Earlier today, I was at a client's office to fix a few minor problems with their PCs - the usual stuff, printing to different trays not working how they want, AV not updating on one machine, etc.
In this office, there's a guy who is celebrating his 91st birthday, and all his colleagues have just finished eating cake whilst I slave away over a hot CPU to get things working just so. Everybody disappears out of the office to prepare for a BBQ for Mr 91y.o., leaving him sitting at a desk reading something. He's sitting right next to the (very clunkily noisy) laser printer that I need to test print to, and I'm on the other side of the now-silent office.
Think I to myself "it would be a pity to scare the poor bugger and give him heart failure on his 91st birthday - perhaps I'd best warn him that the printer is about to spring into very vocal action". So I wander over and say "I'm about to print something - this printer will make a bit of noise". He doesn't look up. "Excuse me..." - nothing. "EXCUSE ME!" - he looks up.
"I'm about to pr..." "Speak up young feller!"
"I AM JUST GOING TO PRINT SOMETHING <gestures at printer> SO THIS PRINTER NEXT TO YOU IS..." "Sorry, I don't know a bloomin' thing about these gadgets"
"NO, I KNOW, I JUST WANTED TO WARN YOU THAT I'M GOING TO PR" "Could you speak up a bit, me ears aren't working like they used to"
I realised at that point that if he can't tell what I'm saying when I'm pretty much shouting, then a little bit of noise from a printer probably won't even register.
"NEVERMIND", I say with an accompanying dismissive hand-wave, and he goes back to reading whatever it is that he was reading.
Back to the PC that's having problems, I see that they've helpfully set it to drop back to the XP fast-user-switching screen after the screensaver kicks in at what must be 1-2 minutes. So I try a few passwords, finally figure out what it is and some minor settings checkery later, we're ready to print. *click*
Just as I look in the appropriate direction, the printer wakes up and starts doing it's thing, and about half a second later the poor old fella's head jerks up and his eyes are wide with "what the bloody hell is that" all over his face. He sees me looking and probably showing some concern over his well-being, at which point his face changes from a worrying level of surprise to ultra-smug, and he says "I just wanted to make sure I could keep you young buggers on your toes as well as I could at 90 - I heard ya the first time"
Cheeky bastard! At least he gave me some cake after
In this office, there's a guy who is celebrating his 91st birthday, and all his colleagues have just finished eating cake whilst I slave away over a hot CPU to get things working just so. Everybody disappears out of the office to prepare for a BBQ for Mr 91y.o., leaving him sitting at a desk reading something. He's sitting right next to the (very clunkily noisy) laser printer that I need to test print to, and I'm on the other side of the now-silent office.
Think I to myself "it would be a pity to scare the poor bugger and give him heart failure on his 91st birthday - perhaps I'd best warn him that the printer is about to spring into very vocal action". So I wander over and say "I'm about to print something - this printer will make a bit of noise". He doesn't look up. "Excuse me..." - nothing. "EXCUSE ME!" - he looks up.
"I'm about to pr..." "Speak up young feller!"
"I AM JUST GOING TO PRINT SOMETHING <gestures at printer> SO THIS PRINTER NEXT TO YOU IS..." "Sorry, I don't know a bloomin' thing about these gadgets"
"NO, I KNOW, I JUST WANTED TO WARN YOU THAT I'M GOING TO PR" "Could you speak up a bit, me ears aren't working like they used to"
I realised at that point that if he can't tell what I'm saying when I'm pretty much shouting, then a little bit of noise from a printer probably won't even register.
"NEVERMIND", I say with an accompanying dismissive hand-wave, and he goes back to reading whatever it is that he was reading.
Back to the PC that's having problems, I see that they've helpfully set it to drop back to the XP fast-user-switching screen after the screensaver kicks in at what must be 1-2 minutes. So I try a few passwords, finally figure out what it is and some minor settings checkery later, we're ready to print. *click*
Just as I look in the appropriate direction, the printer wakes up and starts doing it's thing, and about half a second later the poor old fella's head jerks up and his eyes are wide with "what the bloody hell is that" all over his face. He sees me looking and probably showing some concern over his well-being, at which point his face changes from a worrying level of surprise to ultra-smug, and he says "I just wanted to make sure I could keep you young buggers on your toes as well as I could at 90 - I heard ya the first time"
Cheeky bastard! At least he gave me some cake after
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
shifter:
not only that, my current gf seems to like the green ones as well - a packet of skittles is a battlefield.
shifter:
dude, banana? wtf?