As we moved from one desk to another, the laptop came
with us. We were to detach it from the cables, carry it to the other desk and
the plug into another set of cables. It was tedious, but like highly trained
seals we caught on.
Docking stations began to pop up about the place. The
untidy mess of cables was tidied up. The laptop clipped on to the top of it,
lid closed down, and stand-alone monitors and keyboards would take away
the need to squint at the small laptop screen.
On Thursday I took my laptop to a desk with a docking
station – I didn’t have one yet. I clipped the laptop and hands hovered over
the big keyboard and monitor. Nothing happened. Nothing kept happening.
Eventually someone came over. Her advice was to remove my laptop and pull out
the relevant leads from the docking station and plug them into my laptop. Hey
presto…I had lift off! I did my stuff.
Back at my own desk, the one without a docking
station, I plugged cables back in. Nothing happened. Nothing kept happening. The blue ended cable
that connected to the projector to the laptop wouldn’t do its stuff. That’s not quite true – the laptop screen was
blank, but the projector screen wasn’t. I could use the screen and the remote
if I twisted my head and pointed it over my shoulder. It wasn’t ideal but I
worked with it for a while. At the end of the day, despite knowing I had coffee
appointment, I stayed to see if I couldn’t fathom it all out. Let’s just say
that the cleaner and I gave up after him standing on a table and pushing
buttons on the projector. The laptop screen was still black and the picture on
the projector screen was now upside down. I dashed off a memo to the workplace in
general, sending out an SOS.
I was frazzled to say the least. I was also late. I spent five minutes reverse parking somewhere
close. It was private carpark happy to
open the barrier after 5.00. It was 4.15 and the barrier was up. Notices in
yellow warned me that CTV camera were operating. My dance with the car, in and
out of a space had been recorded and it was just 4.15. I sensed the possibility of a fine and drove off.
I was also breaking in new shoes. This little detail
tells you I had the promise of a blister on the back of my heel.
My coffee companion was a no show. I ordered tea and a cake anyway. The tea was
good, the cake was stale. Always be suspicious of a cake with lots of
frosting. My domestic science teacher’s
words came back to me.
Thursday night is prayer meeting night. I seriously didn’t
want to go. I knew I would end up crying over my bad afternoon.
I went. I picked up my Bible (one should never go into
battle without one’s sword) – and grabbed my stiff upper lip from its dropped
and quivering state and headed off. I
repeated the mantra “I will not cry!”
I didn’t cry. In the midst of worship and prayer, I didn’t
want to cry. Being surrounded by church family, the angels in heaven and God in
the midst of us – I didn’t want to cry. Tomorrow I would have to deal with the
laptop and the projector and the upside down picture on the projector screen –
but that was tomorrow.
There was a lot of love in the room – yeah, that old cliché!
There was. I felt loved though no one told me I was loved. All the angst of the
afternoon – the laptop horror, the parking CTV images, the no-show coffee
friend, the stale cake and the sore heels – I knew myself to be deepy loved.
Isolation is the worst kind of strategy when things are
not going well! Take it to the family. They may not have the solutions you want
but they have what you really need!
I went home. I
hummed a tune as I drove. Has I a
tail, it would have been wagging.
The idea of a poem was in my head. The next morning I
wrote this.
Mu baby got dem
laptop blues…oh yeah
Mu baby got dem
laptop blues
Dey took away her
desktop
Now she’s hitting
the booze
At work there was a docking station on my
desk. The SOS memo had been effective. The boss had sent the IT man to solve
it. The projector screen was the right way up. The laptop still wasn’t talking
to the other technology. A maths teacher came by and pressed lots of buttons
and the laptop fired into action. The IT man also came by to check I was up and
running. A senior management lady visited to check I was fine.
I emailed my poem to everyone and all the laptop and
docking station troubles surfaced from all the corners of the building. Perhaps
the poem had given them permission to admit that they had their own laptop
blues. Everyone had their own story to share over coffee in the staffroom. The
IT man had been told to write a troubleshooting article. It felt like family –
and we haven’t felt like that in a long time.
There was a lot of love in my workplace!
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