The Rube Goldberg Effect

I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to write today. I have a blog post ready to go, but I don’t feel like using it, so I’ve decided to get creative, instead.

This is Saturday Two in the Car Maintenance saga.

Last week was my oil change. Ya-hoo, whoop-dee-do.  This week it’s my car wash, my hubby’s oil change and his car wash.

Why on Earth he cannot be a self-sufficient grup and do his own bloody maintenance is beyond me. Yeah, well, actually it's not beyond me. There are two reasons.

One is the excuse of ‘I can’t leave my mother for that long’. The other is that he’s too bloody lazy. Whatever. It gets me out of the house and since I have my laptop, I can pass the time without too much pain. Lucky me! My Saturday expended.

Then I get to go to Costco to pick up my mother-in-law's scrips and do the shopping. That’s okay – that I don’t really mind. I’ll graze through the samples there and pick up some things I want. Then I’ll head over to PetSmart and get Sam’s food for the next few weeks.

The hits just keep on coming.

By the way – pay no attention to the bitching and moaning. I just needed to vent.

Other than that, I have a new story started. It’s a short one about a website that doesn’t act as the users want it to. Probably fits the ‘norm’ of the host, but the users of it complain for good reason. It’s based on real life, too. I won’t say where, what site it is. It probably fits more than one, anyway.

I’m calling it ‘The Rube Goldberg Effect’ after one of those machines into which a lot of energy is put but nothing useful or important comes out. Pretty much the effect of this site since it promises (or seems to) good results with no result.

The story is just started and really rough. I only got the idea last night and threw words on the page. I don’t even know how long it will be – flash (1,000 words or less) or a short story – but I’ll see where the ride takes me.

What got me going was a yet another post by yet another ‘newbie’ user complaining about the fact that what they’ve put up isn’t being noticed. Well, welcome to the club. Them and me and probably about 10,000 other users with stuff posted and none of it being noticed by anyone.

I liken the site to the Marianas Trench – seven miles deep with the majority of the flotsam lingering on the floor. Every once in a long while, a storm on the surface will roil the bottom enough for something to float to the top – but everything else remains well buried and invisible, even by radar.

It’s depressing and frustrating.

When I joined nearly two years ago, I was all bright-eyed and excited. Now I’m simply resigned and jaded. I still hang around because the other similar sites that I’ve signed up for and visited, or heard about through this one, still don’t provide the entertainment value as the one I'm skewering.

No matter that what I have put up is lingering in the darkest depths. That's a minor irritant, really, compared to the pleasure of hanging around with people who share a similar passion. I just wish that once, or maybe twice, I would get something I've posted commented upon.

As for the other users, it's like a special kind of Facebook. We discuss, disagree, agree, fight, make-up, etc. It might not be healthy, it might be dysfunctional in some ways, but it’s better than Facebook or LinkedIn (what I think of as Facebook for Professionals).

Now with the site described and the background set-up a little, I think it opens the door to a story about a wannabe website designer who talks his way into a contract with a business that uses their site as a tax write-off. The division it serves doesn’t make money, but the losses of it can be used to offset the profits in other areas – so it’s worth keeping going without being worth making really viable.

‘Ed’ is a database designer who doesn’t know much of anything about website design. His friend Henry knows Ed doesn’t know what he’s doing but follows along.

There’s Ms. Harper – known as the ‘Harpy’ for her nasty ‘tude and long lacquered nails. Twenty years past being attractive, she still thinks she’s mahvelous, dahling.

Her partner, Charles Ollins, is old, confused and overwhelmed by his partner, technology and modern life in general.

I haven’t really decided on his role – whether it will be a character or a caricature – but it’s early in development so we’ll see. This is what I have so far:

* * * * *

The Rube Goldberg Effect

Even though it was near closing time on a Tuesday night, the bar was still packed. At the corner table in the back, the pair of scruffy young men paid no attention to the thunder and fury of the band, the almost shouted attempts at conversation, or the people shoving by on their way to the bathrooms. Only when someone bumped into a chair or the table with a half-shouted ‘sorry’ did either of them look up. That had happened often enough in the past several hours that Henry kept one hand on the table to keep the laptop from landing on the floor.

All evening he had watched Ed at work. At last he couldn’t help himself. Leaning closer to his best friend he said, “They’re really going to pay you for that?”

Ed’s self-satisfied smirk said it all and his fingers didn’t miss a beat, tap-tap-tapping away.

“Shee-it.” Henry’s disgusted tone carried a measure of admiration. His eyes flicked up, glancing around the dim room before looking back at the screen. “Bunch of fuckin’ morons if they’re paying you for that.”

Ed’s fingers slowed when he looked at his friend and laughed. “No shit, Sherlock.”

“How’d you get the deal?”

“Bullshitted ‘em,” Ed stopped typing code and pressed a few keys. The lines of jumbled characters disappeared, replaced by the GUI users would see. It was close, not quite what they said they wanted, but close. “I mean, I know a fair bit about databases, and…”

“Yeah, but those are databases. They’re not websites. It’s a different thing.”

“So? You know that. I know that, but they don’t know that and I don’t think they care. All they want is a stable platform. The one they’ve had is old and has a lot of problems. It wasn’t fast enough and kept needing intervention, so they decided to get bids on a new one.” He shrugged, “I won. Besides, it’s really a kind of visual database. A database with pictures since each user is a unique record in a table that’s linked to other tables underneath what users see.”

It was all above Henry’s paygrade. He played computer games and spent time looking things up on the internet as part of his customer service job, but he didn’t know squat about what made things work.

“You wanna ‘nother beer?”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

“It’s your turn.”

Ed’s wallet landed on the stained and sticky tabletop.

Two days later the website was done, as close to what had been ordered as he could make it. It was show time, the presentation to the client and Ed could not seem to stop tugging at the tie he had decided to wear.

* * * * *

So, there’s the start of it. A long way to go, obviously, but it should be fun to write.

Take it easy and have a lovely day!

Best~

Philippa

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