Journal

The leaves on the trees started to change just after the big Labor Day weekend storm we had. As the storm ripped through here, we had new all-time record winds of 89mph. Over 70,000 homes and businesses were without electricity, some for almost a week following the storm. Trees were down everywhere. One section of Highland Park was denuded of everything larger than saplings, and Genesee Valley Park, which flanks the river near the hospital on U of R River Campus, didn’t fare much better.

And with all the windows wide open, I slept through the whole thing. Haven’t I always said that the worse it storms the better I sleep? I’m not sure why, but I have a suspicion it has to do with feeling safe and secure in bed while the storm rages outside.

In any event I had no clue it was anything more than an ordinary thunderstorm until the following afternoon when I saw that a sign had which spanned four lanes of traffic on I-590 at the interchange with I-390 was sheared right off, framework and all, leaving only the posts broken off 15 feet in the air. On the bus going to work the morning after that I had to laugh. In one front yard, a huge tree had been uprooted and was laying across the roof a house. Following the old saw "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade", the homeowners had taken their hanging pots of geraniums from the front porch, and hung them from the roots of the overturned tree.

Anyway, yesterday I wrote mostly about Jeffrey. So today, I’ll write mostly about me. I’ve had lots of mail over the past couple of weeks from friends worried about me. I’ve been doing all right. Not spectacular, but okay. I’ve had building frustration and exasperation with the ADD for the past few months as it has seemed to get worse. I’ve reached the limit of what non-drug therapy can do. Each of the coping methods I’ve been taught and have been using have fallen, one by one, to the swirling maelstrom inside my head.

Fortunately, the new job came with medical insurance, a luxury I’ve not had since 1992. Both my doctor and my psychologist are members of the HMO I’m covered through, so I pushed for, and got consent from each of them to try drug therapy. It was not an easy fight. Each of them is concerned because of my history of drug abuse, as several of the front-line drugs prescribed for ADD are also quite abusable. They’re just going to have to trust that I know myself, and that if I can’t get them to prescribe something, I’m going to find it elsewhere.

I don’t want to get back on the merry-go-round of drug abuse, but I’ve reached the point of desperation and I’m truly frightened of the alternative. I’d like to share part of an entry I wrote a few weeks back, but never posted. Until now, only Vince and Jeffrey have known of this. I post it now to show how truly desperate for inner peace and clarity of thought I’d become.

Thursday August 27, 1998 10:00PM

My last actions in this world will be clicking "Publish", entering my password, and clicking, "Yes To All".

I went on in that entry giving the passwords and instructions required for someone to "spoof" InterNIC and take over ownership of the domain and then administration of the site. The entry also included instructions on the disposition of my meager estate, and the donation of the cadaver to medical science.

Then I got sick and spent the next hour puking my guts out in the bathroom, and I passed out on the cold tile floor from the exhaustion. Miraculously I made it to work on-time the next morning. But hunnylemmetellya, 5:00PM Friday never felt quite so good.

Somehow I’ve made it through the nearly four weeks since that night. The hope of some kind of effective treatment has helped me get by. Although I missed my appointment with my psychologist this past Thursday because I’d put it on the calendar for this week. I see my doctor on Wednesday, and I hope I can get in to see my shrink on Thursday.

Two other things have helped me get through. First is Jeffrey. Despite all the other crap going on in his life, he’s been there for me. And I just couldn’t go through the rest of eternity knowing that I’d abandoned him. He really helps and looks out for me. I don’t write much about it here, but what he does for me is just as important in my life, as what I do for him is in his life.

Second is the new job. It wasn’t until last week that I figured out why I like it so much. You see, most of my coworkers are in tech support because they’re good diagnosticians and technicians. For the most part, they don’t really like dealing with the users. Trust me, everything you’ve ever imagined that tech support people say after they get off the phone with you, really is said. And sometimes immortalized. There’s a "Wall of Shame" list posted in the office. While some of the stuff on it is truly funny, it’s sad that the attitude that permits such a thing is there in the first place.

