Adventures With an Exhausting Executive

Working in IT I've had my share of dealing with execs. They've ranged from being pretty cool to being impatient. This last week I found one to top my avoidance list.

My supervisor had given me a Surface Book to set up for them (the $2700 variety). I had it set up in an hour or so and handed it off to our security master to make sure it was encrypted and slap an asset tag on it. In the meantime I had someone IM me asking if it was done yet, and my supervisor had several emails asking for a status on it. The usual turn around time on a new machine is at least 24 hours. We have to get them encrypted, software installed, and it has to sit on the network long enough for our systems to figure out it exists and get entered into our asset tracking system. Since this guy was one of the big wigs he had an army of folks asking if it was done every 15 minutes or so. I sent the guy that messaged me to the security master who's desk it was on. He's a busy guy and doesn't just sit at his desk waiting for us lowly hardware guys to give him something to tag. I'm sure he got a pile of requests to push it through "ASAP" as everyone likes things done. Being the big wig's machine I'm sure that leverage sped things up a bit and next thing I knew the machine was back on my desk about an hour before I was done for the day. Since my supervisor was the one that handed it to me I figured he could take it to the exec in the morning. About 15 minutes before I was going to leave I got a phone call from the security master asking if I'd taken the laptop over to the exec yet. I told him I hadn't but I could. He said I'd better because he was asking for it. I assume he was probably getting bombarded with the execs private army asking when it would be done.

So I hauled it over to the building across the street and stayed an hour after I was supposed to go home helping get everything transferred from the old Surface Pro 4 with the cracked screen to the new and groovy Surface Book. The exec was very impatient and demanded to know why it was "so slow" I've never considered 15 seconds from boot to login "slow" but this exec was already proving to be in a league of their own with impatience. I fiddled around and got email set up and One Note notebooks moved over. I moved everything over that was asked for. I asked several times if they had everything they needed. When the display port adapter designed to fit the Surface Pro 4 didn't fit the Surface Book adapter the exec didn't hesitate to whip out some scissors and start carving off plastic bits until it was able to be forced to fit. I asked several more times if there was anything else that was needed. After confirming several times that they were good I left for the day

The next day the security master slapped the laptop back on my desk and told me they needed the VPN software installed. I told them that it was already installed, but I could put a shortcut on the desktop to satisfy the exec.

A week later my supervisor was over at the building across the street and ran into a pleased exec... is what I'd like to say, but he started ragging on him about how our group sucks and should sit down and help get everything moved over to the new machine. The mac guy across the street had to move his favorites from Google Chrome over to his new machine. Did I mention how many times I asked him if he needed anything else? What a schmuck. 

I deal with people that are upset all the time about something. What really rips my shorts though is when I've gone out of my way to help someone get something set up or fixed but because I didn't read their mind that makes everything else I did worthless. It makes me glad that I don't have to deal with dopes like that all the time. Most people tend to be fairly understanding and patient. I have a low tolerance for people that are ignorant because they choose to be. Obviously this person is good at something because they have a much higher pay range than I do, but that doesn't give them the right to be a schmuck.

Being a jerk to the person that is trying to help you isn't going to help your situation any. Whether it's someone over the phone in a call center or a waiter serving you at a restaurant it makes no sense to be a jerk to them. They are there to help you and if you make their life difficult more than likely they have the power to make yours more difficult as well. It's about as effective as burning down your house to get rid of a rat.

The Tale of Rocketman

This is another tracting story from my first area. I'd been out a couple of months. We had been tracting a street when there looked like there was a path leading up the hill from the street. We almost missed it but decided we might as well follow it and see where we ended up. Lo and behold it lead to a house. The doors and windows were all wide open. It did look like someone lived there so we knocked to see what type of hermit lived atop this hill hidden from plain view. We stood around for a bit and knocked again just for good measure. We were about to leave when suddenly a guy comes racing to the door, flings it open, looks at us, and says "Oh good!" He didn't do this but I could see him rubbing his hands together. He just had a look in his eye.

He never invited us in, but he did talk to us for quite a while on his porch. He immediately started telling us all about how everyone in town knows him as Rocketman. He even had a little button that he wore that said "Rocketman, 50,000 sold!" He told us all about how he had taken breakfast cereal and had made them into little bars and sold them around town for $1 a piece. He rode his bike all over the place. I recognized him because we had indeed seen him on his bike in town quite often. He had an old white bike with the handlebars that curved down. He was bald and always had a beret on.

He then pointed inside his house to a sign on the wall (of which there were several) and asked me what does that say? I read: Pray Always. He said "No no the one next to it!" "Comfort Kills?" "Yes! That one! What do you think that means?" I had no idea so all I could think of was "You get comfortable and you die?" "YES!" He went on to say "If I push you off this porch and down the hill you'd probably die. You are comfortable see? But if I TELL you I'm going to push you down you'll brace yourself and resist me. You aren't comfortable so you won't die. Isn't that genius? I made it up myself!" My companion and I just looked at each other. Eventually we told him we needed to get going. Walking down the hill he hollered after us "Remember comfort kills!" He was always friendly. after we saw him and he'd always remind us "Comfort Kills!"

