By Jim Hagarty
1995
I had fallen almost hopelessly behind in the major project for the computer course I was taking and was staring utter defeat in the face. I’ve never liked getting into staring contests with defeat, utter or otherwise, preferring instead to turn my back on it and run the other way. But this time it had gotten me and was not only staring back, but had a smirk on its face.
So, as a lifelong believer in the power of grabbing a hard job by the throat and shaking it till it turns blue, I decided what was required was a heroic, last-ditch effort. This took the form of 18 uninterrupted hours on the computer during the weekend before my 14 classmates and I were to hand in our completed, 11-page documents to the desktop-publishing teacher.
As computer users in my course went, I was definitely the runt of the litter, barely able to decide, when I stumbled into the room that first night, how to turn on that smart little box that looks like a TV. Though I’d tried my best at the course every week and had had lots of help from teacher and classmates alike, I had fallen so far behind by the second last class that I was too embarrassed to ask questions anymore, knowing if I did, the true depth and breadth of my ignorance would be laid out like a seven-course supper for all to see.
For a fleeting moment, a sensible solution presented itself, which involved sneaking out of the classroom, running to my car and driving to Hog’s Hollow, Tennessee, there to start a new life. But then, there’s that defeat thing …
So, 18 straight hours in front of a whirring, beeping screen, clawing my way through hundreds of “points” and “clicks”, was an inevitability. Just as E. Ness pursued A. Capone, I would have that certificate or burn out a transistor or two trying.
At the end of the ordeal, 11 almost-perfect pages came zooming out of the printer and my faith in the power of going at a thing as if you were possessed was strengthened. Where there had been more mistakes than on a Canadian politician’s expense claim form, there appeared now to be only three and a few moments of the teacher’s time during that last class would clear them up.
So, Wednesday night came and where I’d been a hyper, wild-eyed participant in the first five weeks of the course, I walked into this one with all the confidence of Fred Astaire looking for a dance partner. What I saw took me back. Many, if not most of my course mates were obviously in varying degrees of computer panic, pushing keys and tapping on their “mouses” with crazed looks on their faces. With only a couple of hours to complete, print and hand in their documents, it had occurred to a lot of them their time was running out.
Life’s so full of irony, is it not? Where I had been the trembling one, I was suddenly a calm blue sky above a raging sea. A few changes here and there to my document and a few minutes by the printer and the teacher would be sticking gold stars all over me.
So, I relaxed. I’m not sure, but I might have even leaned back in my chair and put my hands behind my head. If I whistled a tune from a Broadway musical, I don’t remember. I do recall sympathetically offering to help my neighbour, who was struggling.
But you know, success sometimes has a way of flickering out like a firefly on a hot summer night, leaving only the suggestion of its presence. Five minutes before I was to print off my document, I watched in horror as a momentary power failure shut down all the computers in the classroom. This little “glitsch” didn’t seem to affect any of the other machines and I thought it hadn’t bothered mine but when I printed out my work, it looked like something my cat might have created if she’d run back and forth across my keyboard for an hour or two. With only a half hour now to redo my 18-hour weekend assault, I pounded away as would a doctor trying to revive a patient in cardiac arrest.
There are two things I’ll remember about the experience. The first is the other trainees as they handed in their projects, bid the teacher farewell and glanced at me with understanding and apparent sympathy as I flailed the keyboard.
The other is the look on the teacher’s face as I tried to explain why this once-perfect document now looked worse than a doctor’s prescription. In any case, I had some time to think about it all, sitting as I was all alone in the classroom.
And after the “mouse” had been pried from my fingers and I was pointed towards the door, I thought about composing my next document – a friendly letter to the hydro company on the subject of power interruptions and the havoc they can bring to a humble man’s life.
