Christmas Story 1.0

It was a cold, snowy Christmas Eve, so cold and snowy I had to borrow my manager's Toyota SUV to get to work. Well, if you consider hot wiring a SUV borrowing. She was spending Christmas with her in laws in New York and she insisted I work on Christmas Eve. My rear wheel drive Datsun wasn't going anywhere and computer breakdowns know no holiday, especially during Christmas. I work IT for Winkler's, a chain of high-end fashion and sweater stores. My name is Cletus and I carry a CompTIA A+ badge.

The employees at the corporate office had the day off and the only folks working Christmas Eve in our group was myself and Ike, who was doing a hardware upgrade by tossing Macintosh computers off the roof. I didn't envy him because it was really cold.

This meant I had to take care of the Level III issues. It was a slow day, but two issues stood out. One was a store manager complaining about his laptop making a purring noise and he couldn't use the keyboard. Once I told him to take the cat off the laptop, his problem was resolved. Yes, the Level One order takers could have resolved the problem, but cats wasn't in their call template and asking them to actually resolve IT issues was asking a bit much.

The next issue was one of Winkler's thin, aqua-clothed Festivus Santas that looked like a San Francisco King Neptune was scaring the kids. We're asked to support everything in our group, but a freaky-looking Santa isn't one of them. I shipped it to Customer Service, which had the day off. It wasn't my fault the owner of Winkler's has an ACLU view of Christmas.

My view of Christmas was better, but this year I decided to spend Christmas by myself. My family lived in another town and to be honest, they didn't seem to mind.

About 3pm I got a call. It was from our main store in Edgewood, in the same town as the corporate office. The number didn't look familiar and normally I would let a call like that go to voice mail, but I pressed the speaker button and said, "IT, this is Cletus."

"Hi, this is Jane." I was relieved it was a female voice. I didn't want to talk to a guy named Jane on Christmas Eve. With a mix of cheer she said, "Is Cletus really your name?"

"No, my name is IT, this is Cletus. It's my given Christian name. What can I do for you?"

"Interesting. Several months ago I was supposed to meet a guy named Cletus at Rib Crib, but he never showed up. I did remember a guy screaming like a woman and running away."

That was me. I was grateful the IP phones we used didn't have video because that girl at Rib Crib looked like Gollum in a pink tutu. And I didn't regret screaming like a woman either. It was a blind date that made me wish I was blind. I told her, "I'm sorry to hear that. Maybe the screaming guy didn't like the food." This was awkward. I didn't realize she worked at one of the stores. I wanted to get her back on the subject. "So what seems to be the problem?"

"We're having this big Christmas sale on TC edition sweaters and the Compubeaver server that keeps track of the store sales and inventory is locked up. We can't access the data."

The Computbeaver was a computer that looks like a beaver. Never mind our retail stores sold high-end fashion and sweaters, the owner of Winkler's had this bizarre fascination with beavers and he ordered the Compubeavers for all the retail stores. "Is this the server in the front end network closet?"

"Yes, it is."

I asked, "Do you have an idea what caused the issue?"

Jane sounded hesitant. "Well, our Festivus Santa tried to play a MC LO rap CD in the Compubeaver and it locked up the computer."

There was no need to say this, but I did anyway. "Why was the Festivus Santa in the closet messing around with the data server? The server doesn't have speakers, so he couldn't hear the CD anyway."

Jane offered, "Who knows? I don't know where Winkler's gets their Santas, but this one is pretty dense."

It was a good answer as any. I've dealt with many dense people in my job. "Okay, give me a minute. I'm going to try to remote to the server."

I wasn't looking forward to this. Remoting to the server wasn't the hard part. But I'd have to file a report saying what I did, email the report to my manager and the IT director, then file a second report with the results of what I did and email that report to my manager and the IT director, then file a third report of what happened when I did what I did to the Compubeaver server and email that report to my manager, the IT director and the PCI cops. Then I would have to file a environmental impact report since the Compubeavers used for data servers were a protected species. I would email that report to my manager, the IT director, the Chief Information Officer, the Conservation Department and the owner of Winkler's.

As I attempted to remote into the server, Jane asked, "What are you doing for Christmas?"

My voice was neutral. "I'm staying home for an evening of Christmas music and leftover pizza. What about you?"

My answer didn't seem to faze her. "When I get off work, I'm going to deliver some presents to some needy families before going back home."

She had a lot more Christmas spirit than I did. She wants to help, I just want to go home and listen to Christmas music and eat pizza. But I'm a single guy. That's what single guys do. "I'm having trouble getting into the server." I couldn't ping the server so I said, "I'll need you to restart the server by pressing the red button."

"Will it affect store sales?"

"No, we have a backup Computbeaver."

Jane sounded relieved. "Good. I'll have to go to the Front End network closet." She had a wireless phone, so I could hear the background noise of last minute Christmas shoppers and piped in Christmas and Festivus music. A minute later the background noise faded. "Which red button do I push? The one on the chest or the one between its legs?"

I just remembered the Compubeaver server models were "anatomically correct" Compubeavers. "Try the one on the chest and let me know when it comes up."

Jane sounded relieved. "The lower red button did look a bit strange." She must have pressed the right button because a minute later she announced, "It looks like it came up. I'll eject the CD and give it back to the San Francisco Santa."

Looks like I wasn't the only one who shared the same opinion of the Winkler's Santas. I noticed the server was pinging and I said, "Give the server a minute to come up and see if you can access the sales data from another Compubeaver."

"Okay." I could hear the background shopping noises and Christmas and Festivus music again. A few seconds later I could hear her typing on a keyboard. She sounded cheerful as she said, "It looks like we can access the data. Thank you so much. Have a Merry Christmas." Before I could say anything, she asked, "This may seem forward, but I could use some help delivering presents tonight. I get off work at five. Are you game?"

"Sure. I get off work at 4:30. Where do you want to meet?" I don't know what possessed me to say that. Was it the Christmas spirit, my guilt of standing up this girl, or maybe the hope she got an extreme makeover? Or maybe it was a different Jane and it would be her turn to to run away, screaming like a woman. I said yes, so I couldn't back down.

"That's great. Can you meet me at the store?"

I tried to keep up my enthusiasm. "Sure. But I'll have to drop off my manager's SUV before we do anything."

"That's nice of your manager to let you use it."

"She didn't seem to mind." Well, she might if she knew I had it.

There was a couple of seconds of hesitation and she said, "We'll drop off your manager's SUV and we'll go from there. Can I reach you at this number in case something comes up?"

"Sure." I still couldn't believe this was happening.

"Great! I'll see you at the store around five. Bye!" The phone hung up.

I sat at my desk, stunned. I was going to meet a girl on Christmas Eve I likely stood up several months ago. Or maybe it wasn't her. I would know soon enough.

I must have zoned out because I voice snapped me out of a fog of thoughts about what I had done. "Hey, are you all right?" It was Ike. He must have finished the Macintosh hardware upgrade.

I gave him a smile and said, "Yeah, I'm good." And I did feel good, if uncertain. I would be helping some families have a better Christmas and maybe spending Christmas Eve with Jane would be fun. And if it didn't work out, I could always return it December 26.