One of my first “real jobs” after I got married (and before getting divorced) was working at a computer store in Corvallis, Oregon. It was just a standard, run of the mill, anywhere USA small shop. We built customized computers and repaired ones that came in with hardware and software troubles. It was the same place that I became certified to work on and service IBM laptops. And no, I won’t work on yours.
There was a salesperson that worked in the front office. We’ll call him Rich. I didn’t like Rich. In fact, for lack of a better word, I rather hated Rich. He was insensitive, rude, and generally treated people like idiots. As one of the geeks stuffed in the back room of the store, away from light and the general public, my only interactions with Rich were when he needed something worked on or built.
In the time that I worked at this particular shop, I received many requests to fix older computers. Really old computers. We’re talking about computers that didn’t quite have punch cards and hard drives the size of coffee tables, but they were pretty close.
One gentleman came in with a computer problem on a 286 computer. If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry. Let’s just say that it was a paperweight, and a substantially large and heavy one at that. The thing had to weigh almost 50lbs, had two floppy drives, an incredibly small hard drive with twenty years of accounting data stored (and not backed up), and an ancient monochrome monitor.
The computer wasn’t holding the correct time and, as it turned out, the battery inside had died at some point in it’s incredibly long lifespan. To fix it was going to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $200, parts and labor. It wasn’t even worth the $5 in scrap metal he would get for it. I told him this, but he was insistant upon bringing this computer back from the dead.
After I opened the case, I discovered that the battery was soldered in. I couldn’t replace it, which meant that this computer was done for. Rich, in his infinite wisdom, said that he would take care of the customer. Putting together a work order for a new PC, Rich was able to convince the customer that he needed a brand new $2,000 computer. To do accounting. The same thing he used his old 286 computer for.
But whatever, I wasn’t about to argue with a sale.
I built the new PC for the customer and, when it came time to restore the accounting data from his old computer, I went to the front of the store and asked Rich where the old PC was. The interaction went something like this:
Me: Hey Rich, where’s <customer’s name>’s computer?
Rich: Who is that?
I explain, patiently, the entire scenario of how we ended up building a new computer for the customer.
Rich: Oh that guy? Why do you need his old computer?
Me: So we can restore his data…
Rich: No. He said he didn’t need it. I checked.
Me: Really? Because I just talked to him on the phone five minutes ago, and he was pretty concerned about getting his twenty years of accounting data back.
*pause*
Rich: Oh, that data. Yeah, I completely forgot about that.
Me: I’m sure that you did.
Rich: I threw his computer in the dumpster out back.
Me: You… you what?
Rich: Yeah, you’ll have to go fish for it.
Me: Why can’t you get it? You threw it away.
Rich: Because I have to stay up here and help the customers!
Me: Kim (my boss), can you cover for Rich so he can go get the computer?
Kim: No, just go get it yourself. It’s not a big deal.
Me: It is a big deal.
Kim: Just go take care of it.
What’s the big deal, right? It’s just a dumpster, right? Wrong. You’re wrong. So very very wrong.
You see, there was only one dumpster in the back. We shared it with two other businesses on either side of our store. One was an asian market, and the other was a chinese restaurant. You read that correctly. A chinese restaurant. They routinely threw their old food out. The stench and smell from the fermenting whatever could be smelled from fifty yards away on many days.
I walked out the back of the store, and already I could smell the food permeating from the dumpster.
I began walking toward it, somewhat like a prisoner on his way to the electric chair. The smell intensified with each and every step, and by the time I reached the side, I was gagging. My eyes were watering. I could feel every cell in my body screaming, “This is not a natural smell! RUN AWAY!” Every fiber in my being was begging me to move away. I could feel my will to live withering up inside of me, and shrinking beneath the burning sensation in my nose.
With one hand over mouth (and no doubt trying to manually hold down my lunch), I used the other hand to pull open the top of the dumpster. To my horror, it was three quarters of the way filled with week old chinese food. The computer, just barely visible toward the middle of the mess and mire, was completely covered in a fresh batch of thrown away chinese food. Noodles and rice and beef and chicken, oh my!
There were thousands of flies swirling and circling around me, my stomach was whirling somersaults like olympic gymnists, and I could barely see anything through the tears in my eyes. The dumpster was more effective than a canister of tear gas.
I reached down to try and fetch out the computer from beneath the filth. Unfortunately, the computer weighed a lot, as I said before. I couldn’t get enough leverage to pull it out of the dumpster, and my arms couldn’t deadlift it over the metal side. I was going to have to climb in to the dumpster to pull it out. I could feel my legs tremble beneath me as I contemplated that horrific fact: I was going to have to climb in.
While still trying to hold down my lunch, I climbed up and over the side and in to the dumpster. Standing among the old discarded food, I realized another much more horrible and disturbing fact: the food was moving. A good portion of that “rice” wasn’t rice. As quickly as I could manage, I grabbed the computer and threw it over the side of the dumpster, and leapt back out.
I was completely covered, from about stomach level to toes, in chinese food and other various things that I won’t mention here. To say that I was angry at Rich is an understatement.
I plugged the old computer in when I brought it back in to the shop. The whole place smelled like chinese food, and I couldn’t be sure if it was my clothes or if it was the computer that was causing it. When I flicked the switch on the computer, it wouldn’t turn on. I was dumbfounded. After all that, I wasn’t even going to be able to restore the data.
I figured I’d open the case to see if there was anything I could fix. With the computer still on, I opened the case and found not one, not two, not three, but about a dozen maggots frying on the circuit board and, in a last effort to thwart my plans, they all caught on fire.
Eventually, I was able to take the hard drive out of the computer and get the data off using another computer. But it was a day that the universe seemed to align against me. That is, until Kim told me to take the rest of the day off, since I most decidedly needed to at least change my clothes.
On my way out the front of the store, I stopped at Rich’s desk and said, “Hey Rich, how about a hug?” I was grinning like a madman. I was dead serious, and for a moment, he thought I was joking.
His smile turned crooked, he stood, and shouted, “No! No thanks!” But by now, I was already walking toward him.
He began walking around his desk in an effort to keep it between me and him. I think it was at this point that he decided it was in his best interest to bolt, and just as he got about to the middle of the store… I tackled him to the ground in front of five or six customers. As I stood up, much to my satisfaction, he was covered in noodles and rice and chicken and beef. Oh my!
Can I still eat chinese food? You betcha. But I can’t look at a 286 without my stomach at least turning a little bit.