My short lived career as a Computer Tech: Part II

Well that was pretty much my life now. I would get up, rush like hell to get to the store, pretend to fix things, and then go home. Or so it seemed. Of course things are never as easy as that

Finally the day came when they wanted me to be in early the next day early as in OPENING. Ack. What a terrible word, OPENING. I had NEVER been ANYWHERE at opening. It was just not done. All through High School I was at least 15 minutes late for my first class. It didn't matter what time I left, I was always 15 minutes late. Finally I just gave up and took all my spares first period. So of course I tried to protest being there for opening, but like always, my attempts were in vain and I had to help open the store.

That it itself really should have been enough to make me quit. I had heard horror stories of what went on at Wal-Mart before the store opened, and it was the same here. Somehow I managed to arrive at the store 25 minutes before it opened. I have no idea in hell HOW, but I did. So I park my car, and proceed to enter in the front door Uh no. The front door is locked with the steel security gate still looming in front of it. I could see people inside, but they seemed to ignore me. I had no idea what the hell to do. So I went over to A&W to get a coffee and scope things out. I watched others come up to the door, the door opened, they entered, and the door closed. Now I was intrigued. If they could do it, why not me? So I grabbed my coffee and headed back to the store.

I stood there in front of the sealed entrance looking for a way to get in. Then I noticed THE PHONE. Quite handily they had supplied a cute little cordless phone that was sitting there nestled on the door railing. I picked it up, turned it on, then stopped. I had no idea what the hell to do. I searched the phone itself hoping that it would tell me the answer and low and behold, it did! There was a number written on the back, 5132. Hmmmm the number was familiar, but from where no time to think though, so I dialed it. Nothing happened. I thought I heard something on the other end, so I tried to talk to it.

"Uh hello?" I asked into the phone. Instantly I could hear my voice being projected over the loudspeaker inside. "DAMN." I thought. 5132 was the number for the intercom. NOW I remembered. So I continued to talk on the phone. "Uh could someone let me in please? I need to open the tech room" Well THAT brought them to life. Some high and mighty guy (I could tell because he had a suit on instead of 'The Shirt') came to the door and asked for ID. "What the hell are you talking about? I don't have ID!" He said that without a store ID, I couldn't get in. "BUT I'M WEARING THE BLOODY SHIRT!" I cried. Still no avail. He was about to slam the door when I got one of my size 13s in-between. "There!" I shouted flagging down my supervisor, "Ask Lori" I was waving franticly and fortunately she saw me. She came over and called off the behemoth they called Joe, but I just referred to him as The Suit, because that's what he was. Just another corporate suit.

Now that I was in the store, I had wished that I wasn't The horror stories from Wal-Mart are nothing compared to the hell that is Computer City. I was in the process of 'opening up' when The Suit's voice boomed over the intercom. "Everyone to the front for Morning Meeting" I gulped the rumors were true the daily Pep talk that I had feared was about to become a reality.

"GIVE ME A C!" they shouted. I replied a lot less enthusiastically. "GIMME AN O" Damn I thought, this could take forever and it did, or so it seemed. Something about kicking ass and selling more and more My mind was wandering off when suddenly someone poked me. It was X-Caliber

"Hey Kcops," he said, "They're callin' you up, man."

"DAMNIT X," I replied, "I told you I HATE that name call me Echidna or even Ech.."

"Whatever," he replied, "But get up there, Joe is getting Pissed" I slowly emerged from the crowd and walked to the front of the store.

"Ah, there he is!" The Suit said as though I was his best friend, "Our New Apple-fellow uh." He turned to me and whispered "What the hell did you say your name was punk?" I knew then that the buddy thing was just as act.

"I didn't" I said coldly still pissed off over the whole ordeal, "But call me The Echidna" I walked off back to the Tech room amidst the stares of everyone.

"Uh let's hear it for Mr. uh Enchilada" he finished. The staff erupted in polite applause but were still shocked that I had walked off from The Suit

"It's ECHIDNA" I shouted back never turning, "Moron" I said to myself. Well it seems as though that little ordeal gained me some respect with my pears, but it made me Public enemy number one with The Suit. That suited me just fine. I didn't like him and he didn't like me.

Finally when I arrived back in the Tech Room I found that my Kcops nametag had been removed and in it's place was a new one, The Echidna. I smiled. "Damn straight!" I said. Later that day there was a cartoon posted on the bulletin board depicting me telling off The Suit. It seemed like I was fully accepted now.

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Well it seemed as though The Suit didn't want anymore confrontations with me because I found that on the next schedule I had been graciously moved back to the afternoon shift. The afternoon shift was much better in my opinion. There was nothing to do. Seriously, all the computers had been fixed by the day guys all I really had to do was sit there and get paid. Finally all my hard work had paid off.

