The Geek from I.T.
By Tony Radford


I was working away – was a most-fruitful day,
the best that I’d had in a while,
I’d made quite a dent with the time that I spent
on a huge architectural-file.

The version of CAD that my company had
was a little bit ancient – it seemed.
My pace would increase with the latest release
but for now – that was only a dream.

My vintage display caused my eyes to decay
so I got up to grab me some brew –
and when I returned, in a panic I learned
that my screen had become solid-blue.

I stared for a bit – then reality hit,
it wasn’t the screen that had crashed,
it had been quite a while since I backed up the file,
so my drawing was probably trashed.

I was still in denial that I’d lost the whole file
so I hit the return once or twice.
I tried to re-boot, but my effort was moot,
up to now – I was rolling the dice.

I’d run out of rope and was losing all hope,
I was down as a draftsman could be,
I was technically-weak and I needed a geek
so I put in a call to I.T.

My call made it through to the person who knew
about everything ending in “net”.
But he wouldn’t commit – said I had to submit
a request that was saved to diskette.

I explained to the guy that I couldn’t comply,
my machine didn’t work like it should.
He replied with a snort – that he’d draft the report
and would drop by as soon as he could.

A few minutes more – came a knock at my door
and a very young man would appear
with casual-clothes, a ring in his nose
and a grommet installed in his ear.

He didn’t declare a professional air –
he looked like he’d been in a gang.
By the questions he asked, he was up to the task –
I could tell by his technical slang.

In less than an hour, he’d dismantled my tower
and scattered the parts on the floor,
there were boxes with cords and a few circuit-boards
that were likely assembled offshore.

His major concern was a part that was burned
so he took out some tools that he had,
and a weird-looking man with a surgical-hand
would take out the one that was bad.

He reached in his belt for a box lined with felt
that contained a new chip from Intel.
It was greatly improved from the one he removed,
and a model the stores didn’t sell.

With the turn of some screws and a flip of the fuse
my machine – once again, was alive!
Then the guy from I.T. bore a special CD –
said he needed to boot from the drive.

Before I could blink, I was back in the pink
and my saver was back on the screen.
When the icons appeared – it was just as I feared,
my file was nowhere to be seen.

With his small, girlish-hands – he typed some commands
and the cursor went off on its own,
but when it came back, my file was intact –
thanks to him, I’d be sleeping at home.

He filtered my spam, expanded the RAM –
added stuff that he said I would need.
When everything slowed, he entered some code
that magically doubled my speed.

Some things he’d do – he performed in plain view
and some things he kept to himself.
He looked up some specs and he ran a few checks,
then he gave me a clean bill of health.

I was saved from despair by a guy with blue hair,
the loss would have cost me a week.
But despite his odd style, he recovered my file
– I was saved by the power of GEEK!

Still, I contend we could never be friends,
I’m not sure, but somehow I know.
He had no pizzazz and the hobbies he has
– I probably don’t want to know.