Lunch Time: I meet Friendly-Guy, Katrina-The-Cleaning-Girl[1] and The-Other-Consultant again for lunch. Friendly-Guy (who works as a techy-type) relates the following tale: They have a laptop that they need to open up. This laptop has special screws. He's asked around: No one has a screwdriver for it. They need to contact Compaq for it. They have put in a request to have someone from compaq come out so they can open up this laptop. Switch Perspectives: You are Compaq-Screw-Guy. Your sole job is to go out to client sites and unscrew things. Switch back: Now the thing I love is, they can't just bring in a screwdriver, they have to bring in Compaq-Screw-Guy. I ask Friendly-Guy about this. He tells me they tried that, but the Guy-Above-The-Guy-Above-Friendly-Guy[2] said “no, bring in the guy.” Mere mortals cannot unscrew this screw. This is a job for: (booming voice) Compaq-Screw-Guy!

When I later related this story to my Co-Worker-Who-Knows-About-TheRestaurant we began wondering how this guy operates. When you're done do you get a note that says You've been screwed? Perhaps he makes you answer questions or fill out forms before he actually gets down to the actual screwing. “Where do I put the screws when I'm done? ... Well, I can put them in a cup, or place them on the desk. I'm here to help you out, I'm flexible. You just tell me what you want ... Oh no, I'm afraid I couldn't wait for you. You'll have to give me a call back if you want me to screw them in again. That'd be a separate service request.”

Friendly-Guy digresses into detail, because, don't worry, there's more to this story: Apparently this is a French Laptop. They got it by mistake, or something. But whoever got this laptop sees it's a French Laptop (different keyboard and everything) and rolls it out anyway. Now we come to the user, who is English. English-User gets French-Laptop...and starts using it! But apparently, after a while (not right away. English-User is apparently the determined sort), English-User finally gets fed up with it and sends it back. It sits on a shelf for a while with everyone kind of avoiding it. That's when it comes across Friendly-Guy's desk (well, he doesn't so much have a desk as he has a pager), because they need the hard disk swapped out of it. This is definitely a job for a screwy guy.

Maybe it'll make sense to him.

[1] Katrina Story II: Katrina is my current hilarious-quit-smoking-attempt-story champion. My brother has been bumped to second place: Reasoning that whenever you drink, you want a cigarette; if he could manage to drinking without smoking, he'd be set. You have to admire the shear style of a week-long drinking binge under the pretense of quitting smoking. Katrina usurped my brother as the all time champ: To curb the pangs of nicotine addiction she began using chewing tobacco and smoking cigars. Thankfully both my brother and Katrina have realized the folly of continuing these attempts over the long term.

[2] Or maybe the guy above him, I'm not sure