A Shout Out to the IT Guy...

I wanted to share a brief anecdote about one of my favorite characters I’ve (sort of) encountered in Yogyakarta. Technically I’ve never even met him, although I see him occasionally when Suraiya and I pick up Sarah from work. He’s PKBI’s (the non-governmental organization that Sarah works for) “IT guy”, however it took awhile before we actually discovered what his position was.

It was early on in our internships when Sarah realized she had a coworker who didn’t hold a very typical office job. Due to the intense heat and lack of air conditioning, Sarah tends to work outside on a covered porch area at the office. One of her first days of doing this she became intrigued by the man’s work schedule.

As she typed away working on data collection for PKBI, the man also worked. He brought out a hose and proceeded to hose down the office location’s driveway. After the driveway was thoroughly drenched the man would retire to some shade and indulge in a smoking break… before returning to watering the driveway. She repeated throughout the day for hours on end. Mind you, their driveway is not very long. It could probably fit three SUVs from end to end. But the man never wavered, except for his occasional cigarette, and made sure that the strip of property was good and soaked from morning until the end of the day. When Sarah returned home that night with the story it fascinated us, however, little did we know his job description held a whole slew of other requirements.

Another day the man rekindled his lost time with the water at PKBI, but in another manner entirely. He discovered water falling from the roof. But discovering wasn’t enough; he had to really observe it. So he proceeded to turn on the water spigot, then would walk over to stare at the roof. Water would eventually start to flow down the roof and he’d watch until a couple of minutes later he would turn the water off. The process would repeat every five minutes or so. After all, this was a full day’s activity.

By this point we had a variety of theories on the man’s position, but it wasn’t until Sarah was in a business meeting at her work that we discovered the truth. As her boss gave a presentation the man worked diligently, pressing the right arrow button occasionally to cause the PowerPoint to proceed to the next slide. When the meeting attendees were introducing themselves, Sarah’s boss introduced this man as PKBI’s IT guy.

And the IT guy never disappoints. Even as of today he utilizes the upmost technology (read: a bucket) to upkeep the facilities at PKBI (aka: the driveway). Because the last thing any office needs is dehydrated pavement.