Many hands made light work

A little bit of competence goes a long way. I was swamped with a huge project for a department this week that quickly became barely-break-a-sweat simple because two (!) people in the department knew their asses from corresponding holes in the ground. This project meant that a whole department gets brand new PCs, simultaneously losing their old ones and everything that they had installed on them. No bookmarks, no address books, nothing. A completely fresh start. And there were two people around who weren't picking their noses while I talked to them. This was more helpful than anything else. Ever.

They're not rocket scientists. They don't know TCP/IP from FTP. They don't have to. They're simply able to install a web browser by themselves. They can register their copies of Office without needing me to hold their hand. And not only can they correctly add their own printers, they understand how to do it and why.

To a haggard sysadmin, this is manna from motherfucking Heaven.

Now, their department also has its share of mouth-breathers, but – here's the beautiful part – the two competents can run interference. So while I'm actually doing the important parts of my job and making the nuts and guts of the project start to mesh, Tom and Mary can help the EEG flatliners turn on Netscape.

To a haggard sysadmin, this is like divine intervention by the righteous hand of God.

So I'm doing the part that only I know how to do, and they're keeping the peace with the people who can't understand why their brand new Windows XP desktop doesn't look exactly like their Windows 98 desktop they were using the day before.

I learned this in the most unusual way. I was helping one of the flatliners set up her new copy of Office because pointing the huge orange Office Product Key sticker at her and saying "Enter this code in the only place that will ask for it" would be beyond her. So she starts to harass me about checking e-mail. I'd installed Netscape, but I hadn't set up a profile for her yet. (It's best to do it when the user is logged in as herself and not as Administrator.) Mary walked up to us. "I can set that up for her," she said. It was like the singing of angels. I'm talking full-on Choir of Seraphim. The skies opened up and poured cleansing rays of light over my skin.

So I left. I logged off her machine and I walked out of her cubicle and left her to Mary. Then I went and did more work elsewhere in the department. It is so much of a relief to not have to do every last little thing for everyone all of the time. Thinking back on it their contribution to me, while rather basic, means so much to me that I'm dumbfounded. I appreciate it so much that I want to cry.