06/14/2007

Thank you for everything Roger/Raja

By Loraine Anderson
Local columnist
landerson@
record-eagle.com

Read Loraine's past columns here

I sit at my desk, babysitting a photographer's limping laptop. The day staff left an hour ago. Annoyance brews, impatience stews. Out of the cosmos, comes my newest mantra for postmodern times, an ancient phrase dripping Eastern philosophy.

"Thank you for everything, I have no complaints.”

I have just learned a 98-minute test must be run on the laptop's hard drive to get the error message that confirms what I already know: The laptop needs a new hard drive.

But I'm not complaining. We still have one year left on our three-year service plan so we're entitled to a new "free” hard drive.

"Free,” it turns out, is an empty word. We still have to pay the local tech who already ran the test, got the error message and rescued what digital images he could before I called Hewlett-Packard. We also will have to pay him to install the new hard drive that will be sent to us in the mail once that error message comes up - 93 minutes from now. Yada yada yada.

I take a deep mindful breath. Rant on the in-breath, rave on the out. Oh, yeah, right. I forgot.

"Thank you for everything. I have no complaints.”

Fortified, I embrace the moment in my windowless cubicle (is that a complaint?), ear to the phone and listen to a tech in India patiently explain again how to get into the laptop's BIOS to start the test.

His name is Roger, or maybe Raja. He speaks excellent English and I tell him so.

"Thank you, Mum.” It is 3 a.m. in Bangelore where he lives and he works through the night. I note no hint of complaint in his voice.

My heart calms and opens. We are global villagers sharing the same frustrating moment, staying present and polite in it, though it is Wednesday there and Tuesday here. Or is it the other way around?

Time and place deconstruct in the world as we know it.

Roger/Raja takes leave to answer more calls. So many computers break down on the information highway. He is the guy on the tow truck. I'm the lady who doesn't know how to fix a flat tire. He's patched it up and gives me an 800 number to call after the 98 minutes are up.

As I hang up, I wonder what Roger/Raja's life is like. In that question, I realize the connection to a soul halfway around the world in a place I probably never will be.

Sometimes I don't know what this world is coming to. But tonight, in this moment, I know all time is now and that how we treat others is how we treat ourselves.

"Thank you for everything, I have no complaints.”

Record-Eagle columnist Loraine Anderson can be reached at landerson@record-eagle.com or 231-933-1468.