Oct 18, 2005

Part I of "You any good with computers"?

At work, the Bosses decided way back in early 1997 to get into (or is it on?) the Internet. Now, we do things real fancy-like over here in the southern tip of the Balkans. Some big university professor who knew his stuff about [thunderous voice on] "THE INTERNET" [/voice off] and a very efficient PC-guru were asked to "make it happen". They took that thar' bull by the horns and wrestled domain names, server, cables etc., which was no easy feat with the small budget they were given. After several months, we had ourselves a lil' ole network and a site/e-mail/domain server all rolled into one, jus' like pigs in blankets!

Mission accomplished. The hardware nice and shiny, the software running smoothly and these two professionals had to carry on with their careers but... there was no one to leave the instruction manual to! The bosses had neglected to find a network administrator who could be there any time the darn' RESET button needed, well, RESETTIN'.

The bosses looked upon the professor and the guru, "We can't afford to hire a professional, not after what all this sh*t has cost us! Who do you think we could use that's already on the payroll?" The PC masters stressed the advantages of hiring a pro but the bosses were shaking their heads furiously "No, Nein, Jamais!"
The bosses are WISE and decreed: If the victim can read english (please note: websites and software in GREEK were very rare back then) and knows his/her way 'round the keyboard, he/she will be dubbed "network administrator, website maker, 50-e-mail-accounts guardian".

I coulda-talka-goot-inglis and I-coulda-typpa-reeeelly-goot. Oh gosh darn, you guessed! I was on my way up in this dog-eat-dog world; I was the chosen one out of 30 employees! I was the only one who knew what a CD-ROM could do. (It's a coffee-mug holder, like duh!)
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