On the other had, I’ve come to the Help Desk from the other direction. I like helping people out. I’m a caretaker. My last three relationships, Vince, Michael and now Jeffrey, have all been with guys I’ve felt the need to take care of. My job is just a natural extension of that. It’s just a happy coincidence that I’m a good computer diagnostician and technician.

I have a blast with the users on the phone. I do my best to make them laugh as we work through their problem. And it seems like they try to make me laugh as well. It helps that the vast majority of users are highly trained medical professionals, and that I can speak their language.

For example, never have I been criticized for not knowing the answer to a question or the solution to a problem, because of the way I phrase it. I usually say something like, "Let me have a consult with a specialist in that field." They can instantly relate to that.

There was a first-year surgical resident who asked me last week, "What do you guys do on the Help Desk, and what should I come to you for?" I explained that in our field, the Help Desk technicians perform the same role as the PCPs (Primary Care Physicians) do in his field. We’re generalists who know a bit about everything and have had training in several different areas of diagnostics and support. As such, we can deal with most of the routine problems that come up with their systems. Occasionally we’re presented with problems that either fall outside of our training, or outside what can be solved over the phone. When that happens, we refer them to one or more specialists best suited to deal with those issues.

I summed it up by saying, "Bottom line, call us first with everything. We’ll either solve your problems, or refer you to someone who can." The guy thanked me for explaining it so clearly and succinctly.

A large part of my work is dealing with people’s frustrations. They get themselves all bent out of shape because they don’t understand what’s going on with their systems, or they’re upset that they can’t solve the problem themselves, or because the computer problem prevents them from doing their work. So I acknowledge their feelings and do my best to help them feel better while we work on their computer problem.

Frequently people apologize to me in their first sentence for being so "stupid." This kinda rubs me the wrong way. So before I go any further I ask them what they do at the hospital. Most of the time they’re a doctor, nurse, researcher or medical student. (Go figure!) Then I explain that based on that, they should hardly consider themselves to be stupid. I go on to say that I hardly consider myself to be stupid when I need the services of a medical professional, so they shouldn’t consider themselves to be stupid when they need the services of a computer professional.

Sometimes I tell them something like "If you knew how to solve this problem yourself, I wouldn’t have a job and I’d be homeless living in the street." And I’ll appeal to their sense of fair play with something like "I’ll promise not to practice medicine if you promise not to fix computers." Only after addressing the issue of relative stupidity do I go on to deal with their computer problem.

The two things I do on every call I take is finish up by asking if there’s anything else I can help with, and finally, I thank them for calling. Those two things really seem to impress them more than anything else.

Anyhow, I seem to have taken the long way around to saying that by moving from deskside support to phone support, I can help more people every day. Over the past few years, I can’t remember handling more than ten or twelve deskside calls in an entire day, and usually it’s been more like five to seven. I typically field between six and ten calls an hour over a four-hour shift on the phones. During some system outages, it can peak at two or three times that.

I guess the reason I like my job so well is that it’s just a good fit. I’m helping people out, which I like, the fast pace and variety of things I deal with fits the ADD really well, and the management takes great care to be sure no-one gets overwhelmed.

And hey, look at this! I must be doing better. I can write again!

So, before I left home I e-mailed the September journal file to myself at work. In my morning fog, I didn’t use the right username, so it wasn’t here when I arrived. And I shut down the PC at home only seconds after sending the file, so I missed the "undeliverable" message from the mail server here. Interestingly, as I was entering my e-mail address here at work I was thinking I should create an address book entry to save all the typing.

Which brings me to the issue of names. Last night when Jeffrey came by, he noticed how my name was listed on my Blue Cross Blue Shield ID cards which were sitting on the endtable. I hate it when people start asking me about my name. I understand their natural curiosity, but it always feels like the Spanish Inquisition because I get the same three or four questions over and over again every time I meet someone new and they find out.

The questions I dread are, "So what’s your middle name?" The correct answer to this question is "Bruce". Next, I get "So what’s your first name?" The correct answer here is "Donald". This makes my full legal name "Donald Bruce Wilbur, Jr." which is usually shortened to "D. Bruce Wilbur, Jr." The third question I get is "Well why do you go by your middle name?" The correct answer to this one is "because that’s what my mother decided 41 years ago." The last question I get is "Well why did she decide that?" And the answer is (doesn’t this feel like Jeopardy?) "I don’t know, go ask her!" Anyway, by the time I was old enough understand what this name game was all about, "Bruce" was too deeply ingrained for me to change.

