George

Of the IT community there are two body types, too large and too skinny, and George was the later. As bendable as gumby, baggy in small clothes, wrists always bare at the end of his long reedy arms because sleeves would never reach. He diligently calls on the frustrated and angry who use words like server, network and hard drive interchangeably, without letting his frustrations show. They peck at their keyboards with conviction, as if a computer ignores commands that are too subtle, or can be intimidated by finger width judo chops. They strike the same keys over and over in a derisive tone, and repeatedly click click click the same icons before slamming their innocent mouse like it was an old tube TV. George wondered if the office bought Hello Kitty mice if people would be nicer to them.

He appreciated technology. George understood it as its' own art form, made more beautiful by the constraints of logic, like a bonsai tree slowly coaxed from the wild entropy of nature into a manicured living sculpture. The conjuring of usable assets from what was essentially still a mystery. He though of astronauts, putting their faith in a fraction of the technology he worked on every day, being shot into the unfathomable void, and coming back from the brink safely. George was removing malware from the same computer for the third time, because the operator wont stop playing bejeweled at work. She was standing behind him, arms crossed, suggesting 'more ram' as always, like a cure all salve, the universal solvent of the office world. "You know," she said dismissively, 'weren't we supposed to have jet packs by now. And they cant even make a computer work."

George responded, "You don't even understand how to work you cell phone and you think you can handle a jet pack?" before he could stop himself.