Something sweetly reassuring happened to me yesterday. I was the recpient of some tech-chivalry. What is tech-chivalry you ask? Well let me explain...
In days gone by, ladies were cocooned within a benevolent, patriarchal society. Comforted by the knowledge that should something disastrous and otherwise unanticipated occur, the men in their world would admirably leap to their rescue; an offer of an umbrella, perchance it should rain; provision of a hanky, should something provoke them to tears.
Now let's be realistic here. These days, my coat has a hood. Rain is annoying, but rarely does it discomfort me more than the sheer annoyance that I wasted 20 minutes straightening my hair. My bag is large. It always contains an umbrella AND a pack of tissues. I'm reasonably self-supportive should a mishap occur, so previous opportunities for chivalry would be lost on me.
So what happened to me yesterday?
In the way that only a distracted, multi-tasking female can, I broke three pages of our [live] conference site which I'm responsible for editing. I deleted the main navigation and overwrote the original pages. No going back. Compounding my fury, I was mid way through explaining to a colleague the supporting arguments for my assertion that I should NEVER have been entrusted with responsibility for editing sites outside of our content manager... when the phone rang.
I answered it, noting from the caller display that it was one of our service providers. He was returning my call, to tell me about a bug fix for something I'd reported earlier in the day. I tried to listen as he told me what he'd fixed and why it had happened, but all I could focus on was the clock ticking by as more and more people would notice my evidential muck-up on the conference pages.
"Are you OK?" he said, and I mumbled that I was fine, not to worry. "Are you sure?" he said again, "you don't sound it".
No pain, no gain I thought. So I confessed to him the nature of my nice little mess. "OK", he said, "let me see the code, I'm sure I'll be able to see the problem".
Less than 5 minutes later, he'd identified the problem (a script referencing the wrong website) and showed me how to fix it. What's more, he offered to stay on the line whilst I dutifully copied and pasted his correct code on to my duff pages and uploaded the correct code to my site. It was all good again. Perfect.
And that was it. When I really needed someone to rescue me from my lame, girly predicament (let's not even pretend it was particularly complicated), along he came to offer the proverbial hanky. Simple yet effective, like producing an umbrella when it started to rain. How modern though - that little gesture from a techie said more to me about chivalry than any crisp, white hanky offer ;o) Thanks C!
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
That pigeon has it coming....
How is this fair? Flat mate returns home to another (obviously sleeping) flatmate who's room is next to the bathroom. Flat mate decides to embark on mobile phone conversation at 12.37 a.m., in said echoey bathroom, at no small volume thus effectively WAKING THE DEAD.
Now I'm left with nothing to consider except how fast the wind speed is outside (hard to tell, our shabby double glazing doesn't fit the window panes so anything above a breeze conjures up an image of a tornado) AND how many ways there might be to kill the cooing pigeon sat on its feathery nest outside my window in the middle of the night.
Do birds not usually sleep at night? Why must it coo when its dark? I did think at first that it was the rusty gate or the pizza shop sign blowing in the wind, but after closer investigation (poking head out of window, clapping and shouting at pidge) I have discovered that he alone is the culprit responsible for the prolonging of my sleep deprivation.
A few weeks ago, M was in the supermarket, talking about my pidge dilemma, when someone came up to her with a solution... apparently you have to mix up some bird seed with milk and some ex-lax. Pidge eats, pidge gets ill, pidge dies. Easy as.
Now, I'd like to say that I'm pro all forms of wild fauna, but that would be a lie. I could kill the pidge with my bare hands, if I could only reach it from my window sill. Alas, the ex-lax option is looking like a viable solution.
Flat mate is back in bed, several slams of door later (ably assisted by the draft from poorly fitting windows - the best friend of all teenagers making dramatic door-slamming exits during a strop). I wonder what was so important she needed to call someone at 12.37.
Now there is a _slight_ problem with my pidge-murdering master plan... I live in a busy commercial area of town, near shops and restaurants, several floors up. Whether I were to select the ex-lax version of the plan or the BB gun alternative, I couldn't say for sure I could control precisely _where_ the pidge may plummet to its death... which means it could be on the head or at the feet of some unassuming pedestrian, out to buy their milk.
Given the illegality of my intended action (all wild birds are protected), it could be difficult to conceal the fruits of my labour and the evidence of my crime. Even if I did manage to kill an ambitious 35 of the 40 or so pidgeons behavingly like cast members of a Hitchock film, the only place to dispose of the bodies is a commercial dumpster our flat shares with the other restaurants and shops.... eew.
17 minutes past 2. I've just remembered that someone told me you can actually hire a sniper in my town - to pop off the pidges... he's licensed and comes with a gun dog, police protection and a letter of authorisation from environmental health. I love it when a plan comes together ;o)
Now I'm left with nothing to consider except how fast the wind speed is outside (hard to tell, our shabby double glazing doesn't fit the window panes so anything above a breeze conjures up an image of a tornado) AND how many ways there might be to kill the cooing pigeon sat on its feathery nest outside my window in the middle of the night.
Do birds not usually sleep at night? Why must it coo when its dark? I did think at first that it was the rusty gate or the pizza shop sign blowing in the wind, but after closer investigation (poking head out of window, clapping and shouting at pidge) I have discovered that he alone is the culprit responsible for the prolonging of my sleep deprivation.
A few weeks ago, M was in the supermarket, talking about my pidge dilemma, when someone came up to her with a solution... apparently you have to mix up some bird seed with milk and some ex-lax. Pidge eats, pidge gets ill, pidge dies. Easy as.
Now, I'd like to say that I'm pro all forms of wild fauna, but that would be a lie. I could kill the pidge with my bare hands, if I could only reach it from my window sill. Alas, the ex-lax option is looking like a viable solution.
Flat mate is back in bed, several slams of door later (ably assisted by the draft from poorly fitting windows - the best friend of all teenagers making dramatic door-slamming exits during a strop). I wonder what was so important she needed to call someone at 12.37.
Now there is a _slight_ problem with my pidge-murdering master plan... I live in a busy commercial area of town, near shops and restaurants, several floors up. Whether I were to select the ex-lax version of the plan or the BB gun alternative, I couldn't say for sure I could control precisely _where_ the pidge may plummet to its death... which means it could be on the head or at the feet of some unassuming pedestrian, out to buy their milk.
Given the illegality of my intended action (all wild birds are protected), it could be difficult to conceal the fruits of my labour and the evidence of my crime. Even if I did manage to kill an ambitious 35 of the 40 or so pidgeons behavingly like cast members of a Hitchock film, the only place to dispose of the bodies is a commercial dumpster our flat shares with the other restaurants and shops.... eew.
17 minutes past 2. I've just remembered that someone told me you can actually hire a sniper in my town - to pop off the pidges... he's licensed and comes with a gun dog, police protection and a letter of authorisation from environmental health. I love it when a plan comes together ;o)
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