HOW TO FIX A BLACKBERRY PAGER IN 13 EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING STEPS

1. My boss tells me to contact our Tech Services Person (TSP) because his Blackberry is “broken” and he needs a new battery. My boss and TSP have a delightful mutual hate thing going on that prevents them from speaking to each other directly. I know that in all likelihood the Blackberry is not broken and that this will escalate into a major war between Boss and TSP, but this is my job, and I must follow orders. I try not to think that this is also the defense given by the abusive Iraqi prison guards.
2. “Did he try charging it?” asks TSP. She insists the Blackberry is not broken and does not need a new battery, but that even if it does, “I don’t have one!” She shrugs her shoulders and waits for me to walk away.
3. “Have her order one!” screeches my boss. “That’s her job!” I know that it is indeed her job, and I know that she knows it’s her job, but I know that this will not be as simple as her ordering a new battery.
4. “We’ve never had this problem before with any of the other attorneys’ pagers!” TSP’s statement cleverly deflects from the fact that she really doesn’t know how to troubleshoot a Blackberry that won’t charge. I suggest that the problem would be easier solved if she just ordered him a new battery.
5. TSP calls her boss, who works in one of our company’s other offices. He informs her that he can’t order another battery because the batteries used by this particular model are not replaceable. She hangs up and tells me, “There’s nothing I can do! There’s no battery in that model!”
6. Marveling that the Blackberry company has managed to create a unit that can hold a charge for hours on end without the use of a battery, I wonder how the owners have not yet taken over the world and solved the energy crisis. I decide to offer a helpful suggestion: “Why don’t we try using your charger, to see if it works?”
7. It works.
8. TSP cackles with delight that my boss’ twisted, vicious lies have been exposed. There’s clearly no problem with his battery! Bwa-ha-ha-ha! She reveals the theory she’s held all along: that my boss is cleverly positioning himself to be the first in the firm to be switched over to the new, more advanced Blackberry model the firm has ordered (in limited quantities) by floating the notion that his current pager is defective. But she caught him, bwa-ha-ha-ha!
9. I have my own theory: maybe his charger is broken.
10. To test my theory, I inspect his charger. Sure enough, the power cord is missing. I check around his office but can’t locate it.
11. I find my boss in the conference room and ask about the missing power cord. He explains that he recently disconnected all his cords in order to move his computer. Then when he reassembled it, there was one cord left over. Everyone knows that if you don’t know where something goes, it must be useless, so naturally, he stowed it away in his desk and forgot about it. I have him retrieve the missing cord, I plug it in, and the Blackberry begins to charge.
12. I email TSP to let her know what happened. She responds: “LOL”.
13. I make a mental note of my plans for the evening: “Go home. Shoot self.”