Trapped by a Vision

One of the consequences of working in the IT field is that you become the "Go To Guy" for any computer issues that affect your friends and family. That's not unusual, I guess. It happens in a lot of professions. Lisa has a good friend who is a nurse, and we pretty much use her as a free Urgent Care center ("Bryan's hurt his back and he's complaining that it's a pulsing pain. What could be wrong?"). The woman who replaced Lisa as curator of Vent Haven Museum is married to a home improvement contractor, and we use him as a free DIY contact ("We're replacing electrical outlets in our house, and what do the gray, white, and black wires do and where do they need to be connected?") It's a part of life, I guess, that people will expect you to help in whatever your area of expertise is. At some times, though, being asked to help friends and family with their computers can be darned inconvenient. Here's a story...
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As I just mentioned above, until about a year ago Lisa was the curator of Vent Haven Museum, the world's only ventriloquist museum. Each year the museum holds a convention, and about 400 ventriloquists from all over the world come to this thing for performances, lectures, a chance to meet with the stars of ventriloquism, a chance to purchase figures from vendors. Your typical convention-type stuff. The week prior to this convention is fairly stressful as Lisa and I get the museum ready for visitors on the final day of the convention, but the rest of the convention itself is nice.

And three summers ago, on the Friday of the convention, one of the presenting ventriloquists was all set to give a lecture on...I don't know what, to be honest. In all the years we attended I never actually attended ANY lecture. In any event, on this particular summer, I WAS in the lecture hall watching whatever was coming before. The vent was getting ready for his lecture, and he was setting up his computer, which was a Mac (This particular vent is a HUGE Apple guy). He went to plug his brand new Mac notebook into this six or seven year old LCD projector, and immediately he was stumped because the projector only had a VGA input and his laptop only had a DVI output. He came over to me.

"Hey, do you have an adapter for this thing?"

I looked at him like he was crazy. "On me?"

"Yeah," he said. I guess he figured that--since I was a computer guy--I just carried that kind of stuff in my wallet.

I told him that I didn't have one, that I had several installed in classrooms at my work, but that I didn't think on a Friday night in the summer I could find anyone to let me into the buildings to get one (I have keys to the buildings but not the classrooms). I said that a better option might be to get a USB flash drive, copy his PowerPoint onto it, and use MY laptop, which was in the trunk of my car. But we couldn't find anyone who had a flash drive.

So I said this: "You keep looking for a flash drive here. I'll jump in my car and race out to Best Buy. They'll have an adapter. If you find something, let me know."

And so I got in the car and raced off. I started doing the math in my head. It was now 20 minutes until the lecture was scheduled to start. It would take me 10 minutes to get to Best Buy, 3 or 4 minutes to locate the adapter if I was lucky, 5 minutes to check out, and another 10 minutes to get back. I couldn't get back in time, but the ventriloquist was a professional performer: he could kill time for a few minutes.

I don't usually speed, but I did that day. I pulled into the Best Buy parking lot and practically jumped out of the car while it was still running. I raced into the store and headed for the computer section. An old student of mine, Gary, worked in the computer section, and I was hoping he was on duty that day. As soon as I walked into the computer section I saw him helping some customers. "Gary," I shouted to him, "where are the VGA to DVI adapters?"

"Hey, Mr. Sweasy," he shouted back. "Aisle 10, on a j-hook on the bottom."

I raced to the aisle, spent about 60 seconds looking for the thing, and finally found it. I grabbed it and headed for the register. I was about halfway there when I heard a voice behind me call out, "Bryan? Bryan Sweasy?"

I spun around to face the person and continued walking--now backwards--towards the register. My plan was to tell whoever it was that I didn't have time to talk to them. But then I saw who it was: my dentist. First of all, I was a little surprised that he even knew who I was. I only see the guy twice a year, and he remembered me? Second of all, what could he possibly want?

He came up to me with a big smile on his face. "Hey, fella. How's it going?" My dentist is a tall guy, a gentle man with an easy, slow manner. "How's Lisa and the girls?"

Are we his only patients? I thought again. How does he REMEMBER this stuff? I can't keep straight the names of the people who work in my own office!

"I'm doing all right," I said. "But I'm really in a--"

"You got a minute?" he asked me in his even tone. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "I got my daughter with me. She's going off to college in a couple of weeks, and we're buying her a laptop. I could really, REALLY use some advice on what to get her. You're a computer guy, right?"

My first impulse was to tell him that I honestly didn't have the time, that I really had something important going on, that at ANY OTHER TIME I would be more than happy to help. And I almost DID tell him that.

But then my brain played a little movie in my head. Four months later I'd be sitting in his dentist's chair, and I'd be moaning in pain because of the toothache I had. And he'd come into the room, bend down, but instead of his usual, easygoing manner, he'd say to me tersely, "Hey, Bryan. I hear you got a toothache. Oh, by the way, you remember that time in Best Buy when you couldn't take five minutes to help me look at laptops? Well, I bought one, and it's already broken! Thanks a lot. And you know, I'd really like to help you with that toothache, but I honestly don't have time. I got something important going on. ANY OTHER TIME I'd be more than happy to help. Why don't you come back next week?"

No, I couldn't say no. I lowered my head, sighed, and said, "Yeah, I can help you." And so I went back to the computer section and spent maybe fifteen minutes answering questions about laptop models, processor speeds, extended warranties, and the like. We finally settled on a computer, and he thanked me profusely. And I headed for the registers.

I looked down at my watch. The lecture was scheduled to start more than 20 minutes before. I decided to call Lisa to see if I still needed to buy the thing. She picked up the phone on the second ring and said in a whisper, "Hello?"

I knew by the whisper that I was too late. "Has he already started? Do I need to buy this thing?"

"What?" she whispered again. And then she realized what I'd said. "He started a long time ago. We figured out something here and it's working. You don't need to buy the thing."
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I'd always known that there were certain people in my life that I don't really have an option but to help with their computer problems, people that I can't say no to. But I'd always assumed that those people were my family and certain people at my work: my superintendent, my finance officer, the head of maintenance, the school board members. I may need something from them in return one day, so I need to make sure they're taken care of. I never dreamed that the circle of special people could include anyone outside of those few work colleagues.

Until I had that vision of four months into the future.