The Crazy HelpDesk
This sounded nice. John Kay further exposes that individuals whose main pursuit is
their own happiness will rarely achieve their goal. Gwendoline thought of a super
smart film she had seen, ‘Dream Life of Angels14’. It went about two girls, Marie and Isabelle, both looking for security and a better life. One will make it, the other not.
Isabelle, who is looking desperately for a job finds her first one in reading a diary to a girl in coma. It’s the diary the girl wrote herself, and Isabelle just hopes to wake her up with her own writings. She succeeds, and leaves at this moment, just to immediately
land the first nice job of her life. In the hardware business. We see her as she begins
assembling some wires and chips, and the last sentence of the film is her supervisor’s
remark: “Well great, it looks like you’ve been doing this all your life.” And one feels
sure she’ll quickly be promoted and promoted, and soon built her own hardware.
This was, Gwendoline suspected, what must have happened to her at one stage of her
life, but with software. And now she was in computers. Instead of reading stories to
people living in a coma. Another paradox. But Isabelle’s completely selfless caring for
the girl laying in a coma makes her land a good job. This is called ‘ obliquity’.
So what could they do? Take care about the others? They already did. People got nicer
with every day that came. They listened too each other and took care of their
colleagues as well as Isabelle did by reading to the girl in the coma.
But was that not enough? Must they do more then that? Really take care, like Isabelle
had done. Or must they do something which had nothing to do with work? Have
drinks, have a song contest. John Kaye was saying that a company whose unique
concern is to make profit is unlikely to succeed. So if this was the case for a company
who lived on profit, what about one who didn’t? Should they try to make profit? Nope.
Drinks were a better idea. Obliquity. She could feel the word on her tongue, coming on her lips, just as Hilde had a taste for her ‘ topology’ and Mandelbrot sets. ‘Obliquity’
sounded sort of poetic, and also a bit wicked.
And as if someone had guessed her thoughts, she saw an invitation to a drink appear on
her screen. It came from Penelope and Micha. The first drink since the move. Seemed
they had decided about having a change.
It was to be a nice drink, and as if she had brought the topic about, they talked of
spirits, floating tables, and clairvoyants. Paola described how she indeed had see a
table float, Karel, a nice CLA from the Sociology WG told that he had sometimes
sensed spirits, but then later always found a logical explanation for it. What a pity he had. All this was just MADE for the topic of obliquity. What else could help in their
situation but such kind of methods and talents. Spiritual and poetic ones. Like when
she was small, and still believed that a wish could come true by sheer will power.
Magic was needed. Spirits invited to drinks and phantom users at work went well
14 La vie rêvée des anges, 1998, directed by Erick Zonca. With Elodie Bouchez and
Natacha Régnier.
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together. And the topic of the drink, spiritualism, could certainly lead into or out of
chaos.
A little group sipping the excellent local white wine began talking about the chaos. All people in the MOU involved in some kind of organisational task suffered the same.
“I just can’t find a way out of this,” said Lena, Flavias’s colleague. ”I tried to go to see the Head of MOU XIII, who’s sort of supposed to replace ours, but of course he’s
never there. Always travelling, or on some mission, or on some meeting, or on a
holiday.”
“It’s always the lower grades who do everything at this place,” complained Haida, a
girl from the Physics WG. “Sometimes I feel all left to myself. Lost. Alone.”
“In a way it’s like,” Penelope searched for a term, “like having no father.” Well she
had sort of lost a mother with Josepha but it came to the same. She felt sort of
orphaned.
“It’s terrible to be lacking directives,” said Christa.
Maurice thought it wasn’t, but well.
“I never get any information from no one anymore,” said Monica, “I give up. I won’t
run after things any longer.”
Gwendoline wished she could do this too, and said so. ”I always hang on hang on, I
just refuse to let go until I have it.”
“I do too,” said Penelope, “but I don’t see much progress.”
