Day before yesterday I went on a service call to fix a lady’s network at her home. My job has certainly been interesting… I’ve seen the highs and lows of South Bend during my time at my current job. For example, this particular customer lives in a subdivision where you just buy the land and build. Anything you build has to be made of brick, at least ~4,000 square feet, and several other asinine regulations that only the wealthy can ever hope to meet. One of the kids living there has two computers. TWO. The 5 year old has a better computer than I do. Part of me thinks that’s really excessive, but part of me thinks that, well, they’ve got the money so they might as well spend it.
I’ve thought about this quite a bit, actually. I only really have a problem with wealthy people if it becomes obvious that the money has made them turn to the Dark Side. I’ve visited places like that. Disheartening. Another customer, quite a lot more wealthy than the one I visited the other day, gave me the distinct impression of lack-of-soul. Truly. When I met these people I had an automatic, instant reaction akin to a dog just suddenly stopping and staring at a stranger, bristling and growling. Creepy.
But back to the good rich people. The family is nice, and the kids don’t seem spoiled (aside, it amuses me that “spoiled” is essentially saying kids go bad like meat left in the sun. Nifty.) I was wandering back and forth fixing various computers in various rooms, and the 5-year old was following me around, talkin’ up a storm. Very chatty. He was the littlest one of three, so it may be that he’s got third-child syndrome — just looking for someone to talk to. I chatted as much as I could while working; mainly because I’m a nice guy, but mostly because I’ve never really spoken with a five year old, aside from that period of time two decades ago when *I* was five, and it’s interesting to see their worldview.
So full of questions. He’d apparently discovered the concept of death, because a lot of his questions were concerning that. “When did so and so die?”, “When are you going to die?” I answered as best I could. He also was unaware that everyone has a mother, it seems. Hadn’t made the connection of his grandmother being his mom’s mother. Fascinating.
He asked me how old I was, and when I said, “I’m 27″ he replied with a drawn out, “Wow!”, and, “You’re almost an old man!”
I laughed at this, but really I was weeping inside.
In any event, a nice family. Kids weren’t snotty. I idly wondered what it feels like to grow up with a quasi-mansion as your home. As far as the kids are concerned, it’s all they’ve known. They’re just like any other kids I’ve ever met though. And in fact the teenager was a lot friendlier, conscientious, and courteous than most of the other teenagers I know.
So I enjoy service calls. It’s like anthropology, because you get to see the above and then 30 minutes later and in a different location see a house where the plaster and drywall has fallen from the walls, exposing the slatboard on the frame. It’s truly, truly interesting.
Three years ago when I started working at this job, my then-coworker referred to these visits as “service calls”, and I instantly thought of plumbers and porn movies. To this day, that still flashes through my head when I hear myself say, “I’m going on a service call.” On one hand it’d be sort of neat if the pornstar plumber thing happened. Living the dream in a way. On the other hand, that’s a whole world of badness for a variety of reasons. I really don’t know how I’d respond should some lonely housewife come out and ask to get it on. Even saying “no thanks” could be bad if she’s vindictive and feels spurned. Dunno.
So, I think it’s only my naivete that prevented me from recognizing some of the signals Soccer Mom seemed to be sending at this house, and that I only recognized long after the fact. I have to say, it can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but my obliviousness to signals of interest has probably been my armor against sexual advances in more instances than I know.*
Service calls aside, this job I’ve had for the past three years has been very interesting. I’ve met all sorts of people I probably wouldn’t ever have through my normal social circle. Elderly ladies, harried businessmen, people who’ve sailed their catamarans to Djibouti. Quite a phenomenal number of homosexual men, one of whom asked me out once. He had an eye-patch like a pirate. There was also a professional chef who’s been so happy with how well I’ve treated him in fixing his computer problems that, twice, he made food for me. Steak. It was delicious.
This job has also given me the opportunity to build 230+ workstations and servers. I’ve been telling everybody that. I’m inordinately proud of this achievement, and it speaks volumes about me that I ran several different querries against our database in order to get a fairly precise number on this.
I guess this is a final farewell to my job, even though I’ve still got a week and a half left. I can’t complain (though I have) — the job payed little, but I had some good times. Now I move on to making a LOT more money. I only hope that the people I meet in the new job will be as interesting.
*I once had a phone call from an ex-girlfriend, and only 6 years later did I realize it was actually a booty-call. I’m serious.
