Code-3: Real Life PC Dramatizations
                                  © 1994 Chris Miksanek


Gil Gerrard hosts this drama about real life rescue missions of the genre
"Rescue 911" and "COPS." This segment, titled "The one that got away," never aired
and was instead replaced at the last minute with the story of two white-water rafters
stranded on the rocks after attempting to retrieve a cooler filled with Budweiser.
No explanation was given for the last-minute episode switch.


FADE IN:
INT. MTO BULLPEN. GIL IS STANDING IN FRONT OF SOME TERMINALS. IN B.G., TAPE DRIVES
ARE REELING WITH ACTIVITY.

                                         GIL
                          The men and women of the Help Desk
                          handle hundreds of calls for help
                          twenty-four hours a day,
                          three-hundred sixty-five days a year.
                          Some are just user errors, others are
                          genuine application crap-outs. When
                          department data is on the line, the
                          experts of the help desk get called in.
                          Join us now for this exciting
                          dramatization.

FADE OUT.

FADE IN:
INT. INTERVIEW ROOM.
HEAD SHOT AGAINST BLACK B.G., JOE SPIVAK SPEAKS.
		
                                        JOE
                          I was reading a magazine when the call
                          came in from the Accounts Receivables
                          department. This guy was wailing like a
                          baby.  "I deleted it, I deleted it." I
                          could hardly get his name or userid.
                          Luckily, we have those telephones that
                          display the extension number of the caller.
                          I determined the call came from office 817.

CUT TO:
INT. MTO BULLPEN.

                                        GIL
                          The call came from office 817. Clear at the
                          other end of the building.

CUT TO:
INT. INTERVIEW ROOM. 

                                        JOE
                          I immediately dispatched Luke, who was on
                          break.

CUT TO:
INT. BREAK ROOM. LUKE IS SITTING BEHIND A LUNCH ROOM TABLE, THE NEWSPAPER IS SPREAD-OUT.
HE IS ABOUT TO LIGHT A CIGARETTE WHEN THE PHONE RINGS. HE GETS UP, CROSSES ROOM TO PHONE,
PICKS UP RECEIVER.
 
                                        LUKE
                          It's working as designed.
                                (Listens for a moment. His
                                 expression changes.)
                          Jesus! I'll be right there.

LUKE QUICKLY EXITS. RETURNS. GATHERS UP NEWSPAPER. EXITS AGAIN.

CUT TO:
INT. MTO BULLPEN

                                        GIL
                          The men had to hurry because when a frantic
                          user deletes a file, time is of the essence.
                          A user can do more damage by trying to
                          recover the file himself. The condition is
                          generally reversible with a good utility
                          program unless the dufus reallocates the
                          disk block.

CUT TO:
INT. INTERVIEW ROOM. 

                                        JOE
                          I had to keep him talking. As long as I had
                          him on the phone I knew he wouldn't be
                          dicking with his PC and we stood a good 
                          chance of saving his file.

CUT TO:
INT. MTO BULLPEN.

                                        GIL
                          This would give Luke the valuable time he
                          needed to get to Office 817.

CUT TO:
INT. INTERVIEW ROOM. 

                                        JOE
                          I told him everything's gonna be OK. That
                          help was on the way. In the mean time I
                          asked him what he was working on. Turns out 
                          he was working on a spreadsheet for half of
                          the day before someone came in and
                          accidentally stepped on the master
                          power-button on his power strip.

CUT TO:
INT. MTO BULLPEN.

                                        GIL
                          To make matters worse, the user didn't do
                          frequent saves so the best the boys could
                          hope for was to somehow massage the
                          spreadsheet's temporary file into something
                          usable.

CUT TO:
INT. INTERVIEW ROOM. 

                                        JOE
                          I asked him what he did and he said he
                          called the guy who stepped on his power
                          strip a dumb son of a...

SFX: BEEP
                                        JOE
		                     (Cont'd)
                          Then he said he powered his PC back on,
                          that he was using OS/2 so he figured in the
                          eight or so minutes it took to boot he would
                          call us. In a split second, it hit me. This
                          guy's in trouble.

CUT TO:
INT. MTO BULLPEN.

                                        GIL
                          The user was in trouble because the
                          spreadsheet application would do its own
                          housekeeping and automatically delete any
                          temporary files on startup.

CUT TO:
INT. INTERVIEW ROOM. 

                                        JOE
                          To make matters worse, the guy told me he
                          had an alias of the spreadsheet application
                          in his startup folder! I tried to sound
                          convincing when I told him...

CUT TO:
INT. HELP DESK CUBICLE. JOE IS ON THE PHONE WITH THE USER. 

                                        JOE
                                     (Cont'd)
                          It's OK, someone's on the way.

CUT TO:
INT. MTO BULLPEN.

                                        GIL
                          The trek for Luke should have only taken
                          two minutes, but he ran into a delay...

CUT TO:
EXT. MEN'S ROOM, LUKE EXITS

CUT TO:
INT. MTO BULLPEN.

                                        GIL
                          Time was running out

CUT TO:
INT. INTERVIEW ROOM. 

                                        JOE
                          From the voice on the phone I could tell
                          I was losing him...

CUT TO:
SCREEN GRAPHIC: TAPE RECORDER, REEL SPINNING SLOWLY.

                                        USER
                                   (SFX: 911 TAPE)
                          Hurry. My review, my work ... due date ... 
                          where's the help, Holy God in heaven, where's
                          the help! 

CUT TO:
INT. MTO BULLPEN.


                                        GIL
                          Where *was* the help?

CUT TO:
EXT. SECURITY DESK AREA. LUKE IS WORKING OVER THE SHOULDER OF AN ATTRACTIVE FEMALE
SECURITY GUARD, HELPING HER WITH HER PC.

                                        LUKE
                          No, No, here, like this. 

LUKE PUTS HIS HAND ON HERS AND GUIDES HER MOUSE.
		
                                        LUKE
                                      (Cont'd)
                          Drag it like this when the apples fall
                          from the trees; get that acorn before the
                          flying squirrel. See.

                                        SECURITY GUARD
                          Gee, I've never been to level four before.

CUT TO:
INT. MTO BULLPEN.

                                        GIL
                          Meanwhile, the user's desktop was starting
                          to build.

CUT TO:
INT. INTERVIEW ROOM. 

                                        JOE
                          The guy was getting frantic, his
                          applications were starting.

INT. USER'S OFFICE.
LUKE ARRIVES.


CUT TO:
INT. MTO BULLPEN.

                                        GIL
                          Luke immediately pressed the power-off
                          button to halt any further damage.

He surveyed the room. A crowd had gathered. Luke needed a coffee. He told the
user he would be back in a few minutes. That the user should just leave the computer
alone.

Later in the afternoon, Luke came back. There was a boot problem and OS/2 wouldn't come
up. In the end, Luke had to reformat the user's disk; not only did the user lose the
morning's updates, but all of them since his backup the week before.

CUT TO:
INT. INTERVIEW ROOM. 

                                       JOE
                          Not all our stories have happy endings.

CUT TO:
INT. MTO BULLPEN.

                                       GIL
                          Next up, a construction worker hangs
                          upside down for six hours as rescue
                          workers rush to find all two dollars and
                          sixty cents in change that fell out of
                          his pockets onto the ground thirty
                          stories below!

FADE OUT.