I am SO Pissed…

The Financial Aid office is at the top of my hit list this week. I think I have taken them copies of my taxes and other financial documents at least eight times. I faxed the first set and they wouldn’t take it because I didn’t add a cover sheet. So, next time I sent it in with Pete. No, that wasn’t good enough either. I had to sign a copy in front of them. Then, they lost my file. I was so pissed by this point that I think I had steam coming out of my ears.

But…. do you know what the last straw was? Their computer crashed. I’m standing there, watching it happen and know I can fix it. I tell them that I can fix it. Oh no! They have to call a professional. So, I leave.

I get back to the office after lunch and there is a phone message…. Can You Guess Who? Yep! College Admissions Office!

So, I put my nice little office id on my shirt, grabbed one of the clipboards and head out. When I get to the office, the gal looks at me and tells me that she still can’t process my financial aid because her computer is still down. I tell her I know, and that I’m here to fix it. She didn’t believe me. So, I show her the id. She looks at it like I forged it. I got pissed and called George, and let him talk to this idiot. I could tell he was mad, because he sounded so polite while he shouted that “Yes, she IS the TECH!”

I got to work, and discovered that the computer had a virus. The ditzy secretary had been cruising the Internet on her lunch hour. Lots of social sites and she picked up a bug. Such fun. Oh, and she hadn’t updated in about six months. This being a Windows machine meant that it took me nearly three hours to download the updates, reinstall the virus software and then bring the machine back up. I took off all of her twee little task bars and set it back to the college standards. That freed up almost a gig of hard drive space. Stupid People!!!

However, my financial aid paperwork is all done and the company is $350 richer. Ha!

Back to school

Good thing I like him… Pete and George were talking and the two of them ganged up on me… About college. Granted, Pete has an unfair advantage. He is a college professor. Don’t know how I missed that at first. I guess I just figured he was a high school teacher when he said he taught. Never asked where… But George did! (sigh….) Pete picked me up at work one afternoon and George started talking to him while I got ready. George found out more in 15 minutes than I had in five dates! Pete teaches political history, and governmental studies at the college. Which is why I didn’t run into him when I was taking my accounting class.

This of course lead to a conversation as to why I hadn’t gotten my degree… Now they are trying to talk me into getting a Bachelors in Business management. I’m still trying to resist.

I also learned a lot about George listening to the two of them talking. George did stuff in the military, which I suspected he was in, but never had any conformation. He and Pete were talking about the job George had last month. The one where the government was milking techs for information and not paying them. It was this whole scheme where they’d call you up, and give you a few trial jobs as part of the interview process… You’d fix the tech issues and then have an interview. Next thing you knew, after maybe 20 hours of work, you’d be waiting to get a phone call saying you had a job…. Instead, you got a call saying “no thanks!”.  George billed them for 50 hours with most of the the work done on this virus, Ghost.rat. They did the whole “yeah, get the contract signed and paide at the end of the month…” I don’t think he even got home before they called him and said “thanks, but no thanks!” Oh he was furious. Once again, there was military crap that he couldn’t talk about and that kind of thing, but oh… He was so angry. The only good part of the whole deal is that he made a patch for the virus, but didn’t give them all of the documentation. This way, they can’t do anything but let his repair work. No source code to play with or anything else. So, if Ghost.rat  eats them for lunch, they are just screwed.

The other thing going on around here is an effort by George and Kevin to revamp the business. Repairs are going down the tubes. People rather just throw things away than fix them. Expecially if the fix is going to cost almost as much as a new computer. The guys are trying to figure out how to make the business work without the repairs section bringing in as much revenue.

argh……

rePete or is that Repeat?

I haven’t posted much, because I feel like I have nothing new to say. Gads, that sounds lame, but it is true.

