My boss needed some form of backup redundancy for his pharmacy’s accounting data. Last month I drove over to his book keeper’s house in NE Austin. Her name is Polly and she’s a really sweet 80-year young lady who could easily beat my wife in a conversation competition. I installed a CD burner in Polly’s PC tower, installed software, instructed her on how to backup the financial data and left her with 50 recordable CDs.
Then we talked for an hour or so.
Yesterday, exactly a month later, my phone rings. It was Polly. She remembered how to open the CD burning software, but that was all she remembered. I was on the phone with her for 20 minutes trying to explain to her that it was possible to have two windows open and visable on her desktop. She couldn’t get it. I left work and drove all the way to Polly’s house so I could show her how to burn a CD again. That training session took ten minutes. She practiced on her own three times while I was there.
Then we talked for over two hours. Polly was widowed almost two years ago. She has lived an exciting life here in Texas and has traveling to some exciting places. She loves Spurs basketball, has an admitted addiction to chocolate and doesn’t like beer. She received Draught House Pub beer tickets and two Alamo Draft House movie passes in a gift bag from her dentist. She gave me the beer tickets and movie passes. She said that was my payment for making a house call. I told her she didn’t have to pay me; that I talking to her was payment enough. She also made me drink a Coke. I usually don’t drink Cokes but it was one of those obligatory things you find yourself having to do every once in a while.
Very sweet story Josh (no pun intended).