UB HELP DESK

Cranky recently had a computer problem that required a consultation with a help desk. While at work one day, Cranky wrote a short paper that he forwarded by email to his home email account for later revision. The problem was that the paper was composed in Microsoft Vista on Word 2007, which made it a .docx thingy. Cranky’s home computer uses the ancient Word 2003, or just the .doc thingy.

So when he tried to open the paper the next day at home, all Cranky got were paragraphs of little squares with occasional round things and other oddities. Having experienced this problem a number of times, Cranky quickly realized what was wrong. But correcting it was no easy matter. Perhaps some computer guru has a better solution, but all Cranky knows is that the original .docx has to be saved as a just plain .doc, and this requires a computer that has Word 2007.

The only immediately accessible computer Cranky knew of that had Word 2007 belonged to Cranky’s daughter. So he forwarded the .docx paper to her by email. And because he was anxious to have the paper right away, he gave his daughter a call.

“Hey, I just sent you a paper in .docx that I need converted to .doc and sent back to me.”

“Dad! It’s midnight here! I’m asleep and have to go to work at O Dark Thirty!”

“Hey, I’m sorry. I forgot about the time difference. But maybe as long as you’re awake, could you just convert it and send it back?”

“Look, I’ll do it this time, but don’t pull this again. I’m not your own personal Help Desk. I’ve got a job, you know.”

“I’m really sorry. But thanks for doing your ol’ man a favor. How’s my son-in-law Steven doing?”

“He’s asleep too. Now let me do this and get back to bed.”

“Okay. And I’ll try to keep the time difference in mind.”

“Yeah, right.”

So a few minutes later, Cranky got his .docx paper in proper .doc form. Take that, Bill Gates. Modern technology is amazing.

Incidentally, Cranky’s daughter resides in Ulaanbaatar, called UB by the expatriates. UB is the capital of Mongolia, which is somewheres north of China and south of Siberia.

[In the interests of full disclosure, and honestry, Cranky needs to admit that the preceding tale is only partly true. It's true that Cranky sent a .docx paper to the far side of the planet for conversion by his daughter to .doc. But the phone call was a bit of fiction, added for plot development purposes. You can, however, phone UB anytime you want. Small world, eh?]