Revolving door...

Well, folks…it’s been rough here lately…but not as rough as it could have been, I know. We have a roof over our heads, our car is still running and we haven’t missed any meals…as a matter of fact, I have obviously had more than my share. Old habits die hard…
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been able to get a blog written. Every time I would begin one, either something interrupted me, I would have to quit to go somewhere or the computer would shut down. I have an opportunity to try again and barring any unforeseen circumstances, this blog will be a long one. I’ve a lot to say…but that’s not new, is it?
We have continued to have computer problems. Two weeks after my laptop’s hard drive crashed, Jim’s refurb “gave up the ghost”. We had been using Dell DataSafe to backup all our info online just in case something like that happened as we knew his laptop was on its last leg. And, because it was so important to us, we opted to buy the upgraded backup plan. Are you sensing a red light blinking here yet? Wish we would have seen it. Anyway, Jim had been really good about loading all our pictures on both computers so we fully expected our photos and our recently saved files to be safe with our Dell DataSafe. After all, isn’t that what the name itself claims will happen?
We then asked Susanna if we could periodically use her laptop to check our e-mail and she was very gracious in letting us do so. We wanted to be able to let our family and the church know why we would be incommunicado for awhile. Folks are really good to check on us when they’ve not heard from us in a timely manner and it’s something we appreciate so much. We didn’t want to cause undue worry or for someone to think we were ignoring them.
Losing the backup computer was so frustrating but we knew that we would be returning to the States in a few short weeks and would be able to pick up our new laptop – thanks to a friend’s extremely generous donation. We were going to download our Dell DataSafe files to that computer at that time. It wasn’t an ideal situation but we figured it was what it was and we would get by checking our e-mail every few days on Susanna’s computer.
Before the refurb bit the dust, we had taken our old hard drive from my laptop to a man who teaches at the Nicaraguan Christian Academy here who is supposed to be very good at retrieving info off of crashed hard drives. He kept ours for a week but was unable to retrieve any of my info. He said our only option would be to hire a company in the U.S. who specializes in info retrieval which is a costly and lengthy process. That’s when we became even more diligent to do our backups to Dell DataSafe every day.
Jim remembered that he had stored our computer programming disks downstairs in a box of “stuff” so he went down, dug the box out of the storage closet and found our operating system disc. He wasn’t sure if it would load on the refurb as he didn’t exactly know what the problem was with his computer but he figured it was worth a try. After three attempts, he was finally able to reinstall Windows from it but it still wasn’t working as it should and so, we didn’t have everything on it that we should have. But it got us up and running.
He then tried to download our files from Dell DataSafe (from now on, I’ll refer to this as DDS – which is interchangeable with Doesn’t Do Squat) so that I could at least have the info I had been storing since our first laptop quit…but DDS wouldn’t load. He tried several times but to no avail. I figured it was because the refurb was just not up to it. To the computer saavy, that doesn’t even make sense. I was trying to come up with some reason why it was being so contrary. Something that should be noted is that at this point, I was still maintaining a fairly reasonable level of cool regarding the computer issues. It was probably because we had come up with another plan!
We have a friend of ours here who was expecting his brother for a visit. His brother lives in Seattle and we were able to get Dell to send a new hard drive to his house for us and he brought it down here to us this past Thursday. The plan was that we would send our old hard drive back to Dell and install the new one. Once the new one was installed, we would then be able to download our supposedly stored files from DDS. Now there was a clue in that last sentence…did you catch it? The word “supposedly”…. h-m-m-m, now what do you suppose that means?
Exactly. DDS wouldn’t download in the new system either! The fault didn’t lie in the refurb being finicky…the fault was with DDS! Jim got hold of Dell Tech Support again. If Skype had speed dial, I think they would be on ours. Now there was a new fly in the ointment. DDS doesn’t have its own specific help desk so all problems (which we have found out through our own research is a great number) go through their regular Tech Support.
I don’t know how many hours Jim has spent with them on this computer thing but I know it’s about a jillion more than I would have. And the result has been the same. Dell can’t explain why all the files didn’t download and now, they have no record of them…although they were there before! Again, I have to stress that after I did a lot of reading regarding problems with DDS, this is not an unusual occurrence for them to lose data.
When I found out that we had once again, lost our computer info, I was sick. But I didn’t get angry until I found out that they lost all our photos with the exception of just a few which were basically pretty irrelevant when compared to all those we had stored. Usually when I get to that point of spewing, I just do it to Jim and once I’ve let off all my steam, I’m much better. This morning, I opted for another route. I went to Dell’s website and gleefully tagged the Feedback button. Boy, did I have Feedback!
