Life at Work – Page 17 – A Liddle Good News

It’s not easy to say “no”

My department has fled the campus entirely for three days this week to be together for a workshop. Since we IT staff have such a big impact on day to day operations in Wycliffe, we let people know well in advance that we wouldn’t be available. I’m not entirely sure how folks reacted to that, but I know that some people would have been a little worried.

Despite the notice, there were some people I had to tell personally that I couldn’t help them. That hurt. I’m the type of person who really wants to fix the things I can — and I especially like doing it when it benefits someone else.

But I had to tell one woman over the phone that I couldn’t possibly fix her email problem myself until Monday. I referred her to my colleagues in North Carolina, who I’m certain can also help her. Another woman — who is visiting the campus — has what is probably a hardware problem with her laptop. However, I didn’t have enough time with it this week to come up with a diagnosis. She and her husband work from Washington, D.C., so I had to tell them to contact Dell Technical Support directly when they return home this weekend.

I have no idea what part of Wycliffe’s larger ministry of Bible translation will be affected by these delays in computer support, but the experience has certainly reinforced my desire to serve God by helping my Wycliffe co-workers.

My out-of-office experience

A while back, I wrote about my department’s need to move out of our building so that parts of it could be renovated. It’s now Week 3 in our new location, and I have to report that all is going pretty well. Choosing what tools and resources to bring with me was difficult, but I believe that I now have everything that I need to do 99% of the work that I do.

Aside from the limited resources, the only negative aspect to our little office is the fact that we’re positioned right over the main entrance to the building. There’s a buzzer in the door that sounds when it’s been left open for a little too long – about five seconds. If it continues to remain open, then an alarm sounds. Most of the visitors to the Helpdesk comment on how annoying it must be. I won’t disagree with them.

There are two positive elements to our location, one of which will get only a passing mention. We have a very nice view of Joe Pool Lake through the large window that forms one side of the room. That window is right in front of me, so I get to look out at the water all day long.

The other good part is the exposure that we’re getting to all of the people who work in the Key building, the largest on campus. The Helpdesk is very easy to find now, being at the top of the main staircase. Many more people have commented on the convenience of our location than have mentioned the annoying buzzer. Our colleagues are enjoying the new access they have to us and our services.

For me, that means that I am often much busier than I have been in my regular workspace. However, that increased work typically involves answering questions and solving small problems that a person would not normally bring to our attention. In the long term, being available to help with the small matters now will reduce the number of big problems that folks experience, since we “headed them off at the pass”. I’m finding that a five-minute walk to another building can make a big difference.

The effect that our presence here has created causes me to wonder if it wouldn’t be helpful to either: a) continue the presence of one or two people in this building, or b) hold a regular “urgent care clinic” for computer users each day during specified hours. The key concept is to maintain our accessibility. What do you think? Let me know by posting your comments.

P.S. I would like to publicly thank my friends, Loren and Kensey Ledebuhr, for their gift of an extensive, portable toolkit; it has proven to be invaluable in our new situation. As for them, they’re somewhere in remote Papua New Guinea learning how to live without electricity, so I have no idea when they’ll see this post.

Change is good … right?

Change is tough. Martha’s experience in changing email programs is one example of how God uses me to help people who are advancing His kingdom. I recently had the chance to help Martha through one of those times when you just want to throw technology out the window. She kindly agreed to write about it for you:

I recently changed assignments within Wycliffe, and that meant that I needed to change email systems. I had been using two different systems, one on my office computer, and another on my laptop. I had two different email accounts, and I did different work on each one, and did not want the two to be mixed. When I moved to an assignment with Wycliffe USA, they required that I change both my email accounts to the system that they use. Their offices are in Orlando, Florida, and I am in Dallas, Texas, so I was trying to do things from a distance.

“It will be a painless process,” I was told. “It’s all pretty intuitive.” Unfortunately, what is intuitive for a computer expert is not always intuitive for someone else. I’ve been a Bible translator and a schoolteacher, and am now doing editing, and a lot of things are intuitive, but the computer change was not intuitive for me!

Changing to a new email system required not only that someone somewhere work computer magic to make it all happen, but now I had to do things — install this program, configure that, update this. Wow! I can say all those words, but I don’t know how to do them.

I had a couple of weeks of frustration, trying to do things long-distance with the guys in Orlando, who couldn’t understand why I was having so much trouble, mostly because I couldn’t explain it well. I finally took my laptop to the computer department in Dallas, hoping that they could help. They hooked my computer up to a network so that the changes could be installed remotely. But my computer didn’t cooperate. I guess I had some type of security protection on it that prevented anyone from working on it.

After several more days, David Liddle of the Dallas computer office kindly stepped in. Being able to actually see the computer you are working with helps! He was able to turn off the security protection so that the changes could be made. He then showed me some of the features of the new email system.

As we were looking at it, I noticed that I knew a lot more people than I thought I did. On closer inspection, it turned out that my entire contact list for email had been doubled, with each person in twice. I glumly envisioned hours of work, deleting each duplicate entry. David said, “No, wait. I think I can fix this.” In just a few minutes, he had redone my contact list. All my old emails were now accessible to me, I had a little icon I could click on my computer to get to email, and I only had each person in my address list once. Since most of my work depends on being able to contact people by email, having the system up and going was a true blessing.

The behind-the-scenes people like the computer department are the unsung heroes of Bible translation. The ‘frontlines’ people, the ones who go to the villages and do language work, may get more attention, but without people like David who help keep our equipment running, the task of getting God’s Word to all His people would be slowed down.

Perhaps some of you have had a similar experience. It was my great pleasure to be able to help when help was needed. (Why? See Col 3:23-24.) If you pray for or give to our ministry, then you helped Martha, too.