Viruses… I am still doing all the low level tech work because George is gone so much of the time lately. He’s up working with this company that has a defense service contract about 100 miles from us. George actually got ahead of the big boys on this monster and now he is being tapped to help kill it. Makes me really wonder what George did before he ended up here. Oh well, I’ll never know. Not unless I get George really drunk… (ha! like that will ever happen)

Frustrating part is that George can’t talk about a lot of what he is doing because it is “classified” stuff. sigh… No juicy stories… pout. I’m not sure what is irritating him more. The work, the stupidity of the people he’s working with, the hush hush games or the virus. Either way, he is antsy as all hell when he goes up and must call me 8-10 times a day while he’s gone. Mostly to let off steam. Last week he called and asked me if I had those laptop parts yet. I said “Huh?” because I didn’t know what he was talking about. Then he said, “You know, the one for the Yarr’s computer.”  The Yarr’s have a desktop pc older than dirt, which is when I figured that he wanted to come home. I replied that I had it and he had better get back quick, because they wanted it yesterday! George then said he’d be back in 2 hours. Found out later that he’d had enough bullshit, and needed a way out. Whee!!!

George left this morning in the snow, and I’m sure I’ll hear from him once or twice before the day is over. This is one job I just wish was over and the invoices paid. Over 75 hours logged and not a dime yet, because it is a sub-contract. grrrr.

Our other two techs, Dan and Kevin have only been working part time. Not enough work. The only reason that I still work full time is because George is out of the office so much that someone has to answer the phones. Hughes, our competition we love to hate has closed his shop. Still working from home, but no more storefront. They had a picture of the guy in the newspaper rewiring a phone system. Oh my! What a mess… George figures it will be about a month before they call us in to repair his “repair”.

Then there is Pete. sigh…… Ah, the way to a g33kgURL’s heart. He likes that I’m computer savvy. That I have a brain and I’m not afraid to use it. We went to the local bookstore’s chess night last week. He played. I watched. It has been way too long since I played chess. I could have sat down and played with the beginners, but it was nice to just watch. Afterwards, we went out for chinese.

Mr. Clark likes Pete too. I guess that is a bonus as my sister and brother suspect him of some dire deed. Can’t figure that one out, but neither one really likes him. Oh well. They aren’t dating him.  Maybe it was the fact that the other day I missed a family dinner because Pete and I were too busy smooching on the couch!   Oh well. Don’t care. And for the record, this blog is staying G rated. I so am not publishing my love life online.

Viruses are us…

Oh. My. God! I am so sick of viruses that I could scream. Here I am supposedly studying for my A+ exams in a month and all I do is load Clamwin and debug machines at the moment. There are a bunch of new viruses out that just hammer machines. Open up back doors and copy keystrokes, take screenshots, turn off your virus and update programs and make a hash out of your system. Ugggghh….. And why am I doing it all? Well……

After the other day when I made an off the cuff comment and came up with a solution, I get to “sharpen” my skills. All I said was that “if you can’t get the desktop to respond, why don’t you shove a live distro disk in and see if that will let you access the data”. Apparently, that was the answer sent from heaven and I didn’t even know it. I’d just been listening to George and Kevin complain about this virus that left your icons up and didn’t let you use your mouse. I thought about the live distro and suggested it. It was an answer to the problem. Wow…..

So, I’m doing all the low level stuff so that they can concentrate on the big and bad stuff. Oh, and redoing yet another Hughes job. The guy is an idiot. However, he is our best asset. He gets us more customers than an ad in the papers.

However, the best thing going on lately and the main reason I haven’t posted as much…. is because I have been dating!!! No fainting! Oh hell, I about passed out. Pete, the guy I did the install for….. the #7 on the cute scale, came in a few days later to say that he was having some issues with Fedora. Learning curve stuff. So, George sent him over to me. I was so embarrassed. Here is this gorgeous guy asking me computer questions. So, I took a deep breath, pretended he was my brother Jim, and started answering questions. It took about an hour. Most of it was file issues and music. Fedora doesn’t do mp3’s, so you have to add stuff via root. It took a little bit, but not too long. I gave him the bill, and as he paid it he said he had one more question. I said, “ok”, and was putting his check in the drawer when he asked if I’d like to go out for lunch.

