In conventional psychiatry there is something called a ‘death wish’. In modern technical world of computers, ‘virus wish’ is its equivalent.
It was that conference arranged by that government’s research agency. They had a woman oncologist speaking. She looked elderly, motherly, and scholarly. She was tech savvy too - had a PowerPoint presentation on a pen drive. That was where the trouble started.
The compere got the pen drive to load the presentation prior to her talk. It auto read, and gave the option of scanning it for viruses. A wise move, I must say, on the part of the antivirus software they had installed. The compere seemed to care for the laptop of the institute, and chose that option. The antivirus software started scanning. The LCD projector was on, and we could see what was happening on the laptop. The warning window of the software showed that 6548 files had been scanned, 68 viruses were found, and it was still going strong. The number of files scanned kept on increasing, and the number of viruses kept pace with them too. It got so embarrassing for the projectionist that he rotated the lens of the projector and put it out of focus, so that the results of the scan would not be seen by everyone.
"My presentation is not seen!" complained the eminent speaker. So he rotated the lens back into focus. In the time lapsed, the number of files scanned and viruses found had gone up, and it required no test to prove that the difference was significant.
"Launch the slide show" said the speaker impatiently. The slide show button was covered by the antivirus window. The compere closed it and launched the show. The antivirus warning reappeared immediately and kept itself on top, That marred the beauty of the show and covered text in the slides too. The speaker clucked like an angry hen. The compere tried to shut down the window twice, and both times the window reappeared promptly because new viruses had been found. The speaker clucked again. The compere hesitated. I could make out the turmoil in her mind. To stop the scan meant leaving all those viruses on the pen drive, and the pen drive connected to the system. To continue with the scan meant delaying the talk, or continue it with angry protests from the speaker. Finally she stopped the scan.
"Do you really want to stop the scan" asked the antivirus in surprise. She clicked on ‘Yes’. I could almost hear the antivirus say ‘OK. It’s your funeral’, though the programmer had refrained from putting a message box actually saying so. The talk continued without any further interference from the antivirus software.
I would have loved to tell the speaker about viruses, antivirus software, keeping her pen drive clean of viruses at all times, not stopping antivirus programs when they found viruses in the system or on the pen drive, and the consequences of deviating from these practices. But when I returned from lunch and found that she had moved my pad and papers from my chair and put her bag there during the lunch break, I got angry and decided to let her be and let her infect her own system with all those viruses. Not a principle-centered behavior, Stephen Covey would have said. But a person who keeps so many viruses in her pen drive and stops people from removing them is similar to a person who does not take a bath for days, and wears the same dirty clothes day in and day out. If this person is an adult holding a responsible position in society, I think it is wiser to distance oneself from such a person rather than try to change her.
