Her gaze was so intense that it took Anna several seconds to realize that she was waiting for an answer.
“You bought your Mac just because of that day at the Bean Grinder?”
Elizabeth looked at her for a moment longer before shaking her head with a chuckle. “Is that the only thing that got your attention out of everything I just said?”
“Well, no, but…did you?”
“Yes. You got me started. I went home and started doing some research, and the more I read, the more I liked the idea. I don’t think I’d ever have considered it if we hadn’t had that day together.”
Elizabeth had gone home and done research based on their day together? She’d had that kind of effect on her?
Well, why did you think she bought a Mac? Because her horoscope told her to?
No, but…she’d just never thought about it. And right now the idea of her being able to influence Elizabeth was oddly gratifying. As opposed to the idea of giving a presentation in front of the entire assembled upper management of the university, which was completely terrifying.
But you and Elizabeth can work on it together. This will keep you connected.
“I’ve never done anything like this,” she said slowly.
“Yes, you have. You did at the Bean Grinder.”
“That was just you!”
“And this is also just me—plus a few other people. Anna, I don’t want a polished lecture. I want you to talk to them the way you did to me. With a few more facts and figures at your fingertips.”
Anna studied her for a moment. “You really think I can do this?”
“Do you think I’d ask you if I didn’t?”
“No.” If there was one thing she knew for sure, it was that Elizabeth would not take chances on the job. She was a professional.
So are you, her inner voice pointed out.
“Your director thinks you can, too,” Elizabeth added. “He told me you know your stuff. That’s a quote.”
“I can’t believe he’s turning down face time with the president and provost,” said Anna.
Elizabeth’s mouth quirked up on one side. “He didn’t get the chance to turn it down, because I didn’t ask him to give this presentation. I asked for you to give it.”
Whoa. That meant Elizabeth was pulling rank to get her in that meeting. She couldn’t possibly say no.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it. But I’m going to need your help.”
“You have it.”
“Great. Excuse me now while I rush to the ladies’ room and throw up.”
Elizabeth laughed. “It won’t be that bad. And if you get nervous, just keep your eye on the ball. Your goal is to change those policies.”
That was a good point, and it served to solidify Anna’s resolve. Those policies really were outdated and obstructionist, as Elizabeth had so succinctly put it. If she could help change them—damn, that would be worth the effort.
“You’re right,” she said. “I know a lot of people who wish they could have Macs, but their departments won’t let them. I’d love to help them.”
“Good,” said Elizabeth. “What kind of help do you need from me?”
“Could you write down what you just said to me? About all the things you want me to do? If I could get that in e-mail form, I could use it as a kind of guide to building a presentation.”
“You got it.”
* * *
Elizabeth worked fast; Anna hadn’t been back in her office half an hour before that e-mail arrived. It was exactly what she’d asked for, in a bulleted list to make it even easier for her. And at the end, there was a postscript:
By the way, would you have any idea how my hard drive was somehow named Supertoaster?
Anna pictured Elizabeth staring at her computer screen, noticing for the first time the little silver toaster with wings that hovered at the top right corner. The image made her laugh, and she was still chuckling as she hit Reply.
No idea at all. It does seem apt, though.
Five minutes later another e-mail arrived.
Thanks. You really gave me a good laugh, and I keep smiling every time I look at it. Of course, now I’m wondering what you named yours.
Anna took a screen shot of her desktop and attached it to an e-mail with only one comment:
You probably could have guessed this one.
It was an image of an old-fashioned signpost, with wooden signs pointing in every direction. Anna’s hard drive was named Wanderer.
CHAPTER 9
That first e-mail exchange opened the gates. Over the course of the next three weeks, a flurry of e-mails passed between Anna and Elizabeth, most of which were ostensibly about the presentation but still managed to wander into other topics. Somehow, and with a suddenness that dazzled Anna, her relationship with Elizabeth had become just the sort of friendly coworker type that she had wished for back in October, after she had stupidly thrown away her first chance. Now she was being offered a second, and she wasn’t about to waste it.
The only problem was that Elizabeth’s friendliness remained professional, and Anna had no idea how to move it beyond that. How did one say, “Hey, I’ve changed my mind, and I’d like to pick up where we left off before I was an idiot”? Nothing in their e-mail exchanges came remotely close to an opening for that sort of statement.
The weeks flew by a little too quickly for her taste, and before she knew it, she was walking a familiar path across campus to the Admin building, this time with her stomach somewhere around her ankles. Her steps dragged as she pushed through the glass doors, and when she pressed the call button for the elevator, her finger shook slightly. For heaven’s sake, it wasn’t like she didn’t know what she was talking about! But of course that wasn’t the problem. The problem was who she was talking to.
