Mending a Cable

Ted had been thinking recently how bored he was with his job as a computer mechanic. Upon reflection he decided it was not so much the job, it was the workshop environment. The work was still interesting, reasonably well paid, he got on with his boss, the female clerk in the office and his one co-worker at the bench. It was an informal environment, a four person, owner-managed business and that side of it Ted liked very well.

But the nature of the work had changed over time. Instead of moving around to do work, it now came to them at the workshop. Ted understood about margins and efficiency. Heavens, he was intelligent enough. But he missed the changes of both scenery and atmosphere between jobs. Like the discussions with the client's staff about the nature of the problems he was there to solve. He did not possess an abundance of natural social skills and this kind of interaction had afforded him a way to meet new people and make new friends. Overall it had worked well and was now missing from his life.

So he had been looking forward to today's excursion since yesterday late afternoon, when he had been told about it. The clerk had received a call from a client about a faulty network. That was a site visit and the boss had asked Ted to do it. He would have a welcome change of scenery.

He arrived and was shown around the offices where all the computers were, so everyone then knew who he was and he could come and go as he pleased. Apart from those people in one room where there was a meeting going on, that is. He would have to wait until it ended before he could get in, so he quietly hoped the fault was elsewhere. Ted was enjoying the change, but the prospect of hanging around for he didn't know how long, with nothing to do, was not enticing.

Ted got his bag of tools and components out of his van, then, starting at reception, began to check the computers and cables and got as far as the third room without discovering anything wrong.

On entering, he had a quick look behind the only occupied desk at the leads sticking out of the computer. He'd noticed first time around that the occupant was a stunner. Long brown wavy hair, almond shaped green-grey eyes, plenty of poise and as he saw from the other side of her desk now, two wondrous bulges pushing at the white blouse beneath the formal suit jacket. "She must be quite tall," he thought, "but it's hard to tell while she's sitting down." Those business-like spectacles simply added to the allure. "Oh, well, better get on with my work." he thought wistfully.

He inspected behind the next desk in a similar manner and was about to move on to the third and last one when he noticed, about a foot from the back of the computer, the network cable had been crushed. "That's the problem," he mused. He knew he didn't have a replacement with him. That one was definitely longer than any of the spares he carried. He tugged at the cable on the floor and was pleased to find there was enough slack in the floor ducting to still reach if he cut off the broken section. All he had to do was to put a new connector on the end. That would take something over half an hour, being a very fiddly job, but it would be a lot quicker than a return trip to the workshop. He'd have to bend his tall frame low, too, so it wasn't going to be the most comfortable of positions. Still, he could remember a lot worse.

.... There is more of this story ...