Pay It Forward With A Lesson Learned

This happened back in the late 1990s. I was a seventeen-year-old teenage schmuck who had moved away from home and was living on his own.

I had recently bought my first desktop computer. I had a strong interest in computers and programming, but at that point in time, I was what can be described as “knowing enough to be dangerous”, which meant knowing more about computer systems than the common Jill Smith but still being ignorant enough of critical technical information that I would only learn through either years of experience or formal training… or after a disastrous consequence.

The latter is exactly what happened when I tried to install an upgrade on the motherboard, and the system wouldn’t boot… at all. It was mid-January, I didn’t have a car, and the temperature was in the single digits with wind blowing snow everywhere. I had to improvise by borrowing a child’s wagon from my neighbor, wrapping up the system in a blanket, and lugging it on foot to a computer repair shop.

I pulled in the wagon and the technician gave me a puzzled look. I could only give an embarrassed laugh and say:

Me: “I don’t have a car! I’m only seventeen!”

As I described the issue, I remember him putting his head on his desk and stifling laughter before lifting his head back up and asking some friendly questions about me. Finally, I asked:

Me: “How much is it gonna cost to fix?”

Technician: “Run along home, pal. I’ll give you a call when I get done.”

Two days later, I got a call from the technician.

Technician: “I got it straightened out. Took me a h*** of a while, but I got it back running again. For future reference, please refrain from DIY upgrades. Have a certified technician do it for you.

Me: “Lesson learned! I gotta grab my wagon and then go to the bank, so I’ll be there in about ninety minutes. How much do I owe you?”

Technician: *Sound of stifling laughter* “Stay there. I’ll be over in about fifteen minutes. *Hangs up*

The technician showed up at my house shortly afterward with my computer in his car. I heartily thanked him for the kind gesture of bringing my system to me. When I asked him again how much I owed him so I could go pick it up from the bank, he chuckled again and then gave me a pat on the shoulder.

Technician: “Don’t worry about it. Take it easy!”

And he drove away, leaving me completely stunned and speechless.

I ran into him a few years later. After a friendly chat, I asked him why he had been so remarkably generous and sympathetic to a total stranger.

Technician: “You reminded me so much of myself back when I was a teenager, from the moment you stumbled into my shop with that Radio Flyer wagon and your PC all wrapped up in a blanket… to the time you innocently explained how you screwed up the system by slapping on that piece of hardware to your motherboard and assuming you were good to go. I felt so bad for laughing at you, but it was just the whole situation. It reminded me of when I was sixteen and my dad bought me a motorcycle. I was so d*** proud of that thing. Then, one day, I saw something on a TV show about a way to soup up the engine. Not doing an ounce of research, I ran on down to a parts store, grabbed some stuff, and went tinkering on my motorcycle. Similar to you, I found myself in triple-digit Arizona weather, pushing my dead motorcycle to a repair shop. After the guy laughed his a** off at me and asked what the h*** I was thinking, he repaired it. But he told me the bill was on the house that time just because he found the situation so funny, cute, and pathetic. I figured I’d pay the kind favor forward when you came in.”

That was over twenty years ago. I’ll never forget that kind act when I was fully expecting to have to cough up half of my savings account to get my system fixed because of my own recklessness.

I did pay the favor forward years later when my goofball sister thought it was a good idea to try to overclock her system using instructions from a YouTube video, resulting in a critical system failure that took me almost a week to get ironed out.