This made Micha think that nevertheless she should take Penelope’s lead and maybe
organise something like a general assembly, where everyone would be able to express
their needs. She could, why not; she was Jack Owl’s assistant. Why hadn’t she thought
of it before? Because the Head of MOU XIII, interim replacement for Jack Owl, had
shown no interest when she talked to him about it? Had he even listened when she told
him about the assembly? No, and instead of it they now had a drink.
“And no one ever listens anymore,” Monica continued. “In good old times I could tell
my boss about my difficulties and he would take the time to go through the problem
and help me find a way to solve it. He has changed so much. He just refuses every
word I say. When lately I told him that all those many changes lately were a main
cause of the work overload he got really furious and told me I was not being
mathematical! It’s like bewitched. Our bosses have been bewitched.”
“That’s more than true,” said Sya, a pretty Chinese, secretary in the Environmental
Studies WG. “They seem like bewitched, just as the gentle heroes in the fairy tales of
my childhood, they appear to have been changed into Foxes, cold and blind, without
soul or name.”
“In my country we call them changelings, “said Grace, who came from Ireland.
“But isn’t ‘changeling’ a nice word for ‘mentally retarded’?”
“Maurice, please, just for once.”
“And we never get any recognition for our work anymore, I wouldn’t even dare think
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of promotion, but I would like a nice word from time to time, a compliment even, for
all my hard work. But no, it’s only bad temper all the time. Joss has changed so much,”
said Ingeborg.
“Bosses need compliments too,” said Karel in a small voice, but only Gwendoline
heard that.
It was true. Most people need to be admired. By a 'dad’. By someone they consider
higher than themselves. But the higher one gets, the more the daddies get scarce. Until
one day one is the only daddy around, with no one to look down at you and tell you
he’s proud of you and how well you’re doing your job.
There are only a few people who prefer the admiration of the crowd, the people, the
little ones, the children. Those are typically artists, dictators, and, in the case of the CHD, the informaticians. Being ignored by hierarchy didn’t hurt them so much,
because they had the never ending appreciation and compliments of the people of their
MOU.
What had Belinda said to her lately?
“Without you life would be horrible. Yes, what would we MOU XII people do without
you and the rest of the CHD.”
So in some case the little ones should remember to pay compliments to lonely dads or
improvise the dad role and protect your environnement or go and pay big compliments
to each other. MOU XII people were ever so nice. So what was she going to say to
Karel now?
“You are very fine feeling Karel. Almost everyone needs a father,” said Gwendoline.
She was sure of this father thing. “A father who says he’s proud of you. Someone who
says: Karel. You’ve done well!”
Karel, upon that, moved his stomach from left to right, and from right to left. It was
obvious that he was pleased by this sideway of a compliment. He was a rather small
man, still young, with a round face, round brown eyes, and round belly. People rather
liked him, and he could be very funny when he sometimes began play-acting. But
chaos had done him no good, and he had put on a lot of fat.
“It’s all so confusing, it’s surrealism,” said Sya, when Karel
had gone on to another group. She came from Beijing was the
only one apart from Hilde to understand Maurice when he
explained to the users. She even said his Chinese was
excellent. But Gwendoline was almost shocked about her
choice of words:
“Surrealism? That's a word much too nice for this situation.”
To this, Carla came in. ‘Surreal’ was a nice word, and wasn't
every nice thing or word needed badly at the moment? Why
not call the situation surreal?
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She said so: “Think of the painting by Kandinsky which hangs in Leo’s office. It’s
beautiful. In fact yes, do use the word ‘surreal’. It’s marvellous.”
“It’s not a Kandinsky, it’s a Braque,” said Milan.
“It’s my painting,” thought Leo, but again only Gwendoline heard that, and anyway,
she knew. It was her on the painting.
André Breton, a jet black man from the Ivory Coast, and assistant in the Astronomy
WG, just joining them, agreed without even having heard the conversation preceding it.
“Yes, the marvellous is always beautiful. Anything marvellous is beautiful, in fact only the marvellous is beautiful. Maybe the Surreal can save us, like a prayer.”
‘Pois’, thought Hilde. ”There is some beauty even in Chaos, if one can make a formula
out of it.”
