
                          A CONSULTANT'S CATASTROPHE

                           (c) 1995 by Kyle Freeman



  Perhaps it happens to every consultant at some point.  For me, it was on
  my second job.  After I had worked with computers for several years, fixed
  friends' machines, upgraded parts of my own, and read lots of computer
  lore, I had reached that point of knowledge best characterized by the word
  sophomoric (Greek for "wise idiot"). I got a business license, chose a
  catchy name,  Freeman's Almost Free Consulting, to distinguish myself from
  heavy hitters like Jeff Marchi (I was an English major and taught English
  at an Ivy League college, so I had to make some pun on my name),
  advertised in a local computer magazine, and waited for the calls to pour
  in.  After the first job went pretty well, I thought this would be fun.

  Then I got a call from Menlo Park, an hour train ride away from my home in
  San Francisco.  The victim needed, among other things, a new CD-ROM
  installed.  Although I had never done that, I'd seen one installed when I
  paid a visit to a local computer store to watch precisely that operation,
  and of course I had read lots of stuff about how to do it.  I thought I
  could handle it without much difficulty, so off I went.  After an $11 ride
  to Menlo Park, I set to work.

  THE SUMMARY

  To best describe my experience that day, I couldn't do better than to
  quote, sort of, the famous words of Julius Caesar (remember that in Latin
  v's were pronounced like our w's): veni, vidi, vaci:  I came, I saw, I
  murdered his machine!

  THE LAMENT

  God, it couldn't have been a bigger disaster!  Well, I suppose it could
  have been worse if somehow I had managed to make the damn thing
  spontaneously combust.  Actually, it could have been a lot worse if my
  client weren't such a genial fellow.  He not only bought me lunch at a
  nearby Burger King, he also paid me $50, even after I told him that he
  didn't owe me anything.  To crown this enterprise in catastrophe, I left
  my sports jacket at his apartment and had to return the next day to
  retrieve it.

  THE GORY DETAILS

  Before Freeman: a defective 5 1/4" A drive with a newly purchased
  replacement waiting to frolic in the electronic sun; a spanking new CD-ROM
  itching to be installed; and four slim 1 x 9 1MB SIMMs RAM chips eager to
  join the four already there.

  After Freeman: a dead hunk of mocking metal, with all the aforementioned
  devices neatly installed and defiantly noncommunicating.

  Basically, after we pulled off the cover, we had to take off the front
  panel, which unfortunately was still connected via a bunch of wires to the
  motherboard.  I think that we either pulled something loose, or when we put
  the panel back on and squeezed those wires against some metal edges, one or
  more of the wires might have been damaged.  At first the power wouldn't come
  on; then I got that fixed, but the opening beep never sounded and the
  monitor never showed a thing.  We looked at every wire, pulled out and
  replaced all the cards, made sure every connection was solid, tried the old
  A drive again, removed the new SIMMs, disconnected the CD-ROM, listened to
  Edvard Grieg, and cursed a lot.

  The problem was apparently the kind you could only diagnose with bench
  testing equipment, which of course he didn't have and I didn't know how to
  use anyway.

  I did manage to install DOS 6.2 for him before the misadventure began. He
  had DOS 5, had tried to install 6.0, but it asks for 2 disks for drive A for
  uninstalling it, and his A drive didn't work.  I knew the /G switch that
  bypasses that request, so I got first 6.0, then 6.2 put on through his B:
  drive, and then erased the OLD_DOS.1 directory they make. That was the last
  good thing I did.  On the whole I felt like drinking a warm cup of cyanide
  and going to bed.  I was just happy to slink out of there without being
  sued.  I knew there would be better days--there would just about have to
  be--but I realized then that consulting can have a dark side.  My business
  had come dangerously close to being Freeman's Almost Fried Consulting.  I
  spent a total of 12 hours, counting the train ride back the next day to pick
  up my jacket, for $28 profit.  But I also profited from a lesson about
  humility in the face of the daunting amount of knowledge you need to make
  these malignant boxes purr contentedly.

  I have since installed many CD-ROMs without any trouble, but when I set
  out on any new consulting adventure these days, I'm always aware of
  Alexander Pope's great line (I warned you: I was an English major),"A
  little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

  Who is Kyle Freeman? Hah! He sent us two versions of his bio and tells us
  that we "can mix and match"!

  "Version I - Kyle Freeman is a consultant living in San Francisco.  He
  started his business in 1994 after buying his first computer in 1991 from
  his winnings on Jeopardy, where he was a four-time champion.  Before that,
  he worked as an English teacher at Columbia University, and as a proof-
  reader for two major law firms, one of which currently represents Bill
  Clinton in the Paula Jones affair, er, case.

  "Version II - Kyle Freeman is a ne'er-do-well from San Francisco.  He is
  currently struggling to meet his rent, for reasons hinted at in his
  article above.  Before his shaky career as a computer consultant, he
  worked as a teacher at Columbia University and the College of Alameda.  He
  has been working with computers as a rank amateur for the last 6 years.
  He hopes to survive at least until the O.J. trial is over, so he'll go to
  his grave knowing that justice either was or was not done."


                                  *   *   *
  Always on the look out for computer professionals who can string two words
  together that make sense, I roped Kyle in with more than a bit of skill.
  He hangs out at the various Windows conferences on RIME and Ilink and has
  promised us another piece on one of the major Internet services and their
  proprietary software in the very near future. lbl



                                     ww



