Thank You, Jerry!

Jerry woke up this morning with a chill in his spine. Last night was colder than usual, and he forgot the bathroom window open. He then ate hearty, and left for work.

Jerry works for a small time Internet Service Provider. It’s not grand, but it pays the bills and is what’s seeing his 13 year old through school. He’s not an office rat, because he doesn’t know much. No. He spends his time on the field. Rigging new houses and apartments or fixing faulty switches and cables.

It had rained. A lot. With hale. Jerry has had a busy week. All those cables knocked down, all those furious, outraged subscribers. Jerry had to face them all. And he did. He spent most of his work time outside, in the drizzle, in the cold. His standard issue winter vest was working for him, but you can’t wear mittens when you’re dealing with cables all day long. And Jerry likes the summertime more than anything else.

Jerry has not been thrilled this week. But, back to this morning, and when he got to work. The visit to the office was brief. Just to clock in, meet with his partner, the driver and get a prioritized list of places he needs to go today.

They start going through the list, fixing the torn up cables as they go. Park the car, pull out the ladder, stand up the ladder, climb up the ladder and up the pole, and start fiddling with the web of cables and wires and filth that’s up there. Four hours after starting work, they make their way to the end of the world, where one particular family has been out of an internet connection since Monday. They are pissed.

But, relentless Jerry sets up the ladder, climbs up the pole, yanks a few cables, plugs in a new one, and leaves without saying a word. From his window, Horia Dragomir witnessed Jerry’s brief display of skill and courage. It was over in matter of minutes, but the show was glorious. Horia then checked his router and, sure enough, it was finally working.

Thank you, Relentless Jerry for finally fixing my Internet connection.