It always kind of takes me by surprise how quickly the Holy Spirit wrestles me down to the ground. I was firing off an e-mail that made it painfully clear exactly how I felt about Dell and DDS when the Holy Spirit intervened and made me sit back and cool down. I still sent my Feedback but it was definitely revised. Not that it was venomous or ugly before but if someday, I am ever to meet anyone who would have read that Feedback, I want them to know that I expressed disappointment and frustration with their products but did not attack their character. Just one of numerous times the Holy Spirit helps me take a moment to regroup and reassess…I wonder if I will ever be able to do that without those Heavenly Hands restraining my tongue…whether it’s in my mouth or through my keyboard.
So, that’s been the computer issues we’ve been fussing with lately. “What else?” you may ask. Well, the computer problems should be sufficient testing but I guess not ‘cause then there’s the camera. It seems like anything “electronic” has become our nemesis these days. So we’ve added that to our need-to-replace list while Stateside. Maybe if we get a good camera and a reliable laptop, we’ll be back in business once again! Taking pictures and writing “stories” of our adventures here are two of my favorite pastimes so I’m looking forward to better days ahead! There’s always so much to tell – some of it big stuff and some of it may seem of the more mundane variety but in my mind, there’s never a boring day!
For example, take today for instance. We missed church this morning. This is not something we like to do nor is it something we make a practice of doing and what made it even more frustrating for me was this morning was a sermon I was really looking forward to hearing. Our church is without a regular pastor right now and so we’ve had different men stepping in to fill the pulpit. This morning’s teaching was by a gentleman whom we’ve heard several times before. He has done some of the best preaching and given some of the best teaching I believe I’ve ever heard and he always makes me think about his sermon. So, why did we miss this morning? You seem to be full of questions tonight….
We missed church this morning because neither one of us got much sleep at all last night. So when it was time for us to get up, which normally is not an issue for either of us, we overslept. And the reason we didn’t get much sleep last night was because our guard seemed to be sleeping very well! Again. Which was kind of like one of those “déjà vu” moments…we’ve been here before.
See, five weeks ago we had to fire our night guard. And tonight, we had to fire our night guard. It’s beginning to feel like we have a revolving door on that position. I had high hopes for Eddy but my aspirations for him were evidently higher than his were for himself.
In the short time that we’ve had him, he has lied to us about his money being stolen. He should never have bragged about that to Freddy and Felix because they are very loyal to us (I hope so, anyway) and they passed that info on to us. We opted not to say something to him about that because he did not ask us to replace his wages, we volunteered. We believed that was something we were to do and we have left that course of discipline up to God.
Eddy also lied to us about being several hours late one night for work. He had told us he realized when he was on his way to work that he had left his keys at home and had to go back to get them. The real story was that he was in Jinotepe with his girlfriend and just didn’t come home when he was supposed to in order to get to work on time.
Again, he should never have bragged about that to Freddy and Felix because…see above. Felix happened to set us straight the same morning after Jim had to wake Eddy up the night before. We had been suspecting that he was sleeping and Jim had confirmed it when he found him racked out on the floor in the guard room.
We decided it was time to review with Eddy our expectations. I wrote everything out and translated it into Spanish and when he came to work that night, we had a nice long chat. He was advised that he was receiving a warning and that he needed to make some decisions regarding his future employment with us.
Eddy works during the day as a gardener once or twice a week for both of our neighbors. It seems he also works as a gardener for someone close to our old neighborhood. We applaud his ambition but we felt like his other jobs were interfering with his need for sleep during the day. We explained that to him and he said he wouldn’t sleep again. Jim made it perfectly clear that he was only to go in to the guard room at night to use the restroom and that he could not effectively guard our property if he was asleep on the floor.
Even though I didn’t directly address the situation with him lying about being late for work, I did hammer home that honesty in our employees was a priority with us. To his credit, he did tell us that he had lied to us and that he had been with his girlfriend and that he was sorry. He didn’t say anything about the money issue. Whether the confession was true or not, I don’t know, but I’m sure he thought it must have sounded like a much lesser offense when he added that he had been to a church function with his girlfriend. He brought that up several times as though that somehow negated the lie he told. I realized then that he was still not completely on board about the honesty factor.
There were a few other small things but nothing major until last night. Xander woke us up about 1:30 this morning needing to go out. Now that I think about it, the last time he did that was the time when Jim found Eddy asleep. Smart dog.
Anyway, when Jim turned the porch light on to take Xander out, the night guard next door began blowing his whistle. We realized a little later that was an attempt to warn Eddy that he needed to be up and awake. Jim was outside with the dog for almost 20 minutes or so and he had not seen any sign of Eddy. He went downstairs to the guard room and as he walked by the window, he heard snoring! Not a good sign. Jim opened the door and Eddy woke up and jumped to his feet.
