Computer Genius

Once, several years ago, I was talked into going with a group of friends to dinner at the mall. This is pretty much exactly my definition of the ideal worst way to spend my time, but I was convinced by the big brown puppy-dog eyes of my extroverted friend who was inevitably going to have the best time ever, surrounded by people she loved.  As we crowded together into a large car and pushed several tables together at the restaurant, I began to estimate the amount of time I had left to suffer through this torture. The perky waitress took our orders, meticulously separating them into individual checks (which always takes forever) and conversations swished around me, making me feel like I was caught in a tornado, not knowing which one I was supposed to listen to or which one I was more interested in trying to hear, knowing that there would probably be useful information in at least one of those conversations that could potentially help me in another future awkward social situation when I would be expected to participate, unlike this situation where I could nod and smile and pretend like I was a part of one of the conversations so people would not realize that I was drinking as much water as possible, so as to have a legitimate reason to escape to the bathroom as soon as possible.  When dinner was finally over, and I had a headache from my brain trying to push itself out of my eyeball sockets, everyone (naturally) wanted to wander around the mall. Our large group mostly stayed together since some of us rode together and some of some of us were dating some of some of the others who drove together, and I had to stay with the group because I am the kind of person who gets left behind at the mall and has to hitchhike back home because no one realized she wasn’t in the car.  At some point, someone said, “Let’s go to the Apple Store.” This sounded boring to me, but I was committed to getting home in a car driven by someone I knew, so I thought to myself, “How bad can it be? Yes, if you wanted apples, you could just go to the store and choose—red, green, yellow, whatever, but maybe this is a fancy store with specialty apples…candied and caramel and international apple varieties…probably those decorative wooden apples that my best friend’s mom always kept in a bowl on the table, looking deceptively fresh and appetizing until you saw the one with the bite out of it, with the perfect teeth marks carved into the wood (something I always thought was kind of creepy) while the white-painted apple flesh never turned brown…Maybe after this Apple Store we can finally go home.” But we continued wandering the mall. We went into some computer place where everything was fancy, and strange people wandered around being very excited about the fancy computers. We finally ended up going home, and no one bought any apples. I don’t know how many years later I finally realized that the computer store was the Apple Store, but this story is an example of my familiarity with the Mac computer brand.

Today I am typing this from my MacBook Pro, given to me by Neverthirst for the purpose of Work. I do use it for work and for other things, but I definitely remember trying to talk my boss into getting me a PC, not because I don’t like Macs, but because some PCs have Mahjong on them…also, the only people I knew with Macs (except for my wannabe hipster sister), were really good with computers. This is important because I am not, and I know that there would be systems I would have to set up on my laptop and issues with different programs that I would have to figure out, and I am not great at that. So I would need someone to help me, and as the world is increasingly filled with more and more computer nerds, I knew I would be able to find someone in India to help. But I also knew that they would more likely be familiar with PC programming than Mac programing. But the Boss would never deign to give me such an inferior machine as a PC, so I took the Mac and tried to figure out as much as I could. Meaning: I set up an iTunes account so that I could play my music on the computer. This is directly related to the time that I almost broke the computer, but I learned my lesson—do not dance around while holding the computer, if you are trying to move from one room to another with your music while wearing socks on tiled floors. If the song is one you must dance to, set the computer down, dance, then when the song is over, carefully carry the computer to the other room.

When I arrived in India, I quickly found out how right I was that Indian computer nerds would not be as familiar with the Mac systems as they are with PCs, as the following phone conversation (a mash-up of several conversations I have had over the last few months) will show:

Me: I need to install this Airtel internet connection, but I can’t get it to work.

Computer Nerd Phone Answerer (CNPA): Ok Madam, go to your ‘Start Menu.’ Double click on ‘My Computer.’ Then you will see…

Me: OK, I have to tell you--I have a Mac computer.

CNPA: Yes, Madam, you can right click on…

Me: No, it’s a MAC computer—you know the one with the Apple on it…

CNPA: Oh! Apple computer! Please wait….

Then I am put on hold for an hour, listening to Airtel advertisements until I give up and restart my computer and somehow that works.

But this past week I have been called upon to help my friends with their computer needs at two different times. They were both so excited and grateful and kept saying how happy they were to be learning so much about computers from me.

My first session went super-well. My friend Shamlina wanted me to teach her how to use Skype. I helped her install it and then told her that she needed to buy a microphone if she wanted to use it because she has a little netbook that, for some reason, does not have one built in. Then I helped fix her keyboard, which was set on something so that unless you held down the ‘Fn’ key, you couldn’t type half of the letters. That had not been a huge problem for her in the past because when you only type with one finger, it’s not a big deal to hold down one key with one hand and plunk out what you want to say with your other hand. I, however, could not stand it, as I am a master speed-typer, thanks to Mavis Beacon and my mom. Shamlina was very grateful, though, because she realized that it was way better to be able to use the whole keyboard, and she thought it was impressive that I knew what the Control Panel was.

Then a few days later, my field coordinator Rakesh asked me to help him set up Skype. Buoyed by my recent computer-genius success, I agreed and started with the download. I patiently explained why you should uncheck boxes that want to ‘automatically set Bing as your search engine’ because Bing is stupid and trying too hard, and nobody cares about it. Soon we had Skype downloaded and set up and we decided to try to call my computer. Everything was working great except the sound. I tried everything to get his microphone to work: yes, I used the Control Panel. I probably right-clicked on something. I definitely fiddled with the “Advanced Settings.” I did a Skype test call, which told us in a refined British accent that the microphone was working. I knew, I just KNEW, that it was impossible for the issue to be with my computer since it is a Mac, and therefore a superior machine, and Rakesh’s computer is a PC. Finally, I saw my dad on my Skype, and I thought maybe I should have him call Rakesh and see if that works. So I called my dad, and that was the moment that I noticed that I had muted the sound on my computer.

The moral of this story is “You can give a fancy computer to the girl, but that will not make her a Computer Genius.” But I did find out how to download Mahjong…

I will leave you with this photo of Shamlina and me, which is her new Skype photo, but don’t try to add her as a friend because I already warned her about adding people she doesn’t know, since they are probably just stalkers who are trying to steal her identity.