Odd moments

I had two particularly odd moments today. There weren't so odd during the experience, it was only after the experience that my mind had time to process what was going on that the sensation came over me that there might be more to what was going on then than what I actually perceived.
My first odd moment began when I received a service call that I should have attended Monday morning. I didn't have time on Monday to remedy the situation, since more pressing matters had arisen Sat & Sun that had distracted me.
The call was a networking issue at a Indian (from Bombay, I asked) food store (not a gas station), the call was simple, just install a wireless card in one computer & check a laptop. When I walked through the door - all the lights were off but there was ample light to see to move around streaming in through the windows. The older gentleman met me at the front door & in guided me around the counter to the offending laptop. There was some sort of Arabic sounding music playing, and a woman complete with burka was seated behind the counter reading some book with arabic script. After a moment of diagnosing the laptop, I went to the other PC in the back for the wlan card installation and saw that it was the source of the music (if it can be called that) and I was asked politely to please let it finish playing and that it was almost done. While it finished I noticed that the player gave very specific directions where Mecca was located in regard to our geographical position. The chant subsided, and I was told I could proceed. I casually asked if he was Muslim, he stated he was - others in India were Hindu...etc....I finished the job and sat for probably ten minutes conversing with the man, we talked politics, about people, jobs, money and children. He was probably nearing his 70th year or more and was quite worried about protecting his family (including grandchildren) from things such as drugs and violence. He tried to pay me before I left, but I refused stating that we would wait until he could part with the laptop and I could properly try to fix in "in house" because that would simplify matters for me. He was insisting to pay me - but I really don't like receiving partial payments - he seemed....like he thought that perhaps I was in dire need of the money. I don't know. That has stuck with me today.

Another customer. Pretty old guy, mid 70's. Extremely raspy voice, thin body. Related to me the fiasco involving his computer and other local computer shops - how they had told him they were saving his information and emails and then effectively locked him out of it. They kept his computer for two weeks for some reason and told him that his data had been lost. They charged him over $200.00 to do nothing more than get a six year old desktop computer to BOOT into windows. He thought he had lost the stories he had written, the emails he had collected - everything. The kicker part of this is that the guy is quite visibly DYING. He is WRECKED with CANCER. The very things he wanted to save were links into coping with the disease, they trashed his only source of comfort. How in the m#*$&# h#*$ can someone RIP and OLD DYING MAN off, and make him think he's lost everything he's worked on for the past decade, and THEN shrug him off when they find he's got no more money to pay???

These two stories obviously have nothing in common other than they happened today. Both of them made enough of an impact on me to warrant my posting here. For what reason, I do not know.

Originally posted by sykickvision


Another customer. Pretty old guy, mid 70's. Extremely raspy voice, thin body. Related to me the fiasco involving his computer and other local computer shops - how they had told him they were saving his information and emails and then effectively locked him out of it. They kept his computer for two weeks for some reason and told him that his data had been lost. They charged him over $200.00 to do nothing more than get a six year old desktop computer to BOOT into windows. He thought he had lost the stories he had written, the emails he had collected - everything. The kicker part of this is that the guy is quite visibly DYING. He is WRECKED with CANCER. The very things he wanted to save were links into coping with the disease, they trashed his only source of comfort. How in the m#*$&# h#*$ can someone RIP and OLD DYING MAN off, and make him think he's lost everything he's worked on for the past decade, and THEN shrug him off when they find he's got no more money to pay???

wow some people have no heart. i would've helped that guy for free- I feel terrible for him.

Listen, I remember hearing a story from a few years ago about a pharmacist who was diluting people's cancer medications by half in order to double his profits. The really sad scenario about this is that the people gained no benefit from the medication as a result of the dilution, but still experienced the negative side effects associated with them. Fact of the matter is that evil is real, and there are some real sons a bitches out there without what we would commonly call a conscience.

It's sad, very sad, to see and hear people do such horrible things. But not everyone is like that, the world is full of evil and also good people. All you can do is just be yourself and do what you believe is the right thing.