Write a story that begins with a man throwing handfuls of $100 bills from a speeding car, and ends with a young girl urinating into a tin bucket.
Steve DePree, Microsoft CERTIFIED
Late 1999
I don't know how fast we're going, but it's fast! Really fast! Faster than Office 9.0 running on a Gateway Pentium III, and I should know, because I'm a Certified Microsoft Office Specialist. And suddenly we're fast enough so that the potholes now feel like moon craters, big, really big. Bigger than an Excel spreadsheet of all the new functionality in Word 2000! And for a brief moment my blindfold slips off. I see the man in the passenger seat throwing what appear to be $100 bills from the window, and I follow those bills as they float to the ground, seeming very much like tiny Windows flying logos, and children are running behind us picking up the money and waving gratefully as we speed away. That's when the man next to me must have hit me with the butt of his rifle.
Again.
Nothing unusual for Steve DePree, Microsoft CERTIFIED.
When I come to, I'm greeted with a cup of stale water in the face and a sad scene. Really sad! Bluer than a WordPerfect screen. A man speaks my name in broken English.
"You are Steve DePree, Microsoft Certified?"
It’s the same mysterious man who spoke to me over the phone, the one who requested my services, the one who sent me a one-way ticket to Quetta.
"Yes, that's me. Certified Microsoft Office Specialist. You should know that if you're looking for someone to help you with your SQL Server database, you'll actually need an MCDBA."
"No, you will train us in Word and Excel."
"Great! I'm your man! And if you need training on the other great Microsoft applications, such as PowerPoint, Access, Publish—"
"No, no. Just Word and Excel. PowerPoint is…is…" He spits on the ground.
It always frustrates me when a client dismisses the potential of a Microsoft application. The hardest part of my job, as I always say, isn't changing my InFocus projector lamp…it's changing attitudes.
"Well, we'll get through the first few sessions, and maybe I can persuade you to give all the applications a chance!"
Instead of nodding his willingness to try something new, he simply points his rifle at me and says, "Move!"
I'm actually surprised at how capable the operation seems to be. Each of the 10 men has his own CPU, and although the machines appear to be two-year-old Compaqs, they'll do. The lights flicker, and sometimes the monitors cut off for no reason, but it's no different than most nonprofits. No data is lost. The backbone, as we say, is curved but not broken.
That's not to say there aren't some touch and go moments. The youngest man, whose beard looks woefully short, and shoulders slumped lower than the old minimum memory requirements for Office 4.2, seems frustrated when we're discussing the AutoCorrect function. He wants every instance of 'American' to be corrected as 'Infidel,' but something's not right. I look at the paragraph he's typed and spot the problem immediately, but I can't make the correction for him. I must guide him so that when I'm gone he has the ability and the confidence to help himself.
"Okay…" I ask, pausing for him to tell me his name. He doesn't, so I continue, unfazed, "Okay, what do you notice different about these two words here?"
He studies the text for a moment before the light bulb turns on. "Ah!" He had only added an entry for the singular version of 'American.' He realized that he needed to add separate entries for the plural versions. I smiled at the image of this young man making similar entries for other nationalities in the future.
"Word 2000 is precise, people, but no software can read minds. Remember, Office is merely a tool, albeit the most powerful tool in your arsenal."
A full 12 hours and 3 prayer interruptions later, right after reviewing the most helpful keyboard shortcuts known to man, CTRL+C, CTRL+V and most importantly, CTRL+Z, I prepare to walk the group through the proper way to shut down their stations. But our lesson is interrupted by the sounds of explosions and gunfire. The mysterious leader rushes towards me, but I hold up a hand.
"I think I can take it from here," I smile and blindfold myself. Being Microsoft Certified means not only are you an effective teacher, but also a quick study. I barely even notice being knocked unconscious.
When I wake, back at the airfield, just as I am about to board the tiny plane, the young man with the short beard and slumped shoulders approaches me.
"Mr. Steve," he says.
"Yes?"
"You dropped this."
He hands me my laser pointer. It must have fallen after the lesson on exploded pie charts.
"Thank you! That's very kind of you."
I pause, remembering the turning point in our training.
"You know what? Keep it. My gift."
"I cannot. It is too nice."
"Please. I insist. I would like very much for you to have it, uh…"
"Kamal."
"Kamal."
As I settle into my seat, I take one final glance along the dirt airstrip that will take me back to Quetta. I don't know where I'm at, but wherever it is, I know I've left it a better place, with employees now more productive than ever before, with a new ability to get to where they want to go. All thanks to my Microsoft Certified Training. And I know they'll pass that training on. To the masked man who drove us so recklessly to the airfield. To those little boys aiming their wooden rifles at the plane. To that little girl behind the donkey cart, urinating into what appears to be a tiny, tin bucket.
No comments:
Post a Comment