Just got a call from our resident ditz, Kathy.
*ring ring*
"Hello?"
"Ken, it's Kathy...is Steve still here?"
"No, he left about 5 minutes ago...what do you need?"
"Oh, I wanted him to turn off my spell check."
"Oh, that's no big deal, I can do that for you, I'll be up in a second."
*click*
Here, I'm already patting myself on the back for a job well done - I've
pleased the end luser, making the IT department, and myself in particular,
look pretty damn good. Even if it is a mundane, simple task. But hey, I
haven't been feeling so great lately, and anything to make me feel a little
better helps, right? So off I go, up to Kathy's desk. I realize halfway
there that having Word automatically check spelling and grammar is a good
thing...and if that's turned off, she'll never ever run spell check, and
there'll be all kinds of sloppy-ass documents being sent out to customers
and whatnot. So I rethink my position here, and decide that instead of just
doing it, I should ask Kathy why, exactly, she needs auto-spell-check
disabled. So I get there, and pose the question to her. The answer I get is,
no lie:
"Well, I get an error message that says there are too many errors in this
document."
I'm not sure if I sh!t myself or if I fainted first, but I know that both
happened. Look, I explained when I awoke, firstly, Word doesn't care how
many spelling errors there are, it will detect as many as it finds. A
billion, if you're a bad typer. So that's not the error message. Secondly,
if there are that many spelling errors, why on earth would you want to
disable it? Surely you're not planning on proofreading the document,
manually fixing errors, and proofing again, are you? That's a waste of time.
Have the computer proofread it for you, *as you type*. Then give it the once
over when you're done. Isn't that a lot easier and less time consuming?
Again, the response I get from Kathy floors me:
"Well, it's just that the cat is annoying, I don't like him anymore."
Right off the bat, I didn't know what the hell she was talking about. All I
could think of was Lewis Black and "If it wasn't for my horse, I wouldn't
have spent that year in college." Anyway, she was talking about the
"helpful" Office animations. Like the paper clip guy, the cat, I think
there's a wizard or something. So I just turned them off. Good deal.
So I get back to my desk, and the phone rings. Guess fukcing who.
"It's still underlining my misspelled words."
"I know, I didn't disable the spell checker. That's probably not a good
idea."
"Well, I need it undone."
"I'll call you back"
*click*
*picks up phone again*
"Hi, Kristen, it's Ken."
"Hi Ken, what can I do ya for?"
"Kathy wants spell check disabled in Word. I don't think that's a good
idea."
"Say no more, I'll deal with her."
*click*
Now that a "higher up" has told her that it's probably not smart, she's
dealing with it. Crazy woman thinks she can outsmart me. I'll just go to her
boss. Look, I might not be the greatest IT guy around, but I got some
fricking common sense. She's a whack job, I'll tell ya. Nutty as a bag of
cashews, that woman.
--
KB - MCNGP "silent thug" #26
first initial last name AT hotmail DOT com