You know these people, who always appear when there is digital trouble, of cause you do. They saved your day maybe a hundred times more than you thanked them and they always seem so untroubled… pure. They did to me at least. Let me tell you about our company and the guy who really runs it - and for sure, he is totally unaware of that at all! I am one of about 50 employees, we all work hard to keep this company alive. Our office building is huge - too huge for knowing all the 50 people. But even without knowing each other, we mostly get along. The chief-of-whatever-comes-along talks a lot, no one listens at it all seems to run by itself. There is the marketing department where I work, internal affairs - the guys that want to know about all the trouble but hear about it when its long gone, management - people with fancy looks but the heart in the wrong place. And then there is this other guy in the cellar - the guy I want to talk about for a while.
The fact that he - yes nearly - lives in this cellar is one thing. The other is, that there are maybe 12 vacant offices in different parts of the building, waiting for him to choose one. But he seems to like it down there. Every time I go down there I get the creeps. There is this long tunnel-like hallway if you get out of the elevator. It takes a turn left and after another 20m in the dark, you are at his office. I think he just doesn't want to be bothered by everyones wifes pain in the left pinky - and yes, we DO a lot of office talk in here. I guess it can't be helped. The door is labeled “Emergency only” and theres a skull and crossed bones drawn below the text in red paint. It took some time to realize that, 'cause its really dim down there.
I can really well remember the first time I ran into that office. I was employed only a week before that happened and had some trouble with my word processor. I thought “You haven't talked to the Admin guy here, yet. Let him welcome you, pay a visit…” and asked for the office. Instead of the location I got laughter and giggling. “Look in the cellar” they told me - and I went down to get my problem solved and receive the warm welcome of my future support technician. I knocked at the door, heard nothing, opened it and saw a skinny guy, sleeping on his keyboard - his forehead right in the middle of it as if he was shot from behind. The light was even more dim than on the hallway - slightly red - and green flicker of some servers made it annoyingly hard to concentrate. The Handset of the telephone seemed to be dropped halfway during hang up, still laying half in the hand of the skinny creature. His screen was showing a psychedelic screen saver. “Hello?” I asked silently… and got no answer. I still was standing half in the door. “Hello?!” I asked again, this time a little louder. “Justleavemealone”, a deep voice mumbled, “and close the door while you leave…”. The murmur got a bit clearer. “I am sorry, my name is Paula and I wondered if you could help me out with a problem…”, I tried to get him into a conversation. “Hello Paula, nice to meet you… I am asleep as you might notice. Please pull a number and come back in an hour.”. A giggle left my mouth and the head lifted from the keyboard and looked right into my direction. After staring at me with a tired look on his face for about a minute, he said “Paula, you are still here? … ”. “Yes”, I said and added “and I still have a problem with my word processor.”. The face fell back onto the keyboard, making a painfully hard noise - the screen saver vanished and revealed a password entry box. “Are you OK?”, I asked. “No. I am totally tired from fixing that servers…”, his head still on the keyboard, one of his arms pointed to a stack of metal boxes in the corner of the room, “I was defeated badly. Could you please come back later? Please leave me here for a while and let me rest, moaning about my terrible failure.”. “OK then, bye”, I said and backwards went out the door slowly. “I'll get back to you in office 3.29 when I am done here.”, he said while I closed the door - and now that I think of it: How did he know my office number, when we never met before? That was the first time, a tiny bit of his magic revealed itself to me. I was totally unaware of the things to come.
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