Chanda was on the phone when she walked in and merely smiled and pointed toward the inner door as she continued her conversation. Anna clutched her laptop bag more tightly and rapped on the door.
“Come in.”
Elizabeth was standing at her desk, sliding folders into her briefcase. She glanced over, then paused and took a more careful look as a smile grew on her face. “Wow. You clean up nicely.”
Anna blushed. “I haven’t worn this since my job interview. Computer geeks don’t often have a need for pantsuits.”
“And most computer geeks don’t look that good in one.” Elizabeth turned away to gather a few more folders, leaving Anna stupefied at what sounded an awful lot like a flirtatious comment.
“Um…thank you,” she said. “I’d compliment you on your outfit, too, except that you always look like you just stepped out of a stockholder meeting.”
Elizabeth flashed her a smile. “Thanks. Though I have to say I envy your dress code sometimes. Most of the people in this building would probably pass out if I showed up for work in jeans. Chanda would be the first.” She flipped the top over on her case and shouldered it. “Are you ready?”
“I’m ready to get it over with.”
“You’ll do fine. The run-through you did with me was perfect.”
“Yeah, but that was just with you. This is with everyone else.”
“If you get too nervous, just remember the first rule of public speaking,” Elizabeth said, walking past her to the door. “Imagine everyone in the room is naked. Take away the power suits, and people are pretty much the same.”
Anna needed a moment to catch up, having been temporarily glued in place by the thought of a nude Elizabeth sitting at the conference table. No, that was not a good strategy for combating nervousness. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d really rather not imagine President Ross naked,” she said as she followed Elizabeth to the outer office. Chanda was looking at them wide-eyed, and Elizabeth chuckled.
“I was just giving her a little public speaking advice,” she said.
“Heavens,” said Chanda. “That would scare anyone. Try some different advice; that one seems to have turned her green.”
Eli
zabeth turned around, looking at Anna with a concerned expression. “Anna, you’ll do great. You’re not giving a presentation on the comparative gross national products of first and third world countries. You’re talking about something you do every day, something you know inside and out. Something you know much better than anyone else in that room. That’s why we need your expertise, because you know so much more about this than we do.” She paused, then reached out and laid a gentle hand on Anna’s shoulder. “Just imagine it’s you and me in the Bean Grinder.”
Her dark eyes held something that Anna hadn’t seen before, and she felt a warmth begin to displace the butterflies in her stomach. “Okay,” she said. “If anything can help, that will.”
Elizabeth held her gaze a moment longer, then smiled and patted her shoulder. “All right, then. Let’s go change some policies.” She turned and walked out.
“Good luck,” said Chanda, giving her an encouraging smile. “Tell them I wouldn’t go back to a PC if they paid me.”
That worked. Anna laughed, waved at Chanda, and chased Elizabeth down the hall.
* * *
The conference room was on the sixth floor of the Admin building, which coincidentally housed the offices of the president and provost. Anna had always theorized that in a university structure, power could be inferred by the physical distance of one’s office from the nearest conference room. Which meant she personally had no power at all; the nearest conference room to her office was over in the library.
And it didn’t hold a candle to this one. Anna felt intimidated just by the empty space and the fact that a single-page agenda was already squarely placed in front of ten seats around the table.
Apparently sensing her resurgent nervousness, Elizabeth once again calmed her with a hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t you get set up?” She indicated the projector that was waiting on the table.
Relieved to have something to do, Anna dropped her bag in the seat nearest the projector, pulled out her laptop, and booted it up.
Elizabeth set her briefcase right next to her and went off to a refreshment cart that Anna hadn’t noticed when they came in. “Hey, they have cookies from the student union. Do you want one?”
Anna typed in her password. “Do they have chocolate chip walnut?”
“They have chocolate chip some-sort-of-nut, but I’m not sure what it is.”
“Sounds fine. I’ll take one,” said Anna, digging out her video adapter.
She had the first slide showing on the screen by the time Elizabeth returned with cookies and tea, but before she could thank her, the doors opened and several people walked in. Then she was too busy being introduced and making small talk to remember how nervous she was, even as she shook hands with President Ross and others whose names she knew well but had never met before. After several minutes of general chatting—during which the cookie supply was dramatically reduced—Ross made his way to the head of the table and everyone else took their seats as if a whistle had been blown.
“Well, let’s get this meeting started,” he said. “We’re doing things in a little different order today, since we have a guest with us. As you can see, the issue of employee technology policy is first on the agenda, and Anna Petrowski will be giving a presentation to fill in some holes we may have in our understanding of the topic. Anna, we’re grateful for your participation.”
“Thank you, Dr. Ross. I’m glad to be here.”
“Elizabeth, would you care to introduce us to the topic?”
