Old Acquaintances
Last night, I received a phone call from an old acquaintance. I say acquaintance due to the fact that we have a common friend; my ex-flatmates. I must have known him for almost four years now, maybe even more. We rarely keep in touch, let alone meet up for lunch or coffee. He knows what I do for a living, so most of his calls were predominantly about the obvious fact; he needed help with his computer.
J, like many of us, is struggling for a better life in the UK. He is currently a Trainee Accountant in a small firm in the outskirts of Central London (can’t remember exactly where he works; I’m so bad).
That night, his call was no different. He made an effort to start the conversation with the usual pleasantries and asked me how things were going. Much to my surprise, I responded pretty much how one would be expected to respond when faced with such a question,
“Yeah I’m doing fine, thanks. What about you?”
I could sense from the tone of his voice that his patience was wearing thin. He knew that it would be rude to get straight down to the point, and I was fully aware of this. To be honest, I didn’t really care. I know when my skills are needed and give them to my friends wholeheartedly. He proceeded with a few more pleasantries. I was getting a bit impatient myself.
“You have a computer problem, is it?”, I asked in haste.
His response was almost instantaneous. He proceeded to describe in great lengths the problems he was having with his PC, much like a patient to a doctor.
In my years of experience, diagnosing a PC problem is so unlike diagnosing a patient. I can imagine having such a conversation with J:
“Good day. How can I help?”
“My PC keeps coming up with Fatal Exception errors and it’s driving me nuts!”
“Have you had any headaches or nausea?”
“Only when the errors kept happening in the middle important of work.”
“Open your floppy drive and let me stick a disk in… say Ah.”
“Ahhhhh…”
“Hmmm… looks very dusty. Pop open the case so that I can take a reading.”
[Opens the case] “Is it serious?”
[Applies pressure to specific parts of the PC] “Hmmm…Does it hurt when I push here?”
That would have been one weird check-up.
As much as I tried help, after 76 minutes (it said so on my phone) of remote trouble-shooting and guidance, it was to no avail. Both of us had reached the same conclusion; that Mcro$oft sucked.
It’s bad enough that he is overworked, underpaid, unbalanced diet, lack of sleep, etc., he had to endure a piece of technology marvel that had failed to perform its duty. I could understand his frustration. I told him that I will try to free up an afternoon to make a quick housecall.
As we set our anguish aside, I brought up the news on the Tsunami disaster. He shared his grief as well and was glad that none of his family members or friends was hurt. I told him about the death count to date, but he cared more about Malaysia and proceeded to tell me that only around 60 people were killed.
I didn’t share his optimism. I also didn’t see any reason to continue with the topic any further. I was already depressed as it is and bringing him down with me would probably make things worse.
Somehow or rather, we got talking about our careers. I told him that I was not really happy with where I was and that I had wished I had done things a little bit differently. He told me that I was talking rubbish and that anyone would be praying their lucky stars to be in my shoes. I failed to see his point. He continued to give me a very clear example; you studied for a test, after seating for the test and getting the results, you wished you had done things a little differently, perhaps studied a bit more, perhaps spend more time on a particular topic. The point being, there is no purpose in pondering upon the past. What was done is done and that I should concentrate on the future. For somebody who is four years my junior; he had made an excellent point.
As we ended our conversation, we made a promise to meet up for lunch someday, and have more conversations like this.
I for one, will certainly look forward to that.
Although things do not always happen as we plan them to be, we nevertheless have to keep working at the drawing board. Success is nothing more than the progressive realisation of pre-determined worth-while personal goals.
J, like many of us, is struggling for a better life in the UK. He is currently a Trainee Accountant in a small firm in the outskirts of Central London (can’t remember exactly where he works; I’m so bad).
That night, his call was no different. He made an effort to start the conversation with the usual pleasantries and asked me how things were going. Much to my surprise, I responded pretty much how one would be expected to respond when faced with such a question,
“Yeah I’m doing fine, thanks. What about you?”
I could sense from the tone of his voice that his patience was wearing thin. He knew that it would be rude to get straight down to the point, and I was fully aware of this. To be honest, I didn’t really care. I know when my skills are needed and give them to my friends wholeheartedly. He proceeded with a few more pleasantries. I was getting a bit impatient myself.
“You have a computer problem, is it?”, I asked in haste.
His response was almost instantaneous. He proceeded to describe in great lengths the problems he was having with his PC, much like a patient to a doctor.
In my years of experience, diagnosing a PC problem is so unlike diagnosing a patient. I can imagine having such a conversation with J:
“Good day. How can I help?”
“My PC keeps coming up with Fatal Exception errors and it’s driving me nuts!”
“Have you had any headaches or nausea?”
“Only when the errors kept happening in the middle important of work.”
“Open your floppy drive and let me stick a disk in… say Ah.”
“Ahhhhh…”
“Hmmm… looks very dusty. Pop open the case so that I can take a reading.”
[Opens the case] “Is it serious?”
[Applies pressure to specific parts of the PC] “Hmmm…Does it hurt when I push here?”
That would have been one weird check-up.
As much as I tried help, after 76 minutes (it said so on my phone) of remote trouble-shooting and guidance, it was to no avail. Both of us had reached the same conclusion; that Mcro$oft sucked.
It’s bad enough that he is overworked, underpaid, unbalanced diet, lack of sleep, etc., he had to endure a piece of technology marvel that had failed to perform its duty. I could understand his frustration. I told him that I will try to free up an afternoon to make a quick housecall.
As we set our anguish aside, I brought up the news on the Tsunami disaster. He shared his grief as well and was glad that none of his family members or friends was hurt. I told him about the death count to date, but he cared more about Malaysia and proceeded to tell me that only around 60 people were killed.
I didn’t share his optimism. I also didn’t see any reason to continue with the topic any further. I was already depressed as it is and bringing him down with me would probably make things worse.
Somehow or rather, we got talking about our careers. I told him that I was not really happy with where I was and that I had wished I had done things a little bit differently. He told me that I was talking rubbish and that anyone would be praying their lucky stars to be in my shoes. I failed to see his point. He continued to give me a very clear example; you studied for a test, after seating for the test and getting the results, you wished you had done things a little differently, perhaps studied a bit more, perhaps spend more time on a particular topic. The point being, there is no purpose in pondering upon the past. What was done is done and that I should concentrate on the future. For somebody who is four years my junior; he had made an excellent point.
As we ended our conversation, we made a promise to meet up for lunch someday, and have more conversations like this.
I for one, will certainly look forward to that.
Although things do not always happen as we plan them to be, we nevertheless have to keep working at the drawing board. Success is nothing more than the progressive realisation of pre-determined worth-while personal goals.
posted by iJun at 7:53 am
