The sounds of the key strokes reached my ears as soon as I opened the door of my office.
”Some one pulling some overtime” I told myself, “Better let him know he’ll be by himself in a minute”.
Following the rhythmic clicking sounds, I soon find the eager beaver sitting there, her back to me, staring at the screen while fingers race around the keyboard. She hasn’t noticed me yet, being intent on her work.
“Hey, are you going to work your life away?” I jokingly ask.
Startled, her head whirls around, “you scared me half to death. I thought everyone had gone home already.” The fear fades from her eyes as she recognizes me. “This new accounting program is driving me crazy. No matter what I try the damn thing doesn’t give me same total twice.”
“Let me see what you are doing, maybe I can help. This was the same program we used in school, just a few new twists in this version.”
Resting my hand on her chair, I lean forward, looking over her shoulder. “Okay, let’s see what’s going on.”
For the next few minutes she enters the data as I watch both the screen and her. Funny that I hadn’t noticed her before, her desk is located in the back corner, but I’m sure I won’t have overlooked such a lovely creature.
“There, see?” her question jars me from my musings. “The total is supposed to be there” she points with her manicured finger,” not over here.” The frustration is heavy in her voice.
“If you change column 2 from a+b>Hn to a-b>Hn , I think you’ll see the results you want”. I point with my pencil to the errors in her setup.
“Okay, how did you find that so fast?” she quires.
“Its easy when you design the program,” I wink at her.
“You’re kidding me, right? You didn’t write this whole program yourself?”
“Well, not all by myself. I had a little help and it is easier to redesign a program than starting from scratch”
“Let me show you a couple of short cuts, to save you time.” I wheel over a chair from the adjoining cubical, and join her in front of the screen.
For the better part of the next hour, we exchange pleasantries while waiting for the program to run its course. I find this young lady quite interesting, to say nothing of her pretty little turned up nose. The conversation is non-committal, just normal office gossip, and I like the sound of her voice. In fact I find that I am getting turned on just talking with her. Dropping my arm behind her, I lean towards the screen and point to some obscure line.