The Legend of Brian (The Second)

Yet another tracting story. We met another Brian in my fourth area. This one was a kid maybe 16 or 17ish. We knocked on his door and started talking to him. He let us in and halfway through the first lesson he said he'd be right back. So we waited...and waited...and waited. It sounded to us like he had gone to his room and was playing video games or something. We didn't know what else to do so we just chilled on his couch. after 20 minutes or so we started a companion study session right there on the couch. We were going through scriptures and cross referencing things. We were getting into it pretty good when his mom walked through the front door. She asked who we were. We told her who we were and that Brian had let us in, and part way through talking to him he said he'd be right back and still wasn't back yet. She just said "Oh..." and walked past us into the kitchen.

We looked at each other shrugged and went on with our studies. It was starting to get dark so we sat in the semi darkness reading. Eventually the kitchen light went on behind us. There was a partial wall between us and the kitchen. We heard Brain sneak into the kitchen and heard whispering back and forth between him and his mom. Occasionally you'd see the shadow of a head pop around the corner and disappear again. We didn't know what else to do other than milk it so we kept reading and talking to each other.

Finally after about 45 minutes of sitting on their couch the mom came out and said "....well I need to go back to work so I'm going to have to ask you to leave." We asked if there was a time we could come back and she said probably not. It looked like poor Brian who had achieved his life long dream of working at the Jiffy Lube didn't have the cajones to tell us to get lost himself. We thanked her and vacated the couch.

Ten years later as I write this it wouldn't surprise me to find out that a now 26 or 27ish year old Brain still lives at home playing video games and working at Jiffy Lube.

The Legend of Brian (The First)

This is another fun tracting story. In my third area my companion and I ran into a guy that was also knocking on doors looking for work. He was asking for any odd job and getting rejected just as heavily as we were. It didn't take long to figure the street was pretty much a bust that day since we were following a guy that people were already wanting off their doorstep. We decided to bag it and head back to our apartment. In the process this guy decided to follow us all over the place and tell us all about his crazy life. We found his name was Brian. He talked to us for a good hour to an hour and a half or so walking all the way. He asked if we had any work for him. We said no because we were missionaries and didn't have much that needed taking care of. He then talked about how he had talked to his minister in the spirit about how his wife was a sick spirit. Somewhere in the middle of it all apparently his minister asked him what he wanted his wife to look like. He said he wished she looked like Trinity from The Matrix. He then said he looked at her and she did look like Trinity from The Matrix. There was a lot more crazy talk of that caliber until he ask if our parents had any work for him. I told him I doubt it and that my parents were in Utah anyway. He said that wouldn't be any problem he could hitchhike there. His little catch phrase that he used about every sentence was "Word up." He was an interesting guy. We finally went our separate ways.

Later that night we talked to our district leader and told him all about Brian. About a week later our district leader called us and asked "Guess who we ran into?" I guessed "Brian!". They had indeed run into Brian 50 or so miles away from the town we were in. They told us he was pretty nutty for them too. We all got a kick out of our adventures with Brian.

Tracting: My First Door

So as a missionary you go tracting a lot. Tracting was not fun for me, but it does spawn a lot of fun stories (for those unfamiliar with the term that's where you go door to door to see if anyone is interested in talking to you). My first door that my companion told me was mine (meaning I got to do the talking) was pretty memorable. We knocked on the door and an older guy opens the door and while looking at what looked like the floor or our feet just said "Yeah?". I start into our intro explaining who we were and part way through he looks up and gets a look of crazed terror on his face. As loud as he could he screamed "GET OUT!" and slammed the door so hard the windows on the front of his house rattled. It was pretty amazing. You could hear and see them physically move with the force this guy put into getting that door closed as quickly as possible.

A month or two later we were walking by and the same guy was on his front porch reading the paper. My companion asked rather loudly "Isn't that they guy that slammed the door in your face?". I said "Yeah...he's gonna hear you." to which my companion said "Well let him hear. He deserves it.". The guy never looked up or acted like he heard anything so I can only assume he didn't overhear that.

Overview of Fifth Area: Lebanon

My fifth and final area was Lebanon. I know how it's spelled but if you pronounce it like it's spelled you will be mocked. It is pronounced Leb-e-nen. I was here for 4 1/2 months (February 2007 - June 2007). We covered two wards here. The Pioneer ward which was in town, and the Snow Peak ward which was in the outer reaches of the area. We shared a car in this area; a 2006 Toyota Corolla we called Roxy. Our apartment had a wicked speed bump going into the lot. You had to be careful if you were sitting in the back seat. We played a little game at times where if you were in the back seat and you weren't paying attention the driver would go over the bump slowly with the front two wheels and then mash on it and slam the back wheels over the bump as quickly as possible. If you were in the back and not paying attention there was a 99% chance your head would slam into the roof and you'd deal with a headache and possibly a bump if it was solid enough (I never said it was a good game). If you knew what was going on you'd be smart and duck. The weeks we didn't have the car we'd work mostly in town. The weeks we had the car we'd plan on things in the ward out in the boonies.

