The Human Variable

The world is not a neat, organized place. All of our attempts to make the world predictable are marginally successful at best. There are too damn many variables. Of the variables we try to account for people are the most unpredictable. It does not matter whether you are talking about the people who make the products or perform the services, or the people who purchase the products or the services, you are well advised to expect the unexpected. That is what Tony thought and with good reason. One minute he was sailing along with all the confidence in the world. The next minute he was foundering on the rocks through no fault of his own. It was not fair! He took a deep breath and tried to calm down. He tried to analyze what happened and what he could have done to prevent it.

Most of the people who have alarms installed in their houses and have the signals from those alarms monitored are normal, reasonable people. They set off their alarms infrequently and call only when the alarm system is in need of repair or maintenance. Most of the people who set off their alarms frequently are a bit careless or forgetful but they are still normal, reasonable people. They know it is the alarm company calling when the phone rings after they have set off an alarm, and they have the good sense to answer the phone and give their passwords. In other words, most of the people who subscribe to an alarm company’s services do not create problems. The ones who do create problems fall roughly into two categories. First there are the people who are paranoid. The extent to which the paranoid people are a problem depends on whether the paranoia rises to a level that makes them delusional. Then there are the subscribers who will not listen to you or who are incapable of understanding the simplest explanations or instructions.

Tony could not quantify it, but he knew that every alarm company had at least a few subscribers who were paranoid and delusional. The company he worked for had Pamela. She was convinced that the Chinese were spying on her. She kept insisting that they had bugged her phone, installed hidden cameras throughout her house, and had hacked her alarm system in order to get the codes used to arm and disarm her alarm system. But it did not end there. She also believed her nearest neighbors, who were a quarter of a mile from her house and lived at the top of a steep hill, had somehow defeated her alarm system. She insisted that they were breaking into her house and were rearranging her possessions even though there was never any sign of a forcible entry.

The other subscriber who was a problem was Mrs. Bricker. Tony and his fellow workers referred to her as the Brick because of the density of the material that filled just enough of her cranial cavity to keep the wind from blowing in one ear and whistling out the other ear. The Brick was a fact denier of the first order. She denied evolution and global warming. She listened to and watched talk shows in which blow hards spewed absurd opinions and wild tales about nefarious conspiracies. Since those blow hards validated her own dark view of the world the Brick accepted what they were saying without question no matter how absurd the hypothesis or allegation was. Once this woman formed an opinion about something that opinion became an unshakable belief that no fact could dislodge or change.

The technician who had installed the Brick’s alarm some twenty years ago had done his best to instruct her on how to use it, but he was not the most patient person in the world. The combination of her density and his impatience resulted in the misunderstanding described below:

She told him this was her second home and it was not her primary residence. She also told him she had just had a different alarm company install an alarm in her primary residence. “That alarm has an away button and a stay button,” she said. “If I push the stay button that alarm will set the sensors guarding the perimeter but will not set the sensors guarding the interior. This lets me walk around inside without setting off my alarm. Why doesn’t your alarm have a stay button?”

“It doesn’t need one,” the technician said. He had no way of knowing how dense Mrs. Bricker was at that point, and he made the mistake of trying to be too thorough. “This alarm system has two ways to arm the perimeter without arming the interior,” he said. “The first way to do this is to enter the star and then the nine. The second way is to simply put in the user code. The interior will only arm if you then open the door that has the delay.”

Explaining both ways to arm only the perimeter was giving the Brick more information than she could absorb. Form that point on she heard only what she was inclined to think. For her the bottom line was that the alarm system did not have a button she could push to arm the system in the stay mode.

“But I have to go through the door to leave.”

“Yes, and it will then arm the entire system.”

“So without the stay button it will arm the entire system.”

“Not if you don’t open the door.”

“But I have to open the door to leave.”

The technician had a lot to do that day. It was evident to him that she was not terribly bright, and he did not want to waste a lot of time trying to make her understand. So he took a different approach. “Didn’t you say this is not your primary residence?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Well, this system will protect your house while you’re away.”

“I wish it had a stay button, but I guess protecting my house when I’m not here is the most important thing.”

