Magical LCDs

It seems that the most sought after technological item at my workplace these days is the good ol' flat panel LCD display. Before that, it was the optical mouse. Everyone needs to have one of each of these, beacause there's a legend that these gadgets will make your computer run better and increase your productivity ten-fold. I'm no so convinced, myself.

We started buying LCD displays here a few years back. We found that with some of the office furniture, a regular computer monitor just took up too much space. So at close to $500 a pop, we solved that by buying 15" LCD monitors. That's when it started.

The people who we didn't buy them for didn't seem to understand why we didn't get one for them. I heard constant "why do they get one and not me" and "where's my flat screen?". Like little children the envy and jealousy was blatent. I'd get calls each day from people trying to justify me giving them a new monitor. Some of the excuses were great, "I run a lot of reports and I hear that they run better on a flat screen" along with people distorting their screens so it's unreadable and then calling and telling me their monitor is broke so they need a flat screen. It got to the point where it was really, really annoying. The more someone nagged me for one, the less I wanted to actually buy them one.

Throughout the past few years I've been slowly buying LCD monitors to replace our older CRT based monitors, but there are still a few people who don't have one. I still get calls, although they're fewer and further between.

The other day I recieved an e-mail from someone who needed one badly. "I do a lot of work in Excel and it has been recommended to me that a flat screen will help Excel run, would it be possible to get me one ASAP?" The e-mail read. A request like this wasn't uncommon, like I said, these screens are magic... I'm sure I don't even know what their full potential is.

So anyway, I actually have a few of these monitors that I've kept undeployed and I was feeling nice so I was going to run up and make this person's Excel run better. Then I remember... isn't this person already using an LCD screen? I pull up my inventory -- sure enough. She's had one for more than a year.

My first thought was that someone else decided to help themselves and switch the assigned hardware. It happens, and it pisses me off. There was one point where I've gave the same person four optical mice in a week. Why? Because every morning when she came in the mouse I'd given her the day before was switched with someone else's mouse. As you can imagine, this pissed me off. Ultimately, I'm responsible to know where all my hardware is.

So I make a telephone call, "Hey, this is Mickey. I got your e-mail about a flat screen monitor. Um, I'm a bit confused -- don't you already have one?" I hear some feet shuffle around and then a voice on the phone, "You know Mickey," I could hear the embarrassment in their voice, "I guess I do already have a flat screen. I always assumed I had a regular monitor and I never thought to look over the top and see if there was anything else there."

Now the real problem: If they already have a flat screen, how am I going to make Excel run better on their computer?