Shropshire Star

Andy Richardson: Method in the madness of the boss

She looked at me and frowned. Her furrowed brow was suggestive of the simplest word: “Why?”

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Method in the madness of the boss

I had to justify buying a new laptop. And, in normal circumstances, I’d imagine that wouldn’t be so difficult. But these weren’t normal circumstances. The word normal really can’t be used by a man who owns – at the latest count – about seven computers. And, given the time lag between writing this column and it appearing in the nation’s best regional newspaper, it may well now be eight.

“It’s like a scene from Snow White and the Seven Laptops.” She said. You have to hand it to her. She’s got a way with a one-liner.

On the table, there was ‘slow-ey’, the computer equivalent of a driver who rides at 20mph on the motorway. Next to that there was ‘quick’ey’, a virtual Bugatti Veyron with ultra fast processor and more RAM than a sheep farmer.

Then there was ‘white-ey’, a computer with an, erm, white fascia – our imaginations had run out of juice when we christened that one. Then there was ‘broke-ey’ – yup, you guessed it. ‘Mac-ey – no cheese’ was next to that was one called ‘new-ey’ and ‘tablet-ey’ – we were pushing the metaphor to the nth when we named it.

“You look like a hacker,” she said. Which is curious, because I have difficult remembering my own password and logging into my own computer. I wouldn’t have a clue how to log into someone else’s.

I once had a friend who worked in IT. He did BIG important stuff, working for the Government and in computer security. On one occasion, he came within a click of buying a North Sea oil platform from BP, which is impressive, while testing a system for someone or other. Imagine the conversations after work: “Hi, honey, I’m home….”

“What did you do at work today?”

“Well, spoke to Dave about playing squash on Thursday, saw the nice lady in personnel, then bought an oil field.”

Most of my friend’s work was top secret and I was interviewed by a civil servant before he got his Government job. Among the more bizarre questions I was asked was this:

“Does he drink alone?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m not there when he’s alone.”

She-who-must-be-obeyed looked again at the laptops. “Why do you need seven?” she asked.

I tried to explain it. For there is always a method to the madness. There’s the day-to-day laptop, which is used to frequently that 12 of the letter keys have now been rubbed off by the friction from my fingers. It’s a good job I’m a 120-words-per-minute typer who learned the QWERTY keyboard 30 years ago and can distinguish the C key from the V key without looking.

Then there’s the back-up that I no longer use – poor old ‘white-ey’. It sits there forlorn in the corner, hoping and praying that one day it’ll be updated. Next to that’s the back-up I bought to replace the back-up, which I haven’t yet used because I’ve been too busy. I’m unlikely to use that any time soon, either, for last week I bought another back-up, which is newer than the other two back-ups, so they can be put out to grass, like donkeys in a field. Eey-ore.

And then there’s the ickle wickle MacBook, which is at the computer doctor’s awaiting a heart and lung transplant, or whatever it is that ailing computers have when they’ve run aground. Oh yes, and then there’s the tiny laptop, we call it ‘Small-ey’, which is so good that it’s replaced all the other back-ups. Then there’s the proper desktop computer, which isn’t a laptop and kinda blows the Snow White and the Seven Laptops line to smithereens. Although there is a tablet, so maybe that counts too?

I looked up at she-who-must-be-obeyed.

“I’ve just done a count.” I told her.

The furrows remained as deep and groovy as a farmer’s field.

On I ploughed. A prisoner heading to the gallows. “We don’t actually have seven laptops.”

Deeper furrows. Not good.

“So I was thinking…..” And this is where my idiot brain needs to learn the most important man-woman maxim of all – when in hole, stop digging.

“What were you thinking?” she asked. Which, of course, didn’t mean ‘what were you thinking….’

“That we might buy another one, so then we really have seven.”

You may be reading this from the comfort of your sofa, on a tablet on the train, on your phone in a bar or while at the kitchen table, thumbing through the pages, Old Skool. I’m not sure whether she-who-must-be-obeyed is reading it. She’s on an all-expenses-paid trip to a spa somewhere in the Yorkshire Dales.

Before she left, I asked her how she’d been able to afford it.

“I spent the money you were planning to spend on a seventh laptop.”

And you can’t argue with that.