THE INTERN

 

Aay!!!!!..first article here, on a borrowed network, borrowed from the same people I wish to bring down HARD, Gangnam style(no relations, just thought it sounded cool) hard. That’s why I’m using a small window while writing, easy to minimize when someone walks in: I was once a teenager surfing in public cafés, lightning fingers on the mouse by now.

Any who , so, I’m an intern in this big organization, working IT for these guys. It`s not really a busy place(well, I’m on my desk writing this), it`s more of two or three tiring days a week, mostly from thinking on what to find on YouTube. Regardless, issues come up around this network and the boss, well, she is the boss. It`s for us(oh, we are three of us) to go round fixing stuff and well, answering questions while trying really hard not to laugh.

 There is this one not young guy that once specifically sent for *Ule Intern Wa Tie*. I’m a sucker for ties. First thing he does even before I’m inside his office, is to ask why I’m always tied up. He doesn’t see the need for a tie since even they, who are on payroll never wear that stuff(his words).He goes on and on about how this generation(don’t you just hate it when these fossils go *hawa watoto wa skuizi*) are trying to outdo the experienced ones by paying too much attention to how they look rather than what they are paid to do: here I resist very hard to throw in a “I’m not paid’. Naughty Boy’s La La La hit song plays in my head until he asks me to come in: yes I was standing at the door this whole time.

 

Okay, I start going intellect using big words like Browser, Flash Player, Bandwidth Clog, and to my joy, he listens with his mouth hanging(dumb ass) not wanting to ask anything. I throw in a few words irrelevant like AVI and Tiesto, I mean, he won’t ask, pride and all. Hitting a nerve, he lectures me on how it`s not my job to teach but to fix. I get my external hard drive, install the latest Mozilla browser(he was using IE) and update flash players and stuff. He searches for a video(Franco) and sits back and I can almost see his heart surrounded by little kids singing kumbaya and reciting the rosary that it fails to load. Sweating and doing a broken verse of my own kumbaya, it slowly loads fills up. Methuselah over here says nothing, watches the video to the end, then searches for another…and another.

As if to test my nerves, he selects a video and then, even before it starts loading, clicks at the middle of the timeline. Being in the afternoon when everyone is bored and online, the net is a bit slow…go figure what happens. Okay, let me save you the trouble, the video doesn’t play at all. Guy does “The Boss”(you know, hands on his tummy, half turn with chair) and goes, ”ona”(See). I try to explain about how a network like Safaricom becomes hard to send messages during Christmas, and try to relate that to his situation. Satisfied, (or with no comeback for that…{ding, blue corner 10 points}), he does “The Boss” again and finds other videos.

Looking for an exit route, I tell him to always use the new icon on his desktop whenever he needs to use the internet (or use my balcony anytime he is tired of being a jerk ass…well, I should have said). He rants on,again, about my tie, so I make up a story about how I’ll still have to activate his browser from my station(joys of IT guy over a muggle).

Back to my station, go over the situation and share with my friends, who highlight the same same guy for his rude ego. Aside from that, there is a police station linked to our system so sometimes we get calls from there to go help out on something. I have to ask, is there a particular language taught in police academies? Go to Mombasa, go to Kisii, the cop accent never changes. Stuff I go through in that station requires a couch and a cute psychiatrist to get me talking…No, not that though.

Generally, I don’t understand why knighted people in the office see it worth their time to put interns or even freshmen through hell. You might argue that it`s good to build the young-ling, but then, is it really necessary. I mean, these are people that are hungry for experience, with an unhealthy urge to impress…putting them through crap, is that more of training or you flexing muscles for your own egocentric fulfillment? These peeps could dazzle you with new tricks (in the case of this friend of mine here, I wouldn’t call them new tricks because this guy has completely NO tricks whatsoever) that will make you more efficient in a shorter easier way.