In this line of work, there’s really not a lot to take personally. Computers don’t care about you, and, truth be told, don’t care about what you need or when.

But one thing I learned from my folks, putting in years in the US Postal Service, is the notion of your reputation and of your word. And how it’s like a castle; takes years to build up, but can crumble in a day.

I’ve been doing this tech thing for over 20 years. I’ve been in this place for more than ten. And over that time, I’ve cultivated a reputation that, professionally, I know what I’m doing, I don’t BS you, and as long as you treat me with respect, I may go above and beyond for you.

I get a call this morning from a co-worker who’s trying to help a faculty member at our other site. She insists that she can’t install printers, and they “used to work”. He gets her machine and finds out that NONE of our standard software is on the machine. The profssor insists they have no idea what’s going on.

Now, this is a Mac. And the reason why this is important is that, for the past nine years, no one in this institution has gotten a institution-owned Mac I haven’t touched. And this name doesn’t sound familiar at all.

They, meanwhile, are actually in the background, huffing and puffing bout how unacceptable this all is. How could this happen? What kind of shop are you running over there? Maybe I need to have a talk with someone’s superiors. Et cetera.

I’m angry now. You’re doubting my work, AND you’re calling me a liar. You’re insisting this is my problem, and you want me to know just how put-upon you are. And if I were a scared, fresh-out-of-college kid who was oblivious to the gaslighting, I might have bought into it.

But, as Cedric the Entertainer would say?

“I’m a grown-ass man, dawg.”

I ask my colleague to look at the bottom of the laptop. Every machine we buy has an asset tag, a sticker we put on for our internal records.

There’s no sticker.

I ask him to press the prof on how do they log in. When did they get this laptop? Because I may be old, but a quick glance through my email’s Search function tells me I’ve never talked to this person, a function I do with everything I build. Int the very least, I have to talk to you about when you’re coming to get the machine, or what software you want on it.

A light bulb goes off. “Ask them if she knows who I am.”

They’ve never heard of me.

After pressing that nerve, they finally admit that this is their personal laptop, and they wanted to get all of our software for free instead of going through the proper channels. They wanted to bully my colleague into just doing what they wanted with no questions. They even admitted that, no, they’ve never installed the printers, or printed, or ANYTHING of the sort.

But you were brolic enough to question my work. My work ethic. My reputation by insisting I did not do my job.

Okay. Let’s go.