128) A New Career!
Dominic had bought an old computer and I was learning how to use it. Our printer was only black and white and we could not get the Internet but I really enjoyed it and learnt quite a lot from it. When the antique shop was sold and I could not find a job straightaway I thought I might be able to make some money doing data capture on the computer. I did a bit of investigation and everyone I spoke to thought it was a good idea and that I would be able to get enough to keep me fairly busy but they all agreed that I would need a more up to date computer if I was going to look for work. I knew this was something I wanted to do so we went ahead and bought another computer. One of my friends from church a woman called Cissy Crosby was a bookkeeper and she agreed to give me some work and advised me on which bookkeeping programme to buy. She also showed me how use the programme and gave me lots of help. She was doing the books for a local Italian restaurant and I would enter all the data for her. There would be hundreds of little dockets, stuffed into an old envelope and it was my job to enter them all into the computer.
I told people wherever I went that I was looking for data capture work, typing, bookkeeping, or anything. One morning I got a telephone call from the lady who ran the second hand bookshop in the village saying that she had a customer for me. I went to the shop to meet the gentleman and find out what it was that he wanted done. He turned out to be a theology student from The Congo who was studying for his doctorate at the University of East London, in the Cape Province. He told me that he was having a hard time finding anyone willing to do the work for him and I wondered why. We agreed on a price and he handed over his notes for his thesis. They had been typed but he told me that they were only a rough draft and he had altered and corrected them by hand and so they needed to be done again. We did have a bit of a problem communicating, as his mother tongue would have been the language spoken in the African village where he was born but as The Congo was a French colony he would have had most of his education in French. English was his third language and unfortunately my only language. His name was Curé; his mother had wanted him to become a priest even before he was born. Curé was a very vocal and volatile young man. He talked very fast and gesticulated with his hands to try to make himself understood. He said he needed the work done in about a week so there was no problem and could I please correct any grammar errors that I found. The problems only started when I began to type. I could not understand a word of what I was typing, his hand written additions and corrections were impossible to decipher and even the typed sections were a complete jumble. I assumed that his thesis was far too intelligent for me to understand and just tried to copy what was written but it was just too difficult. When I was in tears and close to pulling out my hair Jonny came to see if he could help me in any way and together we battled through it. What a nightmare! Eventually we printed it out and called Curé to please come and collect it. We explained that we had had problems with it and he said that he would correct it and then we could do the alterations for him. And I’d hoped that we had seen the last of it. A few days later he returned with the thirty odd page document liberally marked with red ink. Although there was a lot of red ink I was pleasantly surprised on how much we had got right, so once again Jonny helped me and the next day the client came to collect it. Then he told me that he was going down to East London to take his work to the university and that his professor wanted the work presented on a floppy disc. He supplied the disc and asked me to download the work on to it. I had never done that before and had to phone Dominic at work and ask him to help me. That was not hard; in fact it was the easiest part of the whole job. Curé went off happily promising to bring me more work when he got back. I tried to convince him that I was retiring from the typing business, going to break my hand, was thinking of jumping off a cliff, or just plain putting my head in the gas oven, anything not to have to do more work for him. But no amount of negative advertising would make him change his mind about using my typing service again.
About a fortnight later who should arrive at our front door but the selfsame student pastor, but he was not alone and this time he was not so happy. He had gone all the way to East London and had presented the professor with his little disc and it had been placed in the computer and had turned out to be blank. He had brought a young woman with him, someone who really knew how to use computers and he wanted me to let her load the data on to the disc this time as his professor was very angry with him. I felt terrible, all the time he had wasted, and he was in trouble for not presenting his work on time. I did not know what to say, what could I say, it was obviously my fault and I was ashamed. The young lady was very kind, she explained in saccharine sweet tones just how to download data on to a disc. She spoke as if she was speaking to a retarded child, but I felt like a retarded child so had no complaint with her. Away they went and the thought struck me that at least he would not be asking me to do any more of his typing.
