Kieran is back with another adventure! This time the CEO of a company is desperate for his expertise. Be sure to check out MILF Support 1 for more of Kieran's adventures!
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'No way, Amy. No way!' Kieran turned off his car. 'Do you hear that? That's my car shutting off. Which means I'm home and not going on another call.'
'Come on,' Amy wheedled. Kieran could hear crowd noise in the background. A bar? And she was trying to get him to go back to work? 'I really need you to help us out here.'
'I've been given tickets at the end of my shift, like, four times in the past month.' Although one of those times was a memorable experience with Shelley, a sexy older woman who definitely appreciated Kieran's help. It was a memory that still brought a smile to Kieran's face. But he wasn't going to tell his boss that. 'I don't see that happening to many other guys.'
'This is an emergency call out because the on site IT isn't available. That's quadruple rate plus emergency for the shop.'
'And how much of that flows my way?'
Amy groaned. 'OK, Corporate has been assholes about OT in the past. But I guarantee you will see the rate this time - double pay, door to door, plus mileage.' Amy's voice changed. 'Kieran you helped set up this site, and you're the only guy with the certifications to do the work. And if I piss this client off...I think I might be done here, Kieran. Seriously.'
Kieran signed. He liked Amy, he really did. She was a good boss overall, smart and fair for the most part. The corporate overlords just treated her like crap, which trickled down to everyone else.
'Put what I'm going to get paid in an email.' Kieran turned the key. 'Do you hear that? That's my car starting. I'm on the clock now.'
Forty five minutes later - after driving back to his workplace to pick up the tools he needed for the job - Kieran pulled to a stop in front of the last storefront in a row of light industrial warehouses. All the lights were off, except for one in a back office.
'TR3 Biological,' Kieran muttered to himself as he got his bag from the trunk. 'Whatever that means.'
It was ten after six, well past the closing time of five pm written on the door. Sure enough, the door was locked. Kieran banged on the glass door, hoping whoever was inside could hear him.
After a long ten seconds, Kieran saw motion in the back office, and it resolved itself into the form a lean, middle aged black woman walking quickly to the door. The loose collection of curls - her afro?- were dyed a dirty blonde and bounced as she hurried to let Kieran in.
'You're the IT guy?' she asked as she jerked open the door. She was pretty, with caramel skin, and deep brown eyes. Kieran caught a hint of a flowery perfume. 'What took you so long?'
Great, Kieran thought. It's going to be that type of call.
He put on his game face. 'Sorry, ma'am. This is an emergency call out since your on-site IT support isn't available, so I had to go to the office to pick up my tools.'
The woman rolled her eyes. 'Things have been running smoothly forever, so I cut back on on-call hours for Jeff. Of course, when something goes wrong he's out of town. Whatever. My computer is in the back office.'
Kieran wondered how she walked so fast in heels and tight skirt. But she must have been in good shape - the sleeveless blouse showed off well defined arms.
'Tell me about the problem,' Kieran asked as he kept pace.
'The screen just went black an hour ago. It sounds like the computer is still on, but nothing shows up.'
Unplugged monitor cable, unplugged power cable for the monitor, bad video card, failed hard drive...Kieran listed the things he would check in order.
'You have to fix it right away,' the woman said as they entered her office. 'I got two hours to submit a proposal and don't have time for you to dick around or whatever it is you IT people do.'
Believe me, I don't want to spend an extra second around here if I don't have to, Kieran thought as he glanced around the office. It looked like a gust of wind - a strong gust - had blown through recently. Haphazard stacks of paper threatened to overwhelm the desk in the middle, where the offending computer sat. He kept his mouth shut, though, and focused on the problem at hand. Try to fix what was wrong with her machine or...
'I took a look at the service agreement for this site on the way over. There's a small server here that backs up to the cloud, and three networked machines. Have you tried logging on to one of the other machines?'
The woman squawked. 'Are you kidding me? That's all I had to do?'
'If you've been saving your work to a networked drive' - please please please - 'That's all you'll have to do.'
'I can't believe I'm paying you for this!' The woman stormed out of the office and towards the front of the building, lights snapping on with vigour as she went.
'Barely worth the OT,' Kieran muttered as he went to work examining the computer. Everything was plugged in - check. He pulled out his laptop and connected the monitor. The screen popped up, so the monitor was working - check. So something wrong with the hard drive or video card?
