By STACI PARKS

slp025@latech.edu

 

Kyle Bass, a junior computer information systems and management major, spends his afternoons in the back of the housing office at the beck and call of his fellow students.

Bass holds the lone job of fixing campus residents’ computer crises.

Bass said he likes the job because it allows him to help people.

“Also, [I enjoy] being apart of the housing family,” Bass said. “It’s like a big family here.”

Bass said he has worked for the housing department for the past two years and has been working alone for a year.

“I enjoy working alone; it’s more of a challenge to keep all the work going,” he said. “But sometimes I would like a partner to share the burden.”

Bass said he initially discovered the job when first went to the housing office in need of some computer guidance.

He said a typical day for him begins a 1 p.m. when he comes into the office.

“I come in, check my work order box, start working on the computers in the office, check on the rest of the housing office to see if they need any help and then I go out and about into the dorms fixing problems,” Bass said.

During a slow week, Bass said he fixes about five or six computers and, during a fast week or at the beginning of a quarter, he averages about 15 to 20 computers.

Bass said although the job is a lot of work, he has accumulated some funny stories.

“We used to have radios in here and I had a partner about a year and a half ago,” Bass said. “We would be talking over the radio and when we knew [we were working with] a person who wasn’t very computer literate, the person here [in the office] would say, ‘How are you coming with the work order?’ I would say ‘Nothing to it. We just have an I-D-I-O-T problem.”

Bass said some would catch the joke and some would not, but most people found it funny.  

Sam Speed, director of housing, said he believes this service is important because the expertise level on computer-related matters varies from student to student.

Speed said Bass is a diligent worker.

“Every time I check up on him everything is done that needs to be done,” Speed said. “He’s pretty efficient. I think he does a good job.”

Jeremy Johnson, a senior sociology major, said Bass has fixed his computer before and did a great job.

“I kept getting a ‘blue screen of death’ and we couldn’t figure out why, but Kyle went to work on it and fixed it up,” Johnson said. “It’s important that Tech has this service because almost everyone on campus has a computer and not everyone is able to fix their own.”