Thank You Billy

It was a stupid mistake, one that anyone could have made if they weren't paying attention to what they were doing. For a long period of time, that well described Billy. Technically speaking, Billy is very clever. He knows his stuff regarding computers. His personal skills were a little limited but I hoped that becoming part of our group would help him with that, loosen him up a little as it were. The early stages of this loosening up faced us with a rather strange individual, and this is coming from me, so that should tell you something.

“I'm telling you, he's a serial killer in the making,” Dave insisted.

I gave Dave a 'cmon' look. “Billy may be bad but he's not that bad. He's awkward, not a killer.”

“He's a killer of moods,” offered 'Little' Anthony, so named because of his bulk. “We can be laughing it up in the call center and he'll walk in and it just crashes to a halt.”

“As much as I'm glad you can enjoy your work, that's not always a bad thing,” I noted. “Really, I need to quiet you guys down more often. I catch a lot of flax for you guys enjoying yourselves.”

“We're sorry,” Dave replied. “We don't mean to get you in any trouble,” 'Little' Anthony agreed with this declaration.

“Most of it is just jealousy,” I explained. “No one else gets to enjoy themselves like we do. When people walk in and hear the cheerfulness they assume we aren't working. I've got numbers that prove otherwise.”

I would have explained further but Billy joined us in my office. His gaze was focused on two pieces of paper that he held before him. We waited for a moment, expecting him to say something, but he just kept staring at the papers. Finally I said “Hello Billy.”

This led him to look up. “Hey. Yeah, so, I think I've got a problem.”

I expected more but he had returned to staring at the papers. “Is this the sort of situation where you're looking for us to determine whether or not you actually have a problem or do you know you have a problem and seek help resolving it?”

While Dave grinned at the overly polite way I delivered my request, Billy remained unaffected. For another moment he stared at his notes before he spoke. “I've got two requests for two different things and I think I mixed them up.”

“You think or you know?” I pressed.

“I don't think he knows,” Dave said wittily. Despite enjoying his statement, I shook my head slightly, trying to get Dave to knock it off.

If Billy noticed any of this, he didn't show it. “So I've got a ticket to load a printer driver on Professor Pedrina's laptop and another ticket to have Mrs. Schwanke's desktop reimaged.”

Things went quiet for a moment while we pondered the possibility that one of the high ranking officials of the university, as well as one of the more vocal members of the facility, may have had their laptop reset to an 'as new' state with all his accumulated files gone. The vulgarity that 'Little' Anthony exclaimed was understandable under the circumstances.

I leapt into damage control mode. “Dave, go check on the Professor's laptop, see if it's been reimaged. 'Little' Anthony, do the same for Mrs. Schwanke's desktop, see if she's still down. I'm gonna check the backup tapes, make sure we can restore the laptop if need be.” We bolted from our seats to depart. I paused for just a moment before leaving. “Billy. Do me a favor and just stay here. Okay?” He nodded. I dashed off, adding “And don't touch anything!”