The Technician then wished her a good day, and he left. That was the end of it until someone broke into that house. The Brick was not there when this occurred. The alarm went off and the dispatcher on duty called the sheriff. Most intruders do not stay very long when the alarm goes off, and the person or persons who broke into the Brick’s house left before the deputy arrived on the scene. He filled out his incident report and the sheriff’s department informed the alarm dispatcher and Mrs. Bricker of the break in. The alarm dispatcher followed the alarm company’s protocol and also called Mrs. Bricker.

The Brick was reasonable enough to acknowledge that the alarm company did everything it was supposed to do, but she expressed some concerns about how she believed the alarm system worked.

“I am afraid to stay in that house now,” she said. “I can’t stay there unless the alarm is on, and I can’t turn on the alarm without setting off the motion sensors.”

“But our systems are designed to let you arm the perimeter without arming the entire system.”

“This one isn’t.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because that is what I was told.”

“Who told you that?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Well, I’ll see that that is changed.”

“Please do, because I can’t use my house if it isn’t fixed.”

After the Brick hung up, the dispatcher looked in the downloader, which is used to change user codes or make other changes to the programming. Much to her surprise, the panel was programmed to bypass the interior zones until the door with the delay was opened. The dispatcher then downloaded that section of the program to make sure that the interior sensors would be bypassed. The only mistake the dispatcher made was that she did not enter note into the computer to inform everyone about her conversation with the Brick.

It was Saturday morning when Pamela showed up at the door of the alarm company. She did this frequently because of her belief that her phone was bugged. She could not have come at a more difficult time. Although most people set off their alarms infrequently the company Tony worked for monitored thousands of alarms, so there were still a lot of alarm signals coming in. This was particularly the case on a weekend because that was when people were at home. There was also a pattern in regard to the hours when the alarms are set off. People set off their alarms in the morning when they get of bed and start opening doors and windows or later in the afternoon when they are returning from work or play. Pamela arrived in the morning when people were leaving or letting their pets out. The door to the alarm company had the type of window used at the box offices of theaters. There was a device in the window that allowed Tony to talk to Pamela without having to open the door.

“They have my user code,” Pamela said. “You have to change my user code.”

Tony excused himself to deal with an alarm signal coming in. This was the first of the many interruptions to their conversion. The problem with changing Pamela’s user code stemmed from the fact that she did not have a telephone line hooked up to the alarm panel because she was convinced that people spying on her were using the phone to hack into her alarm system. It was an absurd notion, but she could not be convinced of that. The monitoring computer received signals from her panel through a radio, which was normally used as a backup to the phone line. Unlike a phone line the communication the radio provided was only one way. The radio sent signals from the panel, but the radio could not send any information to the panel. This meant that the only way to change her user code was for someone to go to her property and do it through her key pad. Tony was trying to explain this to Pamela between the alarm signals he had to process.

“So are you telling me you can’t change my user code.”

“I’m afraid so. We’ll have to send a technician to your place to change it, and our technicians don’t work on the week ends.”

Needless to say that Pamela was not pleased. Having to wait until Monday to have her user code changed was unacceptable as far as she was concerned. Because her diatribe was constantly interrupted by the alarm signals, it took her a full hour to fully vent. By the time she finally left Tony was emotionally and physically drained. Most of the people who were going to set off an alarm by opening a door to let the dog out, or to pick up a newspaper had now done so. This provided Tony with a much welcomed lull in signals coming in. He had just started writing a report about what transpired with Pamela when the phone rang. The caller was the Brick.

“Do you know about the break in at my house?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Well, I bought a shot gun. I can’t wait to shoot the bums breaking into my house!”

Tony envisioned a very different scenario. Most alarms are caused by user error or by environmental conditions such as high winds rattling ill-fitting doors or windows. In all likelihood the Brick would be too afraid to answer her phone after an alarm went off. The dispatcher would then call the sheriff, and the Brick would either shoot the deputy who responded or he would see the shotgun and shoot her. Tony, however, knew the Brick well enough to understand that mentioning his concern about such a scenario would only cause an argument. He wisely kept his opinion to himself.

“Have you fixed my alarm yet?” she asked.

This question caught Tony off guard. “Was there something wrong with it?”

