Flurries
12-13-07 6:30 pm
Flurries today, then little spots of calm. That was the day working in the shop, as we’d have bursts of fun and then some time to breathe. We’ve been “In the process” of setting up an online store since August. “In the process” has basically amounted to 90% talking about what we’d like to see and 10% of actually putting the data in the system to get there. That’s why we hired Trina- to get done what we simply couldn’t bring ourselves to do. Our intrepid data entry pro set up some time today to get us rolling, and I’ll give you 3 guesses as to the co-operation of Vista when she wanted to network our data entry laptop (yes, we have a whole other computer for this- more about that later) to the one with all the stuff in it… but the first 2 don’t count. She spent an hour talking to anyone who would listen- Microsoft, two different HP customer support people, Microsoft again, some local guys HP referred her to- all because our computer was connecting to the network but wouldn’t see the others in the workgroup. This is a major problem for us, because all of the forms for the data entry are shared and hosted by one of the computers she couldn’t see.
During one of these conversations I went to the front to enter a phone order, and when I got back Trina whispered “It’s working now.” This is the maddening thing about the Vista networking software on our computer: There is literally no rhyme or reason why one moment it won’t see anyone, and the next it networks fine. I’m beginning to believe that a subtle combination of prayer, voodoo, and swearing are really the only method of solving this problem. Having experienced this almost every time I worked on that laptop, I was glad Trina actually got to experience the thing I’d cautioned her about because it validated that the computer doesn’t just hate me, it hates everyone.
Becky, the owner (and also my mom), wouldn’t describe herself as a techie. Trekkie, yes, but techie? Not so much. The computer we’ve used for the sales floor is a refurbished laptop that last had its operating system updated in 2001. I still remember the long summer evening six months ago when I clicked on it’s “System Update” icon as I prepared to go home thinking “How long could it possibly take?” Answer: Around 3 hours. About once a week I’m either forced into making a hamster-getting-tired joke to diffuse the tension of a growing check-out line or explain to the tweens who are waiting impatiently for me to process a sale that their iPods come with more memory than this machine does. But hey, it still works, so why throw it out?
Against this backdrop you may understand why I reached a moment of Zen this afternoon when my step-dad called to talk to my mom and it struck me that I was working on the sales floor laptop, Trina was in the back office conquering Satan’s Presario, Ally was receiving inventory with the main computer and Mom was writing the new class schedule on my laptop from home. Four employees, four computers sharing the same network. I don’t know if Becky took the time to let it all sink in or not, but today we took a quantum leap in an industry that’s about as low-tech as it gets. Really: Take yarn and needles, then apply thought. We went from that to something akin to Tron on a Thursday afternoon. Well, except for without the cool neon suits.
dr john, yarnboy
