A slow day at work, as my boss, and indeed all management, was forced to attend what was no doubt a Dilbertesque stress management seminar, the irony being that no one’s stress levels would be improved by missing a full day’s work during the busiest time of our production cycle.
After work, I took the PATH train to Jersey City for the first time in many months and met up with Katie there to diagnose her sick PC. I thought it’d be a simple matter of either solving a problem, or, failing that, reinstalling her system software. Of course, the problems were confusing and multiple, seemingly unrelated head-scratchers ranging from applications suddenly crashing to not being able to dial-into her internet service provider. Plus, she spoke of some sort of rogue software that somehow installed itself and caused an animated monkey to pop up occasionally and make chattering monkey noises. (It wasn’t clear whether this was a problem or a benefit; Katie’s cats really liked it.) Reinstalling the system software seemed the right choice at this point, especially since Katie had nothing she wanted to save on her computer except for a Word document of her resumé (which she now needs to update anyway). Easy, I thought; no problem.
Well, not really. She has a Dell computer and the fine folks there have made it nearly impossible to fully re-install Windows, on purpose or otherwise, likely because they don’t want you overwriting any of the fine Dell software they preinstalled—the reinstall CD that came with the computer was for a “basic,” non-Dell version of the wondrous Windows ME. In fact, the solution provided in the Dell instruction manuals for reinstalling the system software is simply to call their tech support people, obviously because they don’t want yahoos such as yourself fiddling with such business and compounding their problems. Squinting at some fine print buried in the back of a manual, I eventually figured out how to do it myself. It involved holding down the DEL key, which I wouldn’t have guessed, and after several false starts, including a hairy experience with DOS and a command line, I was able to get it reinstalled. But without a “erase the hard drive while you’re at it” function, it was meaningless. So instead of refreshing Katie’s PC, I only managed to slow it down further and add a few more random system crashes for good measure. If this computer were a dog, you’d be leading it out behind the barn with a shotgun in hand.
But Katie’s a great sport and, convinced I had exercised all my options in an honorable fashion, took me out for a beer. But not before I vowed vengeance on her curséd computer and a return trip with a copy of Norton Utilities firmly in hand.