“Of course there is. I’ve already explained to you people that I cannot turn it on without setting off the sensors that guard the interior.”

The conversation that followed was roughly the same conversation the other dispatcher had with her. The Brick then went into a very detailed description of all the things that were wrong with her and her life. This was her half hour prelude to telling him that setting off an alarm because the entire system was armed when she set the alarm to stay would be intolerable. “If the siren goes off I will have a nervous breakdown!”

Tony looked at the programming in the downloader. He saw absolutely no reason why the interior zones would not be bypassed when she entered her code to arm it. “Just enter your code, the interior zones will be automatically bypassed until you open a door with a delay on it.”

“So you are saying I can turn it on without setting off the sensors guarding the interior?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure, because I’ll have a nervous breakdown of that siren goes off!”

“I’m sure.”

Tony downloaded that section of the programming just to be safe. When the Brick arrived at her house she marched around the interior with her loaded shotgun like Elmer Fudd hunting the pesky rabbit. The reason why she had come to this house was to pick up some items she wanted to take to her other house. She gathered those items and set them next to the front door. She planned on leaving the next morning. She prepared to go bed by setting her alarm. At this point she wondered if the front door was latched and locked. For some inexplicable reason, she opened the door, then closed it, and relocked it. In doing this she had just armed the interior zones. A motion sensor detected her as she walked toward her bedroom, and this set off the siren. The siren scared her so much that she accidentally discharged the shotgun, which blew a hole in her wall. She tearfully ran to the keypad to shut off the siren by entering her code. As she entered her code she noticed that it was the motion sensor that had gone off. She was now certain that Tony had lied to her about the alarm bypassing the interior zones. After calling the alarm company and giving the dispatcher on duty hell, she sat down in a chair with the shotgun in her lap. She was too afraid to reset the alarm or to go to sleep.

She called the alarm company the next morning and demanded to talk to the owner, who she berated in no uncertain terms. When Tony reported for duty the owner of the company called him into his office.

“Mrs. Bricker has been a customer for over twenty years. What the hell did you do?”

“Tony then recounted his conversation with her and explained that he had checked the programming and even downloaded the relevant part of it to make sure it bypassed the interior zones.”

The owner then checked the programming. After doing this he admitted that whatever happened was probably not Tony’s fault. “But that does not change the fact that I’m going to have to let you go. That woman is threatening to sue me for emotional distress and for the siren causing her to blow a hole in her wall. She is also threatening to tell everyone about the horrible thing we did to her. I simply can’t afford that kind of publicity.”

“And there isn’t anything you can do short of firing me?”

“I’m afraid not. She insists on it.”

“That’s really a bunch of shit!”

“I know, but it’s the only thing I can do. Are you going to file for unemployment insurance?”

“Well, I’m not going to starve while looking for another job.”

“But I’m firing you for cause.”

“After admitting it was not my fault?”

The owner turned red. He knew his objection to Tony collecting unemployment benefits would not stand. “Don’t bother to work your shift today. You can pick up your severance check tomorrow morning.”

Tony could do other things besides working for an alarm company, but finding a position in a different industry would not be easy. Since he had been working for this company for almost five years, his best chance for quickly finding another job would be to apply for a job at another alarm company. The idea of him working for another alarm company would not be pleasant for his former boss. Like most entrepreneurs, his former boss was egotistical enough to think he did something unique enough to call it a trade secret. The thought of Tony revealing a trade secret to a competitor would cause his former boss some distress. At least that is what Tony was hoping.

Two weeks later Tony’s former employer called him.

“Have you found another job?”

“No.”

“Well, get off your lazy ass and report for work tomorrow.”

“What about Mrs. Bricker?”

“That woman kept demanding more and more and more. I gave her three months of free monitoring service and sent someone to repair her wall. Now I’m installing at cost an alarm that has a keypad with a stay button.”

“And doing that allows you to re-hire me.”

“Well, I told her a little lie. I blamed the whole thing on a mythical technician you sent to her place to correct the problem. I told her I suspended you and fired him.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Tony hung up the phone. “The unpredictable,” he muttered. This incident reminded him that some of the unexpected things that happen because of the human variable are actually good.

First published in macsbackporch.fictionforall.com on Oct 6, 2011