Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Murphy's Law in today's world

My boss has a love/hate relationship with his laptop. They don't speak the same language and they live on slightly different planes. I enjoy watching the back and forth of it all. Cheap entertainment sometimes. .. Bottom line is that the computer does not understand how my boss thinks. If it did, the world would be a better place. Come on , Mr. Gates, get with the program, will you? Vista schmista, how about creating a mind body connection between humans and laps?

The two challengers are having trust issues, I can tell. Time will make it better, patience will reign , they both haven't quite figured each other out yet. My boss tries to understand the prompts, and the laptop tries to second guess the Pastor.

Just last week, Murphy's law kicked in. My boss called me in to see if I knew how to delete a collection of messages as opposed to deleting one at a time. I was relieved to finally be given a question I thought I could answer. whew. phew. sighhhh.

He showed me how he had been getting rid of old messages, unwanted advertisements, etc.. He looked so miserable deleting one message at a time that my heart went out to him. He said, "I've been at this for quite a while and there are still soooo many to go- I don't have time for this. I have souls to save, sermons to share, people and places to bless."

Yes, he was hurtin' pretty bad. Slo -mo does that to him. He's a get -up -and- go creative sort.

I watched and I pondered. He chose a message and then it seemed as if the laptop took its time deciding if the Pastor REALLY wanted to throw the message overboard. Sometimes it cooperated in a timely fashion , and sometimes it ignored the signal to delete. After a few minutes, I couldn't take it anymore.

" So, how long have you been at this?"
" A half hour at least"
" Gosh, boss, there are a lot left, or it looks like it from here. "
" Yeah, I'm still looking at 6,000"
" 6,000? are you kidding me? Like, 6 0-0-0-? OMG!! Why have you saved so many messages?"
" Well, I just didn't want to delete something I needed."
" Okay, well it will take you a full lectionary year to delete all of those , one by one so let's try this"
I right clicked and the laptop showed- 'delete all? Are you SURE you want to delete ALL???? Seriously? Really, Pastor?'

I said, "There you go- just push okay and you're done."
I walked away, leaving him to delete on his own.
I took a few steps closer to the door.
" Okay, I'm doing it." ...Did his voice have a hint of quiver in it?
I kept walking.
" Okay, I'm REALLY doing it."
I heard the familiar sound of keystroke in G major as I reached the door and stepped into the hallway..................Then, " Oh Wait!!! I think there's one I needed!! Church chick , church chick, can you get them back????"

I maintained my steady pace, moved into my office and gently closed the door.
It is the most creative souls who are tortured so and on this day, my boss butted heads with Mr. Murphy's Law himself. In the techno- flesh.

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