aggiornamento
1.
the act of bringing something up to date to meet current needs.
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The
room was well lit and cool, thanks to the windows and air conditioning. Theo was surprised it had been on the ground
floor, since most IT departments he had experience with were located on either
an upper floor, or the basement. But it
was fine. It made it easier on him, even
if the building was small. He looked
around and the first thing that jumped out at him was the lack of technology. He was not expecting the place to be lined
with computers and monitors, but there was nothing. It looked like any other office in the place.
“Hello?”
He called.
There
was a shuffling and scraping sound from deeper in the office, seeming to come
from behind a wall. The wall in question
opened into a well camouflaged door, and an older man popped out. He looked to be in his mid-70s, with wiry
grey hair and facial hair that told the world he had stopped pretending to care
about it.
“Yes? Can I help you?” The man asked.
“Uh, yeah, I’m Theo Cooper. I’m starting here today.”
The man
blinked a few times, but said nothing.
His forehead became more wrinkled than it already was for a moment,
before a wide smile came to his face.
“Ah,
right, right, right. Theo, of
course. I didn’t realize that was
today. Oh well. Come in, let me show you
around.”
There
was not much to be shown. The IT
department consisted of just two people, and as many rooms. The old man, who introduced himself as Henry,
still did his best to give a tour of the place.
The entry room was nice enough. There
was a single desk devoid of any decoration or tool that dominated the room. It also contained a few posters on the wall,
and a bookshelf lined with actual books.
The
room behind the semi-hidden door was smaller, darker, and warmer than the
first. It was lit by a single dim bulb,
and contained exactly two pieces of furniture: A metal table and matching
chair. Sitting on that table were two
objects. One was a standard office
phone. The other was a large, boxy
computer monitor.
Theo
followed the thick cables coming out of the monitor and found an old, clunky
computer tower set up under the table. A
bead of sweat formed on his forehead.
“What,
uh, what’s that?” Theo asked, pointing at the computer.
“That? That’s our computer.” Henry said
proudly. “Best machine you’ll ever see.”
Theo
took a deep breath. Just because it
looked old meant little. He had once
built a top of the line PC that looked like an old Apple II. It could be the same with this one.
“So, it’s
custom made, right?” Theo asked.
“What? No.
Why would I change anything? It
was perfect right out of the box.” Theo
cringed. Henry continued talking. “5 megs of RAM, two disk drives, one floppy and
one solid, so we have speed and versatility in one package. Plus, it’s hooked up to the fastest internet
you’ll ever find.”
“Please
don’t tell me that’s a dial up connection.”
“Of
course it is. What else would it be?”
Theo
nearly fainted. He knew older people
were out of touch with current technology, but how could this be? Surely someone would have given the old man
an upgrade at some point. He was head of
IT, after all.
“I
know, I know, it’s great.” Henry
said. “Takes your breath away, doesn’t
it? Come here, give it a spin. I guarantee you’ll never use anything else.”
Theo’s
body was shaking as he sat in the chair.
The computer was on already, and he was grateful that he did not have to
go through the painful boot up process of an older computer. But it also allowed him to see the display.
“This…this
isn’t Windows ’95, is it?”
“Best
operating system available.” Henry said.
“Come on, don’t be shy. Give it a
try.”
Theo
did as Henry asked. Just as he thought,
the computer was painfully slow, hard to use, and lacked the necessary features
included in modern PCs. Not only that,
but the monitor was problematic as well.
It had terrible contrast, it shook and flickered periodically, and Theo
counted ten dead pixels.
“Uh,
Henry, is this a joke? You know, hazing
the new guy or something?”
“Of
course not. I would never do something
like that.”
“Oh. I see.
Um, are all the computers here like this?”
“No.”
Theo breathed a sigh of relief. “This
bad boy’s the best machine in the place.
Nothing else can match its power.”
“I
think I get why I they wanted me so bad.” Theo said quietly. “Henry, I think it’s time for a change.”
“Always
nice to hear a suggestion. Shoot.”
“We
need to upgrade. Badly.”
“Upgrade? Why would we need to change a top of the line
computer?”
“It was
top of the line when I was in diapers.
Seriously, we need new computers.
These days, we use gigs, not megs, and nobody uses dialup anymore. Get us a satellite connection, or fiber optic
if you can get it. And an OS that’s
actually getting support and updates.
Seriously, this is old, outdated tech that nobody should be using.”
Henry’s
face fell. “Now who’s telling jokes?”
“My
phone is faster and more powerful than this dinosaur. Trust me, we’re upgrading this entire office.”
“No we’re
not. What we have here is all the
computing power we’ll ever need.”
Theo
thought about it for a moment. “Tell you
what, how about we make a bet. I’ll
bring in a cheap computer, low end of the current market and fresh off the
shelf. Then we’ll see which does better,
yours or the new one. If yours does
better, we’ll keep it. If the new one
does better, we upgrade.”
It was
Henry’s turn to think. “No way some
cheap little toy will do better than my beast of a machine. You’re on.”
Theo
let out a sigh of relief. There was hope
yet.
***************************
How would someone like that even become the head of IT? Even a small company would've fired him ages ago. Guess he has connections. Maybe the boss' dad or granddad?
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