Distraught and downhearted, but not defeated

I hustled this morning; ate my breakfast, skipped emails and blogs. I was out the door and in front of my township computer by 9 a.m., to greet the technician engaged by the great State of Ohio to install my new government accounting computer.

He arrived at 10:30.  Traffic. As I live in the middle of a large area currently untrafficed as a result of the shut down of the national government, I was inclined to put it down to lying abed.  But I was gracious and carried on; I finally had the technician to install the computer that was delivered August 31^st.

There is a protocol for saving all the data on the old computer and installing it on the new. Two hours were required to run my old computer through the protocol.  It was a completely hands off affair; the State of Ohio provided the program to gather the data and reinstall it. 

While that happened the young man (named Darius, can you believe), unpacked the new one. Then we chatted and I told him some features I knew locally of our federal park, which might reopen for his pleasure some day. He is a great bicycle enthusiast, and it’s not like we don’t have hundreds and hundreds of miles of bicycle trails, starting just outside the town hall door.

He’s from the central part of the state, and had no idea we even exist, up here.

Then the transfer was over and I noodled around to see what is going on. 

First, we have been migrated from XP to Windows 7.  Although I am used to it at home, it’s a new shock at work. I’ll get used to it.  I checked the all important government accounting program. It’s there.  I checked My Documents. It’s there. I can’t find the scanner image manager, but I will.

I checked email. No addresses. No folders and folders of public records. I checked for bookmarks on the internet, like the site I use to pay federal withholdings.  Nothing.

Darius direct dialed a super secret help line number. I sat in mute silence.

Darius and George (I know George; I’ve been in big enough computer trouble in the past to be connected to him) exchanged technical banalities. All systems can fail. No code is perfect. The protocol was complete. This was unforeseen.

The sentence of death: “Yes, I’ll relay that to the customer.”

Bottom line:  Darius did nothing wrong.  Underscore line: the customer will have to call the Ohio Auditor of State, who is assuming responsibility, to see if their technicians can devise a solution to find the missing bits and pieces on the disc of gold, the one used to gather the data.

Darius went on his way at 2:30, late for his second installation of the day. I came home. I’ll think about it tomorrow.