We're Doing What Now?

Everything worked out. The laptop probably needed to be reimaged anyway and, thankfully, Professor Pedrina had connected to the network causing the file synchronization program to run, updating his files on the network drive. Mrs. Schwanke was in a meeting and didn't notice any additional downtime due to the delay. Billy and I had a conversation about 'reading' and 'focus' and moved on from there.

“He never explained what caused the mix-up?” Jen asked.

“It's Billy,” I responded.”I don't think he knew. It just... happened.”

Jen shook her head as she worked on her drink. “He was talking to me. The reimage was my ticket.” This confused me and I requested more information. “Billy had a question about where Mrs. Schwanke's desk was and I was the only one around to ask. After he stumbled around waiting for someone else to return for a few minutes, I finally asked him what he wanted. He fumbled, stumbled, called me 'honey' at one point, tried to lean over my desk, almost fell, dropped his ticket and managed to grab my ticket when he picked up his. I'm not sure he'd ever spoken to a woman before.”

I couldn't help but laugh at that. Finally I responded with “Oh my. Well, I suppose that explains why he was more confused than normal.”

“Am I that intimidating?” she questioned.

This question confused me slightly. What exactly did she mean by 'intimidating'? I fought for as neutral a response as possible, which was a bit of a struggle given the situation. “I hesitate to speculate on anything regarding Billy and his reaction to people.” This answer seemed to satisfy her.

Awkwardly, Professor Smith-Smythe leaned over the table to speak with me. This involved having to politely wave Jen away and sprawl around glasses and napkins and such. This action managed to rob him of most of his dignity. “Thanks for the tour old man. Best one yet. Must dash.”

This declaration threw me off completely. “Are you okay to drive?” I asked, ignoring any compliment that may have been directed at me.

“Not to worry, my new friend is providing the transport.” He grinned wickedly and winked. “Ta.” Surprisingly quickly, they were gone.

While I was shocked, Jen was confused. “What just happened?”

“I think Professor Smith-Smythe just picked up your friend.” Admittedly I was torn between two responses, a 'that is so wrong' as well as a 'lucky dog'.

Jen also had dogs on her mind, although from her exclamation, it was the female of the species she had in mind. “That's just wrong! And creepy! And she was my ride home.”

“Do you have far to go?” I checked.

She was still sulking. “No, but it'll feel like it in this heat.”

There was nothing else for it. “I can take you home.” She politely protested and I politely insisted and that slowly become the decision.

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!”