Looking Through Windows

Friday 24 January 2020 23:15

My second “Catch Up Friday” today, and the task booked in for the day was to set up a couple of new PCs loaded with Windows 10 for two friends, who understand – heaven bless them – that this at least was how I made my living, and insisted on paying; so like a proper day’s work, but in good company.

Ever since the days, over 20 years ago, when I first started training computer users, the phrase that always ran round in my head in the run up to delivering a class was the old “fail to prepare and prepare to fail”, and that rule always held true. I learned quickly that the hours put in to preparation were worth the sacrifice, and far preferable to many more hours of self loathing if a class went badly and it was my own fault (not to mention the torture of standing up in front of a room full of delegates, very obviously not knowing what I was doing). I have ‘winged’ it. One memorable morning often comes back to me, of the first day of a two-day Access course, when I stood writing the day’s schedule on the whiteboard with my back to the already full classroom, knowing I had no idea what I was going to say when I turned back to face them. The unanimously positive feedback at the end of the second day told me that I’d got away with it, but I vowed never to put myself in that position again.

These days I’m a Mac user myself, and have been for more than a decade. I haven’t used Windows for my own work for a very long time; and I have never so much as even seen a screenshot of Windows 10, never mind the real thing. I have, in my time, set up probably near on 100 PCs, and I am blessed, it seems, with a brain that can make sense of it all at a glance, even if that’s the first glance (show me a room of computer geeks, and I’ll show you a room full of ADHD brains!), but that doesn’t prevent me from feeling a fraud when I know I’m perceived as the ‘expert’.

So this morning, I “prepped”.

Sitting up in bed just after 8am, with my porridge and mug of tea, I delved into Microsoft’s website and YouTube for screenshots and “What’s New” lists, made a note of anything that had changed significantly from previous versions of Windows, and checked if there were any items that tended to default one way, but that other users’ experience now said it would be wise to be set differently; I even picked up a few tips about some planned obsolescence within Win10, so I could set it up now to allow for that.

It felt good to be going through the old routine of prepping prior to seeing a ‘client’, but it reminded me why I’d eventually had to accept that this was not a viable business; things change too quickly and the cost – in time and the very real cost in ‘equipment’ – is simply not recoupable (is that a word? recoupable?).

However, today was good. It all went well. As always it took far longer than expected as things needed updating and restarting and passwords were refused or lost… but in the end I left two happy people with their new computers secure, safe, privacy protected, set up to suit them, with all the required apps installed and ready to go.

I truly do thank them for recognising the work involved and paying for my time; not everybody does and it means a lot. Even more though, they also insisted on buying me a fish and chip supper, and delivering it later to my door.

As I sat down to enjoy it, I felt happy to have earned it, and I felt valued, and that felt really good.

And as fish and chip suppers go, it went, ha ha, and was delicious! (I always seem to end on food…)