Of course, there was the usual exchange of Jim telling Eddy he was asleep and that was not acceptable. Eddy claimed he was not asleep but had gone in to the guard room to use his cell phone. That argument didn’t make a lick of sense. If anything, he would need to go outside to use his cell phone. Seeing that Jim wasn’t buying that story, he then said he had a stomachache so he decided to go in to the guard room to rest…in the dark…on the floor…snoring. I guess somehow all those things made him feel better. Puh-lease!
Jim and I discussed what we were going to do about Eddy at 2:30 this morning when neither one of us could get back to sleep. With us going to be in the States for 3 weeks, neither of us felt comfortable that we could trust Eddy to stay awake and we didn’t feel that we could afford to pay him to sleep. So the decision was made that we were going to terminate Eddy. Neither one of us fell asleep for several more hours.
Ideally, we would have terminated Eddy this morning before he left but we finally had fallen asleep and didn’t wake up in time to do that. Nor did we wake up in time to make it to church. We slept until 7:45 and even so, it didn’t feel like we had slept at all.
This morning, Eddy stopped by Felix’s house on his way home and told him that Jim thought he was sleeping last night but that he had gotten cold and then his stomach was hurting so he went in to the guard room. He failed to tell Felix the part about Jim having to wake him up. Eddy said that we had told him the other night that he was going to need to make a decision and so he was going to do that and that he would work tonight for us but then after that, he was going to quit. We realized he was going to work tonight as it’s his pay night.
When Eddy came to work tonight he was a little late. Jim met him with his pay and his severance pay and basically told him that because of last night, we felt it would be better if he found a day job and that we wouldn’t be needing him anymore. Jim said that he thinks maybe Eddy had reconsidered from the time he had spoken with Felix this morning because he began to argue tonight that he wasn’t sleeping, almost in hopes that we would reconsider. When Jim reminded him that he had heard him snoring, he became pretty quiet, took his money, signed his paperwork and Jim sent him on his way. Tonight, we’re guard-free.
I don’t know how Eddy is feeling tonight. Jim and I are fine. Xander is sad…he liked being outside at night with Eddy. He will be missed. He was a lousy night guard but he was a great dog-sitter.
Now here’s the best part of the whole story. If you have been with us for some time, you may remember that we had a night guard here whose name was also Felix. Let’s call him Felix #2 to help eliminate confusion about which Felix to whom I’m referring. Felix #2 did a good job for us but said he needed more money as he has a large family. And it’s getting larger as one of his daughters is now pregnant. He also complained about the distance from his house to ours. That was a legitimate complaint…it is a long way from his place to ours.
Felix #2 lives out in the country in the neighborhood where Margarita lives. The distance isn’t that big of a deal for Margarita as she can take a tuk-tuk (a taxista) to the main road (which is quite a distance)and then catch the bus to our road. But it’s different for Felix #2 as his work schedule as a night guard doesn’t coincide with the schedules for the taxistas or the buses. That’s why he always rode his bicycle…which he didn’t like doing at night as it can be dangerous plus it’s a really long ride for him and the icing on the cake for him was that we live at the top of a pretty steep hill...it’s a lot of work peddling up that baby.
We were surprised early last Sunday morning to find Felix #2 at our gate after Eddy had left and before Felix #1 had arrived. It seems that Felix #1 had told Margarita about the problems we were having with Eddy. Margarita knew that Felix #2 was once again looking for a job. The one he had after ours was only a short term position and it had ended some time ago. She told Felix #2 that we might be needing a new night guard…I guess she knew that Eddy wouldn’t be able to stay awake for long. Felix #2 decided to come see if we needed help. Jim talked to him, took his phone number and filed it in the Employee Book.
I talked with Margarita on Monday about Felix #2’s visit the day before. She acted surprised. I had to smile at how much the employees talk about things among themselves, thinking we never have any idea. Margarita told me that Felix #2 was a good, honest man and that he was a strong Christian, all things that Eddy wasn’t. I couldn’t argue with her about that.
I did tell her that Felix #2 had quit before because he needed more money and he didn’t like the distance between our houses. She told me that his daughter was now expecting a baby and that he was in desperate need of a job. I told Margarita that I understood and that I felt badly for Felix #2 and his family. I also told her that we still had Eddy (at that time), that our pay was still the same and that the distance between Felix’s house and ours wasn’t any shorter now than it was last year. She nodded her head in agreement and continued to mop the floor. Our conversation was through.
Fast forward to today. Jim called Felix and he seemed to be excited to take the job. Jim reminded him the pay was the same as it was when he quit a year ago and that the work hours had changed. He also reminded him that it’s still a long way to our house. Felix was fine with all of it. Or at least he was today. We’ll see how long the honeymoon lasts this time. He begins tomorrow night.