In any event, this whole name thing has been a pain in the ass for years. Besides the issues with the Spanish Inquisition, computer databases are a major hassle. Almost every single one uses long fields for first and last names, and a one character field for the middle initial. And many times there’s no field at all for the suffix. So most times my name gets mangled and morphed into all sorts of different permutations depending on the database and the data entry person.

Sometimes they put everything in the first name field, so I get letters that start, "Dear D Bruce:". Sometimes they put the suffix in the last name field which generates a letter like, "Dear Mr. Wilbur Jr:".

Many times people think I’m confused as to what my name really is, or that maybe I don’t understand directory style. So they "help" me by changing my name to what they think I mean. This happens most often when I have to fill out a form and put my name down in directory style. No matter what your name is, correct directory style is Lastname comma Firstname space Middlename(or initial) comma Suffix, or in my case, "Wilbur, D. Bruce, Jr." The usual permutations this brings are "Bruce D. Wilbur, Jr." (like it is on my Blue Cross card) or, strangely, "Wilbur D. Bruce, Jr."

A few years back when I was doing my chemical dependency work, I felt I had to do something symbolic to bury the person I had been to make room for the new and improved me. So, systematically I’ve changed as many things as I could to just plain old "Bruce Wilbur". I’ve changed magazine subscriptions, bank account names, credit cards, everything I could without going through an official legal name change. The only places I haven’t changed it are with Social Security, voter registration and DMV. And now of course I find Blue Cross still has me listed as "Bruce D. Wilbur, Jr." from way back in the 80s when I last had health insurance through them.

Anyhow, after 41 years, I’m sick and tired of all this crap and I’ve decided that as soon as I have the spare funds, I’m going to do a legal name change to just plain old "Bruce Wilbur". Of course after that I’m sure I’ll have to answer the question, "Why don’t you have a middle name?"…

Hey, I got some good news this morning. The account manager from Ajilon, Dan, poked his head into my cubie to say he’d met with my report-to here, Nancy, this morning. Nancy said that the department is very pleased with the work I’ve been doing. J As of Wednesday this week, I’ll have been here for five weeks.

So, other than suicidal about a month ago and happy with my new job, how have I been doing? Well I seem to be drifting further and further from my biological family. The only time I hear from any of them is when they want something from me. For instance, two weekends ago was my new niece’s baptism. I didn’t hear about it until just a week before the date. It was sort of an "Ooops. Forgot to invite Bruce."

My other brother wants me to go over and load my software library on to their new PC. It’s the first I’ve heard from them since June, I think. I drop by when I’m in their neighborhood, usually once a month or so. But it upsets me when I hear that they’ve been over to the museum or the planetarium (which are on the opposite corner of the intersection from my apartment,) and they can’t be bothered to drop by, or at least phone so I could cross the street to visit.

The result of this is that for the most part, since the kids only see me at those times a gift or envelope are required, that they’ve come to expect that every time they see me it means they’re getting money or stuff. Jeffrey says I shouldn’t be upset with the kids because after all, that’s the way they were brought up by my brothers and their wives. But I’m just sick and tired of being seen as Uncle Moneybucks. I’m so tired of it in fact that I’ve reduced the percentage they each get from the life insurance policy.

My parents are another issue entirely. I’ve written before that I’m completely ignored if a sister-in-law or grandkid is present. Now the Ice Queen, (my mother) didn’t exactly approve of Jeffrey in the first place. When she found out he was in jail, she stopped talking to me completely. This is no great loss. It is however awkward. But I have no compunctions whatsoever with regard to fucking with her head over this. And Jeffrey thinks it’s great fun to mess with her.

So it was great fun to show up at the Ice Queen’s house for the party after the baptism a week ago Sunday. Mass was at Noon, the christening at 1:15 and the party at 2:00. We showed up at the party at around 3:00. I was bearing no gifts or envelopes. We ate, drank some beer and after cake, we left them in our wake wondering just what had happened.