“Certainly.” Elizabeth folded her hands together in a relaxed posture. “I’ve recently learned that our policies regarding employee computer usage are not consistent. Some colleges and departments allow employees to use whichever computer platform they’re comfortable with, while others limit employees to the Windows operating system. I think we could benefit from reexamining these policies, particularly in terms of how much the computer industry has changed since some of those policies were first instituted. As we all know, it’s an extremely fast-moving industry, and we need to make sure that the university doesn’t get left behind.”
“In other words, you’re in love with your new laptop and you think everyone else should get a Mac, too.”
Anna looked across the table at the speaker, whom she recognized as Del Martinez, Vice President of University Advancement and the only other woman in the room. From her smile it was clear that Del was teasing Elizabeth, however aggressive her words had seemed.
“In other words,” Elizabeth said, “I’m in love with the way my new laptop has made my work life easier, and I think every employee on this campus should have the same choice that I did. I was frankly surprised to learn that in many cases, they don’t.”
“And that is not the preference of Information Services,” said Aaron Lawrence. “I know for a fact that our computer techs often prefer the Mac service requests over the PC ones. Can you tell us why that is, Anna?”
Startled for a moment to be asked a direct question, Anna nevertheless managed to answer immediately. “Partly because the problems are usually easier to solve, and partly because the people who use Macs tend to have a better understanding of exactly what the problem is, which cuts down on our diagnosis time.”
“Interesting,” said President Ross. “Why do they have a better understanding of the problem?”
“Well…I’m going to take a side step into psychology here, because that’s where I think the answer lies. Computer operating systems are complicated things, and that’s just the nature of the beast. You can’t build a machine that responds to thousands upon thousands of discrete commands and expect it to be simple. Both the Apple and the Windows operating systems put a nice cover over that underlying complexity, but with Windows, the cover isn’t solid. A lot of the stuff underneath shows through, and it can be very confusing to the average user. So a lot of Windows users tend to learn as much as they absolutely have to know and no more. The Apple cover is much more solid, giving the appearance of a far simpler system. People feel more comfortable with it right from the beginning. They feel safer and better able to explore, and in the process they learn how to move around their OS more easily. So when it comes time for someone like me to sit next to them and ask them what’s wrong, they can give a better answer. Because they know more about the system they’re using.”
“I can attest to that,” said Elizabeth. “That’s been precisely my experience. On my Windows machine I’d be calling for Tech Assistance the moment something went wrong, because I didn’t even want to begin to try to figure it out. With my Mac I feel more comfortable checking things out on my own, and I’ve solved a few problems myself without having to call for help. Which has saved Tech Assistance quite a bit of time.”
“That doesn’t seem to be a valid argument for the benefit of Macs,” said Vincent Mackowitz, Vice President of Finance and Administration. “Your time is more valuable, on an FTE basis, than the time of a computer tech. There’s no savings in having you troubleshoot your own machine.”
Anna decided she didn’t like him.
“Certainly there is, when you compare that to the time I would otherwise lose sitting around, being nonproductive, while waiting for a computer tech to respond to my call,” Elizabeth said, and Anna silently cheered.
“All right, I think we’re getting a little sidetracked here,” said President Ross. “Anna, I believe you have a presentation to share with us?”
“Yes, I do.” Anna tapped a key on her laptop to bring it out of sleep mode and launched into her presentation. As per Elizabeth’s suggestion, the slideshow portion was short and to the point. The idea wasn’t to spend an hour expounding on the details of the Mac vs. Windows debate, but simply to present a few pertinent facts and statistics. When she finished with that, she closed down the presentation software and used the projector to demonstrate several features of her laptop’s operating system, hearing more than one “ooh” from her audience in the process.
As part of her discussion regarding c
ompatibility between PCs and Macs on the same server, she asked Aaron Lawrence to boot up his own laptop. It wasn’t a planned part of her talk, but the moment she’d seen that he’d brought his laptop with him, she had decided that a demo was worth a thousand words. As soon as his laptop was booted and had found the wireless network, she went into her own file finder and silently pointed to the sidebar, where “Aaron Lawrence’s PC” was clearly listed. She clicked on it and waited as his public folder became available on her machine. “Which would be a good one to open?” she asked him. He looked at the list, suggested a filename, and a moment later Anna had his file open on her laptop, to the obvious surprise of half the people in the room. Aaron Lawrence himself was smiling at her, and she grinned back before going into her last demo.
“I have just one more thing to show you,” she said, rebooting her machine. “And I think this pretty much finishes off any arguments about compatibility.” She stood back as the familiar Windows screen came up on her laptop, hearing at least one murmur of surprise in the room. “Apple’s OS can run Windows. So even if you have an employee who prefers Macs but needs to run software that is Windows only, that’s no longer a barrier.”