This is the area I was introduced to Racquetball. I've never been much of a sports fan, but for some reason I find this game fun. We spent a lot of P-days playing Racquetball. I took a couple of classes in college after I got home. I think I've improved quite a bit since then.

My last transfer out I was made District Leader. I still can't figure out why I was made a DL right before I was going to go home. Maybe it gave me something else to focus on. I did have a little fun with it though. My last district meeting I made sure we sang "Ye Elder of Israel" purely for the joy of singing "Oh Lebanon, Oh Lebanon I bid thee farewell. I'm going to the mountains of Ephraim to dwell!" (of course I changed a few words to suit my needs) Since Ephraim was where I was going to college, I made sure to rub it in just a bit.

This is the only area I had more than two different companions. I had three, they were rotated every transfer. The first one was my "step son". I follow up trained him. He drove me crazy. The other two I got along with. This was the first area I was in where the zone had more than one district. It was also the first area I was in that actually rained a bit. It was west of the mountain range and I was there before summer officially hit so I did get to see a little bit of the rain that makes everything so green around there.

This area had a particularly steep road. It was several miles long and had the better part of around a 20% grade in places. I was determined to ride my bike down that sucker at least once. I did with my last companion and achieved a speed usually reserved for cars. My speedometer read pretty close to 65 at one point. 65 in a car and 65 on a bike are two completely separate things. You can wiggle the steering wheel on a car at 65 and not worry much about it. If you wiggle your handlebars on a bike at that speed you'll probably be eating rocks. One of the elders in our district did the same thing at about 35 on a dirt road and he had to go to the hospital and get staples in his head and a sling for his arm. He was wearing his helmet but the clip broke the first time he biffed it and and the helmet flew off. The rest was pretty painful.

I don't have many pictures from this area. I had a digital camera that I had been sending the memory cards home when they got full and my dad pulled everything off and would send them back. For the last six months of my mission I didn't send them home because I figured that I would just unload them when I got home. I pulled everything off when I got home and then forgot to back them up and formatted my computer. About 30 seconds into the process I remembered that I had just lost 6 months worth of pictures. What little I have are from a CD that one of my investigators burned for me that had stuff from my companion, and some video I had from my video camera. Lesson learned.

Overview of Fourth Area: Klamath Falls

For my fourth area I was shipped back to Klamath Falls and I was there for another 6 months (August 2006 - February 2007), which means I spent 10 1/2 months of my mission in Klamath Falls. This go around I was in the 3rd ward. It was the first area I was in that we didn't have a car so I put a good many miles on my bike here (as well as my shoes).

This side of Klamath didn't have as many hills as the other turf I was familiar with. It was pretty flat and our boarders extended to the outer reaches of the boonies of the east side of Klamath. I didn't have the lake (or the midgees that I'll mention in a forthcoming story). I did get the opportunity to check up on the first person that I taught and saw baptized though so that was cool, and I got to catch up with a few friends from the old stomping grounds as well as create new ones in the 3rd ward.

This was the first area that I was a "Dad". I helped train a new missionary who is known as your "Son". Rather than trainer and trainee that just worked out better I guess. My son wound up being my most favorite companion ever. We got along really well and enjoyed the work that we were involved in. We had some investigators that we grew really attached to. Things went really well with them until everything just fell apart. It's still a mystery what happened to them. There is a street not too far from where I live that has a name that is very close to one of their names and every time I see it it makes me wonder what happened. It's crazy to think that their little girl would be 10 now. She was only a few months when we first found them.

This area is where I had probably one of the worst days I've ever had on record. I'll go into the details on that in a later story. I've heard that we are given trials because Heavenly Father trusts us with them. There are days I wish he wouldn't trust me so dang much. I know I mentioned my little ER trip in the last overview. It's comparable to that little trip, but without the ER trip. It does end on with a rather amusing/scary fellow we ran into as the sun was going down that day.

Our apartment was probably one of the bigger apartments in the mission. We had some awesome green flowery couches that clashed wonderfully with the lovely pink shag carpet. We had a private little courtyard for a back yard. We even had a garage to stash our bikes in.

The missionaries in the area I was first in had moved out of the house because it had a mouse problem (apparently things got worse after I left the first time). My MTC companion ended up being there at one point and he mentioned they had caught somewhere in the neighborhood of 70+ rodents.

I went through a pile of bike tubes in this area. There was just something nasty that kept blowing holes in my tubes. I tried some solid "tires" that go where the tube goes underneath the tread. They were way to loose so I took them back. I wound up finding this plastic lining that you put between the tread and the tube. I haven't had a flat since. Well worth the investment. I even had to replace the tread too because I was starting to go bald and because I was thinking maybe something was in the tread itself that was blowing holes in my tubes. By the time I got home I had 1459 miles (give or take a few) on my bike. The beast still sits at my home today. I love that bike.