Then there was the fateful Sunday night when someone brought in their Laptop the tech department would never be the same, of course that may have been for the better but you never know.

It was about 6PM Sunday night. Only minimal staff was on , 'Rhombus and I working the Tech Room, and no customers to speak of. But then HE came in. This was the biggest freaking jerk I had EVER encountered. He slammed his Laptop down on the counter with his receipt and started shouting. I didn't know 90% of what he was saying though.

"DAMNIT.. NOT WORK. PIECE OF. MONEY BACK." I loved those types because while working at 7-11 for years I had developed a trait. It's one that I still use today. No matter HOW pissed off the customer got, I did my best to give him sickeningly sweet treatment. It was kind of that, 'Forced down your throat treatmen't, and I was awesome at it. If I had told him to go to Hell, I'm sure he would have enjoyed the Trip.

"Yes sir that is a darn shame. I know how hard you work for your money sir" I said it so cooly Rhombus was in the back trying his damnedest not to crack up. "I'm very sorry sir yes sir, we will get right on this please some back tomorrow and talk to Joe, sir. He's the assistant manager. He will give you your money back." My calm attitude pissed him off even more, as was my plan. Finally though he agreed to come back tomorrow and talk to Joe. I filled out a claim form and he left the laptop for us to 'dispose' of. As he turned to walk out I did my piéce du resistancé, "and sir, make sure to have a pleasant night. Take care sir." I could hear him scream as he barreled for the parking lot. Rhombus was laughing his head off.

"Awesome Ech!" he said, "That's even better than yelling at them! You GOTTA teach me to do that!"

"Of course Rhomie ole pal," I responded, "but first what do we do with this Laptop?" I knew that the Laptop was totally free game since it was a demo model and it couldn't be sent back to the manufacturers. "Hmmmm. I have an idea" I went into the tech room and sifted through boxes of our Surplus 'equipment'. I was looking for something but what "AHA!" I exclaimed. "I THOUGHT I saw one"

I emerged from the back with a remote control car that we found in the parking lot, a Connectix Quick Cam and about 100ft of Monitor Cables. Rhombus stared at me. "What the hell are you doing Ech?" he asked.

"Rhombus ole mate. we are going to build us a Computer Scooter."

It took a while, and we had to hide it from The Suit, but we were able to do it. Fortunately The Suit had said that we could keep the laptop as a test machine since,
A: We didn't have one,
B: They couldn't resell it,
and C: there was no way in hell we were going to give it back.

After about a week of toiling and wiring, we were able to get it up and running. We had to make some modifications though as the Laptop would not fit on the car's body but it was all overcome with a simple piece of scrap wood we 'aquirred' from the hardware store next door. In the end it was about one foot wide by two feet long. It had a four foot pole on the front and the Quick Cam at the top. We had disabled the on board video source and in turn had chosen to go with a monitor in the Tech Room instead. We spliced together about 10 of the monitor cables so that we had about 100 feet of room to maneuver.

Finally the big day came. We all gathered at the store one Sunday night about 8PM, an hour before closing. We pulled the TRX from it's shelter and booted it up. We set the Camera to record, plugged in the monitor and let it go! Quite a blast it was driving that little mutant computer around the near empty store. It was a bitch to handle though as we sorta forgot to make adjustments for the weight of the Laptop. We zoomed it around the store, trying to scare the hell out of people, and for the most part we did. From our little alcove we could hear a few people scream as this possessed Laptop from hell bared down on them. All was going good until we saw the gucchi shoes of The Suit, who just happened to be in the store getting some paperwork.

"DAMNIT ECH!" X-Caliber cried, "Bail out! Get the hell out of there!"

"I'm trying man. It's not responding." Suddenly the picture on our screen shifted from the feet to the knees, to the chest and finally to the head of The Suit. We could tell that he was pissed.

"told you we should have gone wireless" Rhombus muttered. We all stared at him. Sure enough in a few minutes The Suit entered our room.

"Uh, hey Mr. Rodrigous" I nervously greeted him, "Workin' late eh." He sneared.

"Keep this monstrosity OFF the sales floor. Got it, MATE." I knew that he was mocking me since I always said mate, but I didn't care right then.

"Of course sir," I said relieved that he didn't fire us. "We were just testing it" The Suit turned and left. "You guys are something else." he said as he left the store.

Sadly the TRX never did make many more runs. Sure, we ran it around the Tech Room a bit, but what fun is it if you can't scare the life out of people. It's probably still sitting there in it's secret compartment waiting for the next batch of Renegade Techs to unleash it's fury....