“But chaos can lead to anarchy, can’t it”, added Sya, “and also to revolution.”
“Or to having hallucinations. One will be searching for an order of some kind, and the
mind will erect archaic structures,” added Gwendoline thoughtfully.
“Like seeing dwarfs, you mean?” asked Flavia who knew her well.
“I’m not so sure we only see them,” said Haida. ”I mean, yes we really do see them,
they could really be there. The situation here is fantasy, not those honest dwarfs.”
“I’m sure there is a rational explanation about this dwarfs thing,” said Karel, who had
joined them now too. ”I also think someone could be playing a joke on us.” he paused.
”Has anyone here actually seen one of them himself?”
But no one said he had, and if they had, they would sure not dare say so.
“Do you know anyone who has told you having seen one?”
People shook their heads: “Only people who talk about others having seen them, but
when I ask who it was, they can’t tell...”
“A chaotic view of things, just like the rest.”
They went on talking about spirits, and finally about God himself:
“I once read a book which said that we have an inborn knowledge of God. Inbuilt in
our brain,” said Karel.
“Of course,” said Gwendoline, “this is only logical, if HE has made us after his image.”
Maurice nodded:
“Exactly! He must have put a sort of modem in our brain. A modem to God.”
The assembly looked at him, and gasped. Karel was the first to catch his breath again:
“Maurice you’re really pushing it to far. Can’t you think of anything else? Computers
and Computers and Computers? You go as linking them to God himself.”
Maurice took this in with a slight astonishment. This wasn’t even his idea. He had read
about it in the Scientific American or in Newsweek, he didn’t remember. But was it not
only natural, that they would use a word like modem, to express their inner feelings?
The group, however, went over to his topic, and talked about home providers, modems,
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ADSL, DSL, cable or wireless, as means to get connected to the Internet and who
knows, even to higher spheres.
Maurice advised everyone to take his very own local Bohatian provider: Othello. He
was very satisfied with him, and moreover, it was free.
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Do a WebPage in 5 minutes
But when the day came, and they were taking their five minute team coffee, Leo
appeared to have shaven his beard so that it was now fitting close to his skin. It became obvious then what a beautiful man he really was. His beard, blue black and shiny,
matched his dark eyes and white skin. Why had he waited so long to do this, and
hidden beneath his beard? When Gwendoline would go and have one of their philo
coffee talks with him, other girls would now certainly a bit slightly jealous. He was
well built, with a panther like elegance, and one of those man or women who can make
any clothes they wear look good. Today he wore just a light blue shirt and jeans, above
dark blue moccasins, nothing special, but on him it just looked as if it was all Armani.
Gwendoline was very proud to be his preferred colleague. He was hers too.
Of course the rest of the CHD had to make fun of it for a while, and naturally,
obfuscating his true reasons as always, Leo did not want to elucidate why he’d done it,
but escaped all explanations with a joke:
“I didn’t want to compete with the dwarfs,” he said and left the room for a course
which was to last the whole day. The rest of them left too, laughing, after all it was
eight-thirty and they had to start working officially.
The day was exhausting, as ever, like a storm that would last for ever. It was so bad
that it became really dirty, so that most of them forced themselves to leave at five-
thirty. They felt cold and strangely alone, and longed for a warm and calm
environnement.
But Leo couldn’t leave yet, he had to help Lut. He had seen her Email, while looking at
his webmail interface during the course. All of them were always doing two or more
things at the time. The email told him that those who disguised as hierarchy had asked
Lut to modify the layout and some ten or more links on some 250 Web Pages. They
wanted the look of it light brown now, instead of light blue. And this until tomorrow
morning of course. They were saying the colour was an essential factor in the modern
look of the House. He could imagine what she was thinking. Had he been there, he
might have maybe avoided the ultimatum, but only maybe.
Indeed the Web Pages contained all the new House rules about the call for tenders, and
had to prepare a very important scientific gathering which was to take place one week
from now. However would she manage to do this, together along with the support she
had to give to their now twenty-eight Sub-webmasters. They didn’t stop a second
calling her for support. Sometimes she really got the impression they had nothing to
do, because she herself certainly didn’t have this second to take the phone and call
someone for help. Leo knew he just HAD to help her.
