A Little Knowledge May Be Lethal

The Boss : "I think someone's been into my computer."

I seriously doubt it. There are only two of us working here and the chances of anyone wanting to 'hack' into your computer when you only use the thing as a typewriter and a handy block to stick post-it notes too - it seems unlikely.

Here's me : "Ahh.... hmmm... what makes you think that?"

The Boss : "It's running very slowly."

Here's me : "Give me a second, I'll come and take a look."

The Boss : "No just tell me how to fix it."

Here's me : "Well I don't know until I look at it, do I?"

The Boss : "But I don't want you to fix it for me. I want you to tell me how to do it."

Anyone who works in I.T. will probably share this immense feeling of pain that such statements engender. I sometimes wonder if the people who do this kind of thing ever take the same attitude, say, when they take their car to the mechanics. No I will not 'just tell you how' to do it, not unless you are prepared to first go on at least the most basic of PC-use courses. It is not an electronic typewriter. Kindly back the fuck off.

So anyway I danders over and has a look. I would imagine that the machine is indeed running quite slowly, as there are FIFTY-SIX incidences of Outlook running.

Here's me : "Aye, listen, you're running Outlook fifty-six times. When you want to go into it, just click on it along the bottom, as opposed to opening it from the menu again."

So I close them all with two quick clicks of the mouse, naturally.

The Boss : "You did it again! Don't just do it, tell me how you did it!"

Unbelievably, she is actually angry with me now.

Here's me : "Look, you were running Outlook fifty-six times. I just closed them."

The Boss: "But how did you do it?"

Here's me : "I right-clicked on it and hit 'close'?"

The Boss : "You're just trying to blind me with science."

Here's me, incredulously : "Wha?"

The Boss : "Don't be smart with me!"

Here's me, getting annoyed now too : "Look! You opened Outlook fifty-six times, so the machine was running slow! Just don't do it! I can't explain to you how to 'fix' it if you're not even prepared to learn how to work the bloody thing at all!"

The Boss : "Koala!"

The boss labours under the illusion that saying my name in a sharp tone somehow draws my plainly out-of-order behaviour to my attention and makes me fall into place like a good little soldier.

Deep breath.

Here's me : "Look, there's nothing wrong with it, you were just clicking in the wrong place, click here instead, that's all."

The Boss : "So does this mean someone's been in my computer?"