I’m pretty sure you could hear a pin drop all the way to the corner. I just blinked and then like an idiot, asked him “What?”. Where upon he was nice enough to aske me again. After turning beet red, I said yes. Ten minutes later, we were out the door and off to the Bistro. It’s a new place that serves decent food. I had only been there once as it is clear across town and I usually don’t have time. We ate and then Pete dropped me back at work.

I was ready to hit George and the other techs, because they would not stop asking questions. And, if I ever find out which one of them called my mom,…… Geeze! One Lunch, and they have me married. OOOOOOOOHHHHHhhhh!!!

Three days later, he called and asked me out. Pete had forgotten to get my home number, so he called work. Of course, George answered the phone…. and afterwards I had to deal with him teasing me.

We went to the movies, and saw Taken. Wow! That was a cool movie. Funny part is that I kept thinking that the Liam Neeson character reminded me of George. Odd….. Granted, I don’t know what George did before he came here. Maybe I’ll ask. Back to the date. It ws a nice relaxed date. He didn’t even try to kiss me. However, we chatted a lot about work and families. (single, no former wives lurking in dark corners, 1 dog, fairly new to town, no family locally, works for the city) When I asked him why he decided to ask me out, he said….”you seemed a bright and intellegent woman. someone I could hold a real conversation with who didn’t giggle everytime I said file, byte, gigs or notebook in a conversation.”

Huzzah for being a g33k! I love being appreciated for my brains. Even if they are scrambled by blue screens of virused death!

G33k GURL!

I almost expected a quiet day. George and I were the only ones at work today. I’ve come to realize that he is a really good tech and gets his work done fast. Therefore, if anyone is going to be around the office it’s George. He does a lot of the network stuff too.

We had just finished the schedule for next week when the phone rang. It was one of our business customers. She was having trouble with her computer. A virus from what it sounded like. So, I tried to explain to her over the phone how to get rid of it. I knew she had MacAfee’s from the file and tried to explain what to do. It wasn’t working. By this point, George had walked in and asked quietly what was going on. Putting Jenie on hold, I explained what was going on. George smiled and then said, go for it. I blinked. What???? I know I looked puzzled. Then he said, “Go down to her shop and do the virus scan. If you need to download AVG, do it. Go!.

I took a deep breath and told Jenie that I would be down in a minute. She said thanks and hung up. George by this time is trying very hard not to laugh. He told me again that he felt I could do the job. It was a simple virus scan. Use Trend Micro’s Housecall and AVG if needed. Ok……. scared out of my little wits !!!

I get down there and Jenie is absolutely frantic. She runs her business off of the computer and the screen is full of pop-ups saying she is virused. It took me twenty minutes to get rid of the pop-ups and find that she has done no updates in 6 months. I start the updates and walk around while they download. Jenie runs an antique shop. Cool stuff that I could never afford.

Once I got the updated done, I found that her virus software is dead. sigh… We discuss AVG and that it is free. She likes that idea. While dodging virus pop-ups, I download AVG and get it running. At the same time, I start downloading some other software including Firefox, Thunderbird and Ad Aware. All things she asked for. I ran into a few snags, but got most of them done. Hardest was migrating her email from a local host that dumped it to Gmail onto Thunderbird. I had it almost all done when George showed up. He came by to check on me and see if I was alright. I’d already called him twice for advice, but he still came by. That was when I realized it was nearly 6pm, and that I’d been working for nearly 5 hours. OMG!

We got the job finished up and left Trend Micro’s Housecall running to do a final clean-up. Jenie paid the bill and I was so proud of myself that I actually got the work done! I nearly floated to the truck. George was happy with me too. He took me out to dinner!

G33k GURL lives!!!