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Of course the change of Layout could be done quickly, she thought. She was using
Dreamweaver to make the Web Pages, and the layout for all of those pages could be
changed in just one or two key strokes if their main template was right. Well, the
layout yes, but the content? The content was a task for the Sub-webmasters. In this case Mieke. But everyone was calling her all the time, she just couldn’t concentrate.
Lut thought she must really think about doing a webpage about how to do a webpage.
‘How to do a webpage in just about five minutes’. Just the three or four basic steps, so that people could grasp the basics of it. She could then send it to the people who were
wondering endlessly about this mystery of how to do a webpage and then they would
call less. There were trillions of Web Pages on the WWW, but there were maybe only
one percent or less of humanity who could make one. And in truth a basic webpage
was not so difficult to do at all. If necessary, she would stay late. There was also Mieke who might need help, and a lot. But then a phone call came that made Lut leave in a
hurry.
Because of all this, the same Mieke was in a more than ugly mood too, or better said: a
rather desperate state. She stared at the wall, frozen with the feeling of complete
impotence. ‘They’ were really asking her to fill in the content of two-hundred and fifty Web Pages in just one night. The layout had been done by Lut already, but she had to
fill in all the text and make some adaptations. It wasn’t so easy, and not just done with two hundred and fifty copy and paste commands. ‘They’ had come to her, at four
o’clock, and asked her to just do it. ‘They’ really seemed to believe it was possible.
However was she going to do this? And who were ‘they’ anyway.
She had tried to reach Leo and then Lut, but no answer. Well, Leo seemed to be at a
training course and Lut was probable on her afternoon off. Lut had told her about one
afternoon off per week. It was on Thursday wasn’t it? She so hoped not. Anyway she
couldn’t reach either of them. Where was Leo? But Leo had forgotten to activate his
Out of Office reply.
On his side, while at his course, Leo thought he had to make a mental note to tell Lut
that the global ‘Search and Replace’ function - press Ctrl+H - also worked from within
the global template he had devised. But when he came back to his office and hers at
lunchtime, she was nowhere to be found. Back on his course he wrote her an Email,
hoping she would find it on time. He then remembered that the global ‘Search Replace’
function was possible only in principle, and not with the configuration they were using.
Mrko Mrnsk had seen to that. He had imposed such restrictions on the Dreamweaver
structure that one couldn’t use the function anymore. For the same reason, they would
not be able to change the layout of the 250 Web Pages in just one stroke. They would
have to do it by hand, one by one. He could have gladly strangled the b...
After the course he came back to his office to begin to help Lut but he did not find her at her desk. She didn’t come back either. Leo wondered, but decided Lut had just done
the right thing: send them all to the devil. And Leo, having his watch tell him it was
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seven thirty, went home. Tomorrow would be another day, just for once.
This didn’t help Mieke and she wondered about however was she going to do a
miracle. Of course: Never. And Mieke broke down and wept. She wept over her lost
life, her parents being far away, the death of her boyfriend Erin when he was 24, the
loss of her best friend Kiki to the street and drugs, of not finding love again yet,
because Erin was irreplaceable and now, over all, she wept over the fact that she
wouldn't be able to finish fifty Web Pages in one night.
But then suddenly she startled. She felt something in her neck. Something tiny and soft, childish and wise. It was a hand was stroking her, almost shyly. She turned around.
There he was, this little boy, who seemed to be wandering around the House all alone
for several weeks now. Some people had wondered about him. They had asked Tello,
who always knew everything. Tello just knew or would tell that he was the son of a
Bohatian consultant. A jeweller who had been hired to give some advice about
something to do with the land itself. What had he said? Geology or so. Or Speleology.
Nothing to do with his main job. Something to do with the underlying grottos and
caverns. More he could not say. It was quite normal for children to be at the House, but not at this time. What was this child doing here in the middle of the night? She smiled
at him and asked, but the child ignored her question:
“Don’t cry Mieke,” he said, with an almost adult concern. She felt astonished and even
slightly flattered at this.
