"Us techies have to stick together, right?"

"Us techies have to stick together, right?"

I am a sysadmin at a small hospital in the middle of nowhere, USA. When our help desk person left last year, I was handed the responsibility of dealing with the 70+ leased printers placed throughout the hospital and outside clinics. The job is mainly making sure the supply cupboard stays full, tier 1 troubleshooting (some of my users have a hard time figuring out which end of the toner cartridge goes in where), calling in repair needs, and escorting their repair techs around the hospital.

3 or 4 months ago, the vendor's printer repair tech who usually handled our account got into a horrible car accident while on duty. He's been laid up ever since, having multiple surgeries and lots of physical therapy. Whenever I asked about him, his coworkers sung praises about him, amazed at his drive to return to work and all the work he was doing to recover as quickly as he could.

Last week was his first week back at work and today was his first time back at our hospital to service machines. When he arrived at our hospital, assistant in tow, he was limping and you could tell he wasn't feeling great after the 3 hours drive to us. (I did say we're in the middle of nowhere, right?) He jokingly asked for a wheelchair and the nurses at the COVID screening area immediately dumped him into one and ferried him back to the IT office.

When I stepped out of the IT office to greet him, he was like, "I can walk. I really can. It's just really slow and hurts by the end of the day."

I told him, "I know exactly how you feel. Stay in the wheelchair. I'll push you around." (I'm 14 years post-broken-leg and it still gives me a hassle some days.)

We were quite a sight this afternoon. One of the hospital's sysadmins pushing a heavyset printer repair guy in one of the hospital's wheelchairs, his lap filled with boxes, and his assistant running to catch up with us, his hands full of tools and boxes and pulling his supply cart, all the while us talking nonstop about the issues with the printers.

Because I was willing to do this, he stuck it out, working for 2.5 hours to get multiple printers fixed or diagnosed and parts ordered. When we were done, he thanked me for giving him a ride around the hospital.

"It was my pleasure," I told him, "Us techies have to stick together, right?"## TLDR Summary:

Last week was his first week back at work and today was his first time back at our hospital to service machines. When our help desk person left last year, I was handed the responsibility of dealing with the 70+ leased printers placed throughout the hospital and outside clinics. When he arrived at our hospital, assistant in tow, he was limping and you could tell he wasn't feeling great after the 3 hours drive to us. He jokingly asked for a wheelchair and the nurses at the COVID screening area immediately dumped him into one and ferried him back to the IT office. 3 or 4 months ago, the vendor's printer repair tech who usually handled our account got into a horrible car accident while on duty. When we were done, he thanked me for giving him a ride around the hospital. Because I was willing to do this, he stuck it out, working for 2.5 hours to get multiple printers fixed or diagnosed and parts ordered.