being a doctor or therapist with regular patience. You may think that my patients are the computers that I work on each day, but what I do has more to do with helping people than with helping machines.
I received a call the other day from a client I have been working with for five years. His call was short, “Adam, I just want you to know that I am going into an operation tomorrow. They found a hemorrhage in my brain and they need to work on it. In case I don’t make it I need to make sure you know how to show my wife where the important stuff is in the computer.”
He came out of it just fine and I have already seen him a couple of times since the surgery, but I doubt many repair men get a call from their customers explaining that they may be leaving the earth and it is up to them to make sure that those surviving members of the family can find the Thanksgiving turkey in the bottom of the freezer.
Intimate is not a word I would have associated with the job of being a computer guy before I started this, but over the years, I have helped families stay in touch with their sons and daughters serving over seas, I have helped mothers discover what their teenage sons have been looking at on the computer, I have even helped seniors setup online personal ads for dating sites.
Strange and uncomfortable as these things may seem, they are not unusual at all for me. My job isn’t centered around repairing computers, I believe that computers are a tool and the more uses we find for them, the richer our lives can be.
The point of a computer is to use it in ways that free up more time so you don’t have to be around the computer as much. Every aspect of life has elements that are boring and mundane and elements that we love and live for. If a computer can do the former, we can devote more effort to the latter.