“How do you know my name?”
“It’s written on your door.” She had to grin at this.
“How old are you?” He seemed to ponder on this a while before answering.
“Five.”
“And you know already how to read?”
He nodded.
“And what’s your name?”
“Mikki.” Mieke smiled.
“Then we have almost the same names.” At this, the little blond one smiled too, and
nodded. He was so pretty, with his kind of wise eyes. Gold and Blue. A dream of a
child.
“And my colleague’s son is called Miki too. Well it’s not a direct colleague, he comes
to help if my computer is not working.”
The little blond boy nodded.
“I know. He’s my friend. But he has only one K. I’m Mikki with 2K.”
True or not, he was an astonishing child. Sure enough the other Miki couldn’t read yet.
If it was Sven’s son he was talking about. At least Sven couldn’t, even if he was the
most sexy guy in the world. Or because of.
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“And what does your daddy do?”
Mikki folded his hand behind his back and looked at her in a friendly, but firm way:
“That’s a secret.”
So that was why security had not been able to tell them. Anyway, they were bound to
discretion. And probably didn’t know either.
“And do you know what he is doing here for the House?”
Mikki nodded: “But Daddy does not know I know.”
Mieke laughed. But what a strange little man he was.
“You want some milk?”
The child brightened up and now nodded with some enthusiasm.
She served him some in a paper cup, and Mikki drank in long patient sips, without
spilling any of it nor gulping. It seemed endless. She smiled again.
When he had emptied the cup he gave it back to her:
“You feel better?” he asked. It was more of an affirmative.
She laughed and nodded. He had drunk all the milk and she shouldn’t feel better, but
she did. Some of the dread had gone.
“Why you were crying?”
“Because I will not be able to finish my work tonight.”
“You have so much to do then?”
Mieke nodded. Wherever did this wise little gnome come from?
“Can’t Miki’s father help?”
Mieke shook her head: “No it’s not his job exactly. He deals with computer hardware
only, and does not know about Web Pages. You. Do you have a computer at home?”
Mikki nodded: “Daddy has.”
“And you can use it?”
Nod again.
“And you like it?” Nod again.
“And you’re good with it?”
“Yes and Daddy is good too. I help him sometimes.”
“I’m sure you do! But Oh I could use some help too. I will have to stay here all night to finish, and that will not be enough. I really could do with some help.”
Wait a moment, had she understood Mikki’s last sentence correctly? What a child he
was, saying he was helping his daddy.
But the little boy nodded, understandingly:
“You work hard. Daddy says that those who work hard get help. What do you have to
do?”
“250 Web Pages in one night.”
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Mikki looked seriously taken aback: “Poor Mieke, you can’t you do this alone! You
can’t! You must get help.”
Mieke was wondering. She really felt secure with this little guy. She had lost her fright.
Some kids were like little Bodhisattvas, it was a mystery, but it was so with this Mikki.
But now she really must send him away, and get back to her impossible task. But little
prince Mikki pointed at the screen:
“You’ve got an Email.”
She startled a bit. An Email at this hour. Ok, no wonder, the House was full of people
at all times of the day and the night. She had a look. The Email was from Lut. Oh, so
then she was there. She bent her head to it:
“Do a webpage in five minutes,” it said in the subject field.
Was this a cruel joke? No, certainly not. Lut was a very nice person. She sighed.
Maybe the Email would contain something else. But it didn’t. There was a link to a
webpage which had the same title again. Mieke read it quickly, with Mikki looking
over her shoulder.
How to do a webpage in five minutes
.
Just open the software which allows you to do one.
FrontPage, Dreamweaver are well known.
Have a picture of your holidays ready (remember ‘Save picture on Internet’) or
maybe you have one digital. Of your cat or so.
Choose ‘Insert - Picture’ and then find the picture.
The picture will insert.
Then type some text like: “This is my favourite place”.
Select ‘favourite place’. Now you want to put a link to one other