Tales - Tales From The Computerstore

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

The first 16 chapters of this story have originally been posted on the TalesFromTechSupport sub Reddit on the website Reddit.com. The original postings can still be found at http://redd.it/17vprw

When I started writing my story I did not really expect it to go far. I had planned for sixteen chapters but did not expect it to go beyond maybe one or two. It turned out that Reddit loved the stories and made it abundantly clear with hundreds of comments, private messages and occasionally Reddit Gold.

During the series run a lot of people kept asking for an e-book to be published. And now after a few months wait here it is in all its glory. All the stories have been revised and edited to make the story more cohesive and easier to read.

Some of you will notice that some parts have changed a bit, that is because since the original run the story has also been read by Jeremy, Richard, Frank and Sarah who had pointed out a few corrections to be made. Relying on memories and old diary entries will get you far, but with an error rate.

I want to thank Reddit again for their great support in writing the stories. Specially to Reddit users TerminalPlantain and Jgarfink for editing most of my chapters and HrBingR for doing some odd jobs for me. If you have not been mentioned in this exclusive group, you have not been forgotten. I love you too.

For those that have not read the story on Reddit beforet, please note that the story takes place in east Germany from end 2006 to early 2009 despite the use of American conventions.

CHAPTER 1 - My first job in IT

December 2005 was when I first started working at the computer store in my town. Though I rarely pay any attention to the weathermuch less remember it years later - I remember the weather on the first

day of work vividly. It was around 4 p.m. when a storm started setting in and the sky turned dark.

The first rain started when I was about halfway to the store. Gusts of wind set in and tried their hardest to knock me of my bike. When I arrived at the store, I was surprised I had managed to keep my clothing dry, My hair, on the other hand, was a tangled mess. If only I knew at that time that I would bike that same route through every kind of weather for the next two years. Two years of dealing with rudeness, absurdity and stupidity, just to have it all end in an abrupt explosion.

Days before, the IT administrator at my school found out I knew my way around computers when he gave us all a training in the office suite. After class, he called me over and offered me a job at his business partners computer store. They had opened the store together back in the late 80s, he said. He had since moved on to a full-time job as an IT administrator for schools in the area, but still did some work in the store and continued to own his half.

My mom had always told me not to accept any offers from strange people, and he easily fit this vague description.. He was in his late forties, severely overweight, and looked like Ron Jeremy, the rather aesthetically challenged porn star. In a lapse of good judgement, I took him up on his offer. I had been looking for a job for a while and really needed to replace my Nomad Zen with one of those fancy new iRiver MP3 players.

He wrote the address of the store on the back of an old piece of paper and told me to get to the store around 18:30 on Thursday. He and his business partner would get me a formal job interview. The way he said it, especially the intonation on the business partner part, sounded like I was being invited to do a casting couch audition for some B-grade porno. Still to this day whenever somebody mentions a business partner, I throw up in my mouth a little.

After finishing up my homework at the school cafeteria that Thursday, I set off by bike to the computer store. It was located in one of the older neglected neighbourhoods of our small city. The storeand all the stores surrounding it, for that matterwere in dire need of a new layer of paint and their tiles and signs could use a good cleaning. I stood in front of the store. I fixed my hair and somewhat reluctantly opened the door and walked in. No turning back now.

I was greeted by my future co-worker Jeremy, a 21-year-old college dropout.

How can I help you today, pretty girl? he asked. I ignored the pretty girl part of his hello and told him about my job application. I was supposed to see Ron Jeremy and his business partner. Without saying a word he walked to the back, leaving me behind in a confused state of mind.

As I looked around, I saw a lot of old damaged displays. Some obscure burning software that was on sale (for more than the retail price at $49.95, mind you) was not to be missed. It had a huge cardboard display with a rather C-grade category model printed on it, praising the product.

Most of the walls and tables were full of accessories. Mainly cheap Chinese and Koreans knock-off brands, sold for Logitech and Microsoft hardware prices. A few PCs and displays with outdated components lined the walls and were also given absurd prices. The current generation computers were even more expensive.

A cash register that was older than most of the computer equipment in the store sat atop a glass counter. Inside the counter, display boxes with USB gadgets of questionable quality were arranged haphazardly. Underneath, games upon games were stashed in the storage space.

This had to be the only shop where you could still buy every Doom game released for PC in mint condition for twice the MSRP, years, even a decade later. It was a niche marketwe never really sold many of these games.

When I was done looking around the store, Jeremy returned and told me I could head back. I walked around the counter and almost broke my neck as I fumbled over the boxes full of no-brand memory cards. Stumbling into the back, I almost bumped into the business partner. When I took a few steps back and looked at him, I saw the top half of his shirt, unbuttoned, showing a rather disgusting orangeish forest of hair and a golden necklace. I took a few more steps back and took in the full picture.

Like Ron, this man was severelyeven morbidlyobese and was so large he could block your path. His face looked like he just had a stroke and when I looked at him I saw a disgusting smile, one that is still burned on my retinas today. A smile of lust. This might be a good time to mention I was a 16-year-old girl who just hit puberty and was developing fast.

They both pointed at one of the seats and took their places opposite me. Jeremy shouted from the front of the store that he was leaving. Before I had time to react, I heard the front door slam shut. Looking back at the two obese figures in front of me, I felt somewhat uncomfortable. My boobs seemed to have a gravitational pull like a twin pair of suns with the eyeballs of the two obese man circling around them as planets. They kept their distance, knowing going closer would burn them.

Ron started talking about how he liked my work at school and thinks I can help Don with the store during nights and weekends. Don, not impressed by my skills yet, insisted on giving me a series of tests hed prepared the day before. Anyone worthy of working in his store would solve these problems in no time was how he described his tests. While he said this, I looked at him a second time. He struck me as the love child of Donald Trump and Fat Bastard from the Austin Powers series.

The first test Don gave me was to install Windows XP on one of the new machines for a customer. I had to make sure all the drivers were installed as well. Nothing special, as Windows XP installations are as straight-forward as they get, they just take forever. Especially when installed on a Pentium III with 256MB of ram.