If you have ever sat through a computer installation or waited for the seemingly endless years while a hard drive ground itself into a neat little pile of shavings and your shiny new program installed itself only to promptly screw up your entire computer and launch the equivalent of a digital turd on your desktop, then you know what it’s like to be sucked down to a crusty, dry shell by the technology time leech (technologicus lifewastus incredibilus).

It is an experience that few of us care to admit to and fewer still would willingly repeat on any idle sunny day, but we’ve all lost precious moments of our lives by spending them slack-jawed, staring at the glowing screen and that insidiously, slow-moving progress bar of torture.    The drool frighteningly puddles on our keyboards while the pixels bore holes into our cerebrum and whip our neurons into a thick, creamy paté suitable for filling nail holes and sealing rusty bumpers.

The leech hath struck again.

For those not in the IT industry, it may not immediately occur to you the sheer number of hours we geeks can spend simply waiting — for the server to reboot, the installation to finish, the driver to load, the device to be recognized, the drives to stop spinning, the batteries to charge, the file to download, the page to render, the code to compile, the bug to show up, the printer to spit out exactly the one thing we did not want to be printed.   Sure, we get paid a decent wage but, unlike other professions (sans the D.O.T.), we spend an awful lot of it simply…doing nothing.    A whole lot of nothing waiting nothing.

“Well,” says my healthy and happy reader from behind their keyboard, “I realize that might not be entertaining, but I wouldn’t mind someone paying me to sit around.”    And in many cases, I would agree with that assessment if it weren’t for the fact that this time spent is anything BUT pleasant.    In fact, I’m pretty sure there’s a good case to prove the activity itself is banned by the Geneva convention and pooh-poohed in all civilized countries and 49 states (we’re still not sure about Utah, but then again — nobody is.)

You see, the keyboard cowboys — we of the wires, the flashing lights, the whirring drives, and the data whipping to-and-fro across the network in an orgasmic frenzy of processing — are very much used to things moving ungodly quick.    We cackle with excitement as the new processor crunches the data eight times faster than before or our Internet connection is large enough to download an entire DVD in a few seconds.   The fans spin faster, the drives whine higher, the processor burns brighter, the printer chucks paper further, and we count ourselves lucky if the damned thing doesn’t take off and establish low-Earth orbit.

To have a daily occurrance of our job be to sit and wait for technology, which in 2009 is light-years ahead of yesterday, to grind, chitter, think, process, download, or calculate is mind-boggingly numbing.    We are, essentially, pulling down hazard pay because — who willingly exposes their brain to this en masse?   Geeks, that’s who, the very ones that are ensuring that when we’re done with our work, you will be able to draw pictures, play solitaire, and watch free girl-on-girl action all night long while we enjoy an ever-so-satisfying bowl of instant noodles and ketchup packets.

So, the next time you find yourself ripping out your hair by the roots in frustration at a computer that appears to be either thinking hard on a problem or attempting to launch a sewer pickle, think of us geeks who, on a daily basis, willingly put ourselves between you and certain traumatic brain liquifaction, all in the name of your productivity and well-being.   And, if you’re so inclined, a kiss on the cheek and a pound of chocolate is an appropriate gesture that goes a long way to ensuring your data is backed up nightly.

You keep computing, we’ll keep drooling.    We’re your friendly, neighborhood geeks — protecting you from the technological time leech since 1936.