'Goddammit! Fuck fuck fuck!'
That was not a good sign. Steeling himself, Kieran went to go find out what was wrong.
A document was up on the screen, cursor blinking benignly. The woman was slouched in the receptionist's chair, her body limp. It was as though the last outburst had taken her remaining reserve of energy.
'The file is there, but it's from earlier this afternoon,' she said, her voice hollow. 'There's at least two hours of work to get it where it needs to be and -' she looked at time on the bottom of the screen, 'And it's thirty minutes until seven. There's no way I can get it done.' She buried her face in her hands and let out a ragged breath. 'That's it. It's over. It's done.'
Kieran gently prodded the woman out of the way. She moved willing, rolling the chair to the side, hands still covering her face. Knowing how the system worked, praying that their IT guy hadn't changed the settings, Kieran took note of the file name, Proposal 145 - HeartTronic, and closed the document. He found the file in the directory, right clicked and went to 'Previous Versions'. A list of three popped up - and one of those was from five o'clock. Kieran restored the file and opened it.
'How does that copy look?'
The woman looked up. Her eyes were dry - surprising given her defeated body language. She glanced at the screen, straightened up, and pulled herself back to the desk.
'Oh my God,' she said, scrolling through the document. 'This is from right before everything went to hell!' She looked up at Kieran. 'There's a spreadsheet, too - can you bring that one back?'
Her voice was different now, not all gruff and demanding, but hopeful and excited. It suited her much better.
'Is it this one?' Kieran asked, pointing at a file in the same directory. She nodded, on the edge of seat. Kieran went through the same steps and opened the file.
The woman let out a squeak - a sound completely at odds with her business like appearance and demeanour - and jumped up. She threw her arms around Kieran and planted a kiss on his lips.
'This can still happen!' she said, sitting back down and placing her fingers on the keyboard. 'I can still send this out on time!'
Kieran left her to it, backing out of the room without attracting her attention. The nice, thankful client was here now and he didn't want to risk sending her away.
Whistling to himself - regardless of a client's attitude, Kieran always enjoyed a job well done - he set himself back to the task of troubleshooting the broken computer. The monitor wasn't the problem, so it had to be the tower. He hit the hot keys to shut down the computer and waited for the telltale sound of the fan powering down to know when the computer was off. Sure enough, the computer turned off with no problem, furthering suggesting that the video card was the problem. Satisfied, he went about clearing some space on the desktop to open up the computer case. He moved the purple, tear dropped shape pen holder out of the way, then paused.
Tear drop, or rain drop?
Why whistle when technology made nearly all the songs in the world available in his pocket? Whistling a new tune, Kieran brought up a Prince playlist, made sure the volume was low, and hit play.
Kieran was just closing up the case when the woman came back to the office. In stark contrast to her previous body language, which had been full of tense, quick movements, she moved in a more languid manner now, almost lithe. Smiling, she leaned against the door, resting her head on the frame.
'It's sent, with half an hour to spare.'
'I'm glad to hear it,' Kieran said, the stock answer coming out of his lips as he tightened the final screw on the case. He started to reconnect all the cables.
'It got sent because of you.' The woman walked into the room and leaned on the desk with her hands. 'I want to apologize for the way I treated you when you arrived. You were here to fix a problem and didn't need me to be a raging bitch to you.'
Kieran, still hooking up the computer, barely looked up and got ready to produce the same answer every IT guy who had ever been yelled at by a user responded with - 'Don't worry about it, sir/ma'am', but stopped when he saw her face.
Her brow was slightly furrowed, and her eyes were full of actual sincerity. Kieran got the impression she didn't want him to just brush off her apology. She actually meant it, and wanted him to treat it seriously.
'Thank you. I accept your apology.' Kieran smiled at her, and she smiled back. 'And let's see.' He pushed the power button and, after a moment, the computer booted up, the monitor flashing to life. 'This is fixed, too.'
The woman laughed. 'That's classic timing.' She let out a sigh. 'I need a drink. How about you?' Without waiting for an answer, she disappeared.
Kieran shrugged and started putting everything back in place. The woman was back a few seconds later, carrying a bottle of Jameson's and two plastic cups.
'The warehouse guys think I don't know where they keep their stash.' She wiggled the bottle at him. 'They think the big, bad, boss is going to take it away.'
