Do we have an all-time hall of fame somewhere?

[Tannin]

Do we have an all-time hall of fame somewhere?

Inevitably, it was a Friday.

"Red Hill, good afternoon, this is Tony."

"Oh ... yeah. Look, I brought a computer in to be fixed last week and I've just picked it up and it's lost Windows."

"It's lost Windows. Hmmm.. You're not getting anything up on it, is that right Sir?"

"Yeah. I start it up and I can't find Windows. There is nothing there."

(OK, I've recognised the voice now. This is the guy who brought the Hewlett-Packard in for a Windows reinstall. He's had it for four or five years. Seemed like a decent bloke. Not very bright, but OK. It's a horrible little Hewlett-Crapard vomit box, but I wouldn't have expected it to actually fall over. Hell, I often wish the damm things would fall over more often, so that we could consign them to the junk pile where they belong. What point is it failing at, I wonder.)

"So what have you got on the screen, sir?"

"I told you. Nothing."

"Nothing at all?"

"Nothing. It can't find Windows."

"Andf the screen is completely blank?"

"That's right. All it says is 'start', 'my computer', 'recycle bin' .........."

 

[mubs]

I'm glad you're still around, Tony (i.e., didn't kill yourself or ended up in lockup because you killed him).

 

[Tea]

Tannin was awesome, Mubs. Didn't even blink. I saw the whole thing.

It was the end of a very busy day; The Soup Nazi had just shut the door and turned the showroom lights out, and were all sitting around having a cup of tea and a chocolate cookie (or about seven chocolate cookies, in my case). It was maybe fifteen minutes after closing time.

The phone rang. We were all buggered — it really had been a big day — and we just looked at it for a while. Tannin, with a look on his face that said "OK, one more time, but the next time it rings it can go on ringing till Monday" finally reached over and picked it up.

We could only hear his half of the conversation, and you wouldn't even have known it wasn't just a routine support call. We went on drinking tea and eating chocolate, Tannin was being his smooth helpful self. (He's very nice to people on the telephone. Dunno why he can't be like that in real life.)

Then he put the phone down, told us what the call had been about, and cracked right up. I laughed so loud that I nearly spat a cookie out by mistate. Kristi got the hicups.

I've got to hand it to the old man. I don't think anyone else could have taken that call without laughing out loud (except maybe Kristi — Kristi can be pretty smooth). I would probably have accidently thrown the remains of the phone out the window.

Just one problem. If he ever comes back for another job, Tannin says he's done his bit and I have to deal with him.

Why me?