Mysterious Ways

      As a call center computer network technician, I like to think that I’m a logical, methodical thinker who can analyze a situation quickly and completely and come up with a reasonable, rational solution to a problem. Especially when it comes to computers and networks.
      After what happened a few weeks ago, I’m not sure that my reason and scientific approach is everything I’d like to think it is.
      Recently, I had one call in which a customer could not connect to the network. She kept saying over and over “We’ve got to get this to work so I can get my email and fill my seed orders.”
      So we tried this and that and the other and nothing worked. With this type of problem, the final solution is to uninstall and then reinstall the software which is a tricky process. Finally, we reached that point.
      After we uninstalled the software, we got ready to reinstall, but we kept getting a system error which said the program could not install. Again and again we kept rebooting the pc and trying to install the program, but we kept getting the “Failure to install” error.
      Finally, I told the customer she had a error in her windows code which was corrupted and was not allowing the program to install. I told the customer we would have to reload her windows program.
      “But I don’t know how to do that,” she kept saying. “I’ll have to pay someone a lot of money to do it and I don’t have the money.”
      I went to speak to my supervisor and she said to roll back the pc’s registry and try again. So we did that, but the program still refused to install.
      Finally, I told the customer she had to reload windows to get healthy install code.
      “I can’t afford that,” she said. “Please!” she pleaded. “Can we try it one more time?”
      I checked back with my supervisor.
      She said: “Ok, tell the customer we’ll try it one more time and, if that doesn’t work, she’ll have to get windows reinstalled.”
     When I went back to the phone, I could hear the customer:
     “Oh, Lord please make this work,” I could hear her saying. “I need my email so I can fulfill my seed orders….”
     “Hello! I said.
     “Ok, I’m ready again,” the customer said. “It’s going to work this time.”
     “Why?” I asked.
     “Because I prayed to God to make it work,” she replied.
     “OK,” I yawned, “Whatever.  Let’s try it one more time.
     So we rebooted the computer again and inserted the install disk. We entered the parameters for the install and I waited for her to tell me she got the “Failure to install” message again.
     “It’s installing! It’s installing!” she screamed with joy. “I told you it would work because I prayed to God.”
     Not only did the software install, but we successfully configured the modem (which you usually can't do in these situations) and the customer was getting 412 kbps downloads on internetfrog.com.
     I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought I had seen and heard everything that could be experienced in a call center. My cold, analytical logic into the interworkings of this customer’s computer was  no match for prayer and the power of God. If you had told that had happened I would say you were crazy. Prayer cannot fix a computer
     But it did. Or SOMETHING did.
     Before I ended the call, the customer asked me:” John, are you a spiritual person?”
     “Not really,” I replied.
     “Well thanks for your help,” she said happily and we ended the call.
     I’m not a spiritual person. I don’t believe in God as such, but something very extraordinary happened on that call and, to date, I am at a loss to explain it in rational terms
     They say the Lord works in mysterious ways.
     Maybe I’m missing something here.

Comments

[American Daughter]

This reminds me of a story told by one of my co-workers about forty years ago. His aunt attended a one room school house in the midwest back during the late 1800's where all the kids in the area of all ages sat in one room together.

Books were precious in those days. And his aunt spilled a blot of ink from her inkwell on her textbook. She knew that next day, when the teacher discovered the accident, she would be whipped. She went home and prayed that the school house would burn down.

That night there was one of the terrible thunderstorms that ripped across the prarie. Lightning struck the schoolhouse and it burned to the ground.

For the rest of her long and useful life, she believed deeply in God!