I: IT Guy

Nearly 25 years ago, an IT person saved my marriage. Well, I'm exaggerating just a bit.

Not too long after we got married, my aspiring-writer husband called me up at work to inform me that he'd just accidentally deleted his novel along with all the other contents of our hard drive. Incidentally, that was just one of the absent-minded things he did during that first year of marriage. He must have been so head over heels in love with me that he wasn't thinking straight!

Just when we thought all hope was lost, a woman named Janet (in my company's IT department) saved his novel by lending me a handy little program called Norton Utilities.

Since that day, IT professionals have saved me time and again, including once when I spilled a glass of water on my laptop (a man named Alan, sadly now deceased, took my laptop apart and dried it with a blow drier) and another time when I dropped my laptop and the screen broke. And then there have been various viruses and blue screens of death.

I am incredibly grateful to have IT help! At home, I'm usually the IT help. (Unless it involves an Apple product, in which case it's one of my kids.) So here's Brian Doyle's tribute to IT professionals (guys or women).

Prayer of Gratitude & Awe for the Lanky Silent Genius Informational Technology Guy Who Just Fixed My Computer by Glaring at It & Waving His Hand

And then nodded politely at me and vanished. You wouldn't believe how quick and efficient and deft and un-arrogant this kid was, and he looked to be about nine years old, although he had one of those awful chin-sprout goatees like strands of seaweed growing out of his face.

He was on time, he asked me penetrating questions about the disaster and did not flinch when I used rude and vituperative language about the defiant machine, and then he sat down for forty seconds and instantly diagnosed and solved the problem.

Nor did he then sneer at me for being a dolt, or crow over his triumph, or do a little victory dance while singing some horrifying modern music; he stood up, offered me my chair courteously, gave me his card with a direct phone access in case of further questions, and slid away silently.

We never say thanks enough for people who can do well the things that we cannot even imagine doing poorly; but this morning, for a moment, you and me together, standing closely but not holding hands or any of that sort of thing, should do so. And so: amen.

Here's more information on why I chose this focus for the A to Z, and you can read all my 2015 A to Z posts here. I hope you enjoy the celebrations of the miracle and muddle of the ordinary! 

You can buy the book at Brian's favorite local bookstore, Broadway Books, at Powell's Books, or on Amazon. Brian's work is used with permission of Ave Maria Press.