She Thought She Knew Computers Better Than Me

Of all the things that annoy me, I’d say one thing stands out amongst the other. By hobby, education and profession, I have acquired quite a bit of knowledge in the field of Information Technology. This includes its subsets such as computer peripherals, web-based programming, online piracy, and so on and so forth. So it really, really bugs me when I hear people advising me on what to do when faced with computing problems.

Do we go tell doctors and pharmacists what medication to take when they have the sniffles? It is they who give us the tips and tricks, so to speak. You wouldn’t wanna look like a complete idiot when you try to act smart and prescribe Piriton for a backache, do you? Sure you don’t. But why do people insist on trying to show that they’re so computer savvy, when they can’t even differentiate a DVD and a VCD?

Consider this situation when I was still a student. My friend, nicknamed Bear and I had a nice little business going on. Bear would scout for clients who are in dire need of a person to repair their PCs, then refer them to me. I’d diagnose the problem, and fix it accordingly. We split the profits right down the middle. Sometimes there’s a need for a hardware replacement, which Bear gets for me at a discounted price, and we sell them at retail figures, not inclusive of workmanship. We sure did make some tidy cash when the Brontok virus spread around the uni.

There was a girl who we all called Trisha, after the famous Tamil actress, but only because her real name sounded something close to Trisha and we couldn’t care less to correct ourselves. Of all the obnoxious I’m-Tamil-but-I-can’t-speak-my-mother-tongue-coz-it’s-not-cool girls, she was definitely one of the most hated. So it came to a day that her PC went into a massive coronary attack, and was left paralysed. I didn’t know what the fuck did she do, but her graphics driver and her sound driver just vanished. So I said this is a simple thing to repair, and asked for her driver CDs.

She looked at me with a blank stare. Then she started conversing with me in a manner which annoyed me further. Yeah, people talking in a fake British accent ranks just below I’m-a-tech-dumbfuck-but-I-talk-like-I-am-BillGates’-bitch.

Trisha: What are driver CDs?

Me: Drivers are.. errrmmm… Softwares that make different parts of your PC work properly with Windows. (Honestly, that was the simplest explanation I can come up with, unless I speak to her like she’s Ralph Wiggum)

Trisha: Errrmmm… I don’t have them here. They’re back at home in KL.

I opened up the PC to try and locate the name or model number of the chipsets. I thought I can google them in and locate what drivers to download.

Me: Errrmmm.. there seem’s to be nothing printed on these chips. Are you sure you bought this PC from a reputable person?

Trisha: I dunno. Let me give you a solution. Why don’t you format the PC?

Me: It doesn’t fix the problem. Even after I format, I will still need the drivers to make everything work fine.

Trisha: My friend says formatting will solve any problems. Why don’t you just try formatting?

Me: Coz I know that it wouldn’t work. And your friend is wrong.

Trisha: You obviously have no ideas about how to fix computers. Just format them, and they’ll be all okay.

Me: Well, since I’m so incompetent, why don’t you format it?

Trisha: Coz I have not done this before. I don’t know where to begin.

Me: I have a solution. Would you like to hear it?

Trisha: Sure.

Me: Stop talking like you know stuff. You shouldn’t have dyed your hair brunette. Try making ‘em blond. And for fuck’s sake, please cut the accent. You eat paruppu sambar every friday at the cafeteria every Friday, right? Now plug off the PC and throw it outta the window, and go back to writing out your 50 page report.

Well, actually, those were the words I wanted to say, but I controlled my temper coz, heck, she was stupid, and it wouldn’t be fair to scold a stupid person. I said I can’t solve her problem and left her there wondering which wire goes into which socket.

That episode happened around 2004. What great memories. Never did I imagine that 4 years later, I would encounter another person whose computing knowledge was not even to a respectable level for a department manager. Let’s leave that for another day, shall we?

Neways, what’s the number one thing that annoys the hell outta you?