"Good morning, Computer Service, may I help you?"
"Yes, I think I've got a virus on my computer," said a lovely, sweet, female voice with just a touch of Southern lilt.
"Okay, would you like to bring it in or have someone come look at it?"
"I, ah, I really don't want to bring it in."
"Where are you located?"
"In town actually, about a mile from your shop, according to the phone book."
"Well," I said, checking the shop schedule. "I can get someone over tomorrow afternoon."
There was a pause.
"Um, is there, ah, any way I can get someone today? It's kind of important."
Now, I've been running my business for long enough that I no longer work in it. I've got techs working for me, and my job is to stay in the office and run the business. But I'm a sucker for women in distress, and this woman had just the right tone in her voice. She wasn't whining and sounded like she really needed help, and I was in the business of helping.
"Well, okay, I can make some room in my schedule after lunch... say, around one. Is that okay?"
With a huge sigh of relief, she said, "That would be wonderful. I can't thank you enough."
I've never met this woman and have no idea what she looks like or who she is, but that last phrase still sent a few thoughts spinning off in my mind. Okay, it had been a while for me, and a woman with a voice like that saying she could not thank me enough -- it only made me think of ways that she could, in fact, accomplish that.
Jeez, and that was just the voice.
I got her address, phone number, and the rest of the information I needed, and then went back to running my business. Oh yeah, and the name: Sarah. I loved the way she said that.
My name is Mark. I'm a pretty average thirty-seven year old, in good shape for having little time to work on it. The long hair I wear in a ponytail most of the time is a reflection of my childhood with certifiably hippy parents. I've been wrapped up in my computer service business for the past eight years, and am just now to the point that I feel like it is on cruise. I've got a couple of techs, and we all make enough to live on. My marriage fell apart in the process of building my business, and sad to say, I hardly noticed. But now that the biz is running smoothly, I've raised my head and I see that my life is not exactly balanced. So I'm working on it. Working on doing something, anything other than work.
****
Sarah's house was in a nice neighborhood -- not wealthy, but not low rent. It was like most of our customers: middle to upper middle class -- comfortable, not rich.
I rang the doorbell. The woman who fit that sweet voice opened the door and she was gorgeous. She had black hair hanging loosely below her shoulders, was average height and slim, but for the right places. As usual I tried to take in what I could while maintaining eye contact, introducing myself, and giving her my card. Even that was not easy, as she had the most startling pale blue eyes.
It is important, doing what we do, going into people's houses, to be professional and safe. About half of our calls during the day are women by themselves and there is a practiced way to present oneself as a safe person. I'm good at it and have received a warm smile for my troubles.
"Thank you for coming today. It means a lot to me," she said flashing a beautiful smile again.
I'm a sucker for smiles, too.
"I'm glad I could make it."
"The computer is in here," she said leading me into a room in the back of the house.
Following her, I could get in a little more visual information without appearing to be too wolfish. She was, in a word, sexy. And it was without really trying -- subtle. She wore a pastel blue summer dress that gently swished as she glided down the hallway: conservative. She certainly had the attributes to have some serious cleavage, but the top of the dress was high enough to block all but a hint of what was there. And as I walked behind her, I was intoxicated by the gentle scent of musk. I knew it: Cinnabar, my favorite. And she was bare footed. For some reason that struck me as even sexier. Okay, the whole damn package was intoxicating. I had to give myself a mental slap to get back on track with why I was there.
The house was comfortable with warm colors. Lived in, but not messy. Quiet. It didn't seem like anyone else was home. The computer room was large enough to have a couch, TV cabinet, desk and computer. A fairly recent Dell was below the desk, which was nice. One real annoyance for any onsite computer tech is to work on a really old, really slow PC. It happens a lot and the waiting can be excruciating, even if paid by the hour.
I gave her the contract we always use to sign: on-site initial cost ($92 for the first hour), customer, not my company, is responsible for the data, and so on. She signed without reading it. So far she had not addressed cost at all. That frequently happens. People just want to get things fixed, and think that a couple of hundred dollars for a house call that gets them going again on their computer is reasonable, which it is.
I sat down. Here's the part when you learn what kind of customer you are really dealing with. There are basically two types: the hovering customer who will take up residence on your shoulder, and the abandoning customer who leaves the room and lets the tech do the work. Generally, I favor the latter, as do all techs (much like the mechanic sign: $40 per hour, $50 if you watch, $60 if you help). But this time I was kind of hoping for the former. I got a hybrid.
"Do you want some water or maybe a Coke?"
I always say yes. It is a funny thing but accepting such offerings helps the customer relax.
"Water would be great."
And she disappeared out of the room in a swish of skirt that again threatened to pull me away from my mission.
I turned on the computer and watched the boot up process. It took a while and once it was complete, I could see why. There is a class of malware called a "Rogue antivirus." In simple terms, it is a way for the far eastern European gangs to extort money from people who don't understand what they are seeing. An application pops up and purports to be some antivirus program scanning your computer. The names and features change every few weeks but it is always something like "Windows Security Suite 2012," or a similar sounding important name. That is what she had here. "Windows 7 Home Security Tool" was staring me right in the face. There is no such valid software. It wanted her to send in some money to clean all the malware that it has supposedly found, all the while opening the door for even more malware.
The whole thing is pretty damn insidious. My plan in situations like this is to take one shot at cleaning them and, when that fails to complete the job, as it usually does, back up the PC and reload it. Cleaning malware can take hours and days and is just too costly. Backup and reload is quick and cost controlled at under $200.
So, I loaded my virus killing tools from my flash drive and went to work. As always, it was a few clicks and lots of waiting for processes to complete. Normally I really don't like to just sit and wait, but the whole skirt swishing thing and scent of musk somehow helped me overcome that annoyance.
"Your water," she said in that soft flowing voice.
"Thank you," I said.
She moved up next to me. Her hip was around my shoulder level and her hand on the chair behind me. I began explaining the situation to her and as she asked questions or made comments, she moved her hip and kind of leaned against me just a little sometimes. Her hand occasionally touched my shoulder lightly as she talked as if to emphasize a point. I couldn't really tell if there was something going on intentionally, or if it was just accidental contact. But the contact was somewhat distracting. Okay, the contact was really distracting. My reaction was fortunately under the keyboard tray, as it was becoming somewhat prominent.
It seemed to me that we were talking in a very tactile language and the meaning was becoming increasingly clear to me. I responded to the pressure of her hip kind of leaning into her as I explained what we were looking at and gave my spiel on malware. Then wrapped it up with the bad news.
"Okay, the front end of the call is $92 for the first hour but it is looking like this is a longer haul. I'm not going to be able to clean this in an hour, probably not two or three. The best course of action will be to take it back to the shop, back it up and reload it. The cost for that is $199. Then there is a pickup/delivery fee of $50. I should be able to get you all done for around $250, plus tax."
She sighed and sagged a bit at the news.