Less than an hour later the phone rang, it was the young lady. She asked if she could come around again. She had just put the disc into her computer and guess what – it was blank! She had to admit that it was a faulty disc and she was not so condescending now. She came back and brought a new disc with her. She transferred the information on to it and told me that it was always a good idea to check that the transfer had been completed correctly but as she had not done so herself she had to say it rather gently. Curé never asked me to type anything for him again but I was not sorry as it was really too hard to understand what he wanted and to give him a good job.
I told people wherever I went that I was looking for data capture work, typing, bookkeeping, or anything. One morning I got a telephone call from the lady who ran the second hand bookshop in the village saying that she had a customer for me. I went to the shop to meet the gentleman and find out what it was that he wanted done. He turned out to be a theology student from The Congo who was studying for his doctorate at the University of East London, in the Cape Province. He told me that he was having a hard time finding anyone willing to do the work for him and I wondered why. We agreed on a price and he handed over his notes for his thesis. They had been typed but he told me that they were only a rough draft and he had altered and corrected them by hand and so they needed to be done again. We did have a bit of a problem communicating, as his mother tongue would have been the language spoken in the African village where he was born but as The Congo was a French colony he would have had most of his education in French. English was his third language and unfortunately my only language. His name was Curé; his mother had wanted him to become a priest even before he was born. Curé was a very vocal and volatile young man. He talked very fast and gesticulated with his hands to try to make himself understood. He said he needed the work done in about a week so there was no problem and could I please correct any grammar errors that I found. The problems only started when I began to type. I could not understand a word of what I was typing, his hand written additions and corrections were impossible to decipher and even the typed sections were a complete jumble. I assumed that his thesis was far too intelligent for me to understand and just tried to copy what was written but it was just too difficult. When I was in tears and close to pulling out my hair Jonny came to see if he could help me in any way and together we battled through it. What a nightmare! Eventually we printed it out and called Curé to please come and collect it. We explained that we had had problems with it and he said that he would correct it and then we could do the alterations for him. And I’d hoped that we had seen the last of it. A few days later he returned with the thirty odd page document liberally marked with red ink. Although there was a lot of red ink I was pleasantly surprised on how much we had got right, so once again Jonny helped me and the next day the client came to collect it. Then he told me that he was going down to East London to take his work to the university and that his professor wanted the work presented on a floppy disc. He supplied the disc and asked me to download the work on to it. I had never done that before and had to phone Dominic at work and ask him to help me. That was not hard; in fact it was the easiest part of the whole job. Curé went off happily promising to bring me more work when he got back. I tried to convince him that I was retiring from the typing business, going to break my hand, was thinking of jumping off a cliff, or just plain putting my head in the gas oven, anything not to have to do more work for him. But no amount of negative advertising would make him change his mind about using my typing service again.
About a fortnight later who should arrive at our front door but the selfsame student pastor, but he was not alone and this time he was not so happy. He had gone all the way to East London and had presented the professor with his little disc and it had been placed in the computer and had turned out to be blank. He had brought a young woman with him, someone who really knew how to use computers and he wanted me to let her load the data on to the disc this time as his professor was very angry with him. I felt terrible, all the time he had wasted, and he was in trouble for not presenting his work on time. I did not know what to say, what could I say, it was obviously my fault and I was ashamed. The young lady was very kind, she explained in saccharine sweet tones just how to download data on to a disc. She spoke as if she was speaking to a retarded child, but I felt like a retarded child so had no complaint with her. Away they went and the thought struck me that at least he would not be asking me to do any more of his typing.
Less than an hour later the phone rang, it was the young lady. She asked if she could come around again. She had just put the disc into her computer and guess what – it was blank! She had to admit that it was a faulty disc and she was not so condescending now. She came back and brought a new disc with her. She transferred the information on to it and told me that it was always a good idea to check that the transfer had been completed correctly but as she had not done so herself she had to say it rather gently. Curé never asked me to type anything for him again but I was not sorry as it was really too hard to understand what he wanted and to give him a good job.
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