Thread by @CraigZengar

#MorningRandomStory #Gratitude #IT #FUBAR
Back in 1999, when I returned to the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office as an extra help investigator, the IT position opened up. 1/

Now, I had been a Registered Environmental Health Specialist, a Certified Hazardous Materials Specialist with the then known as the Yolo County Environmental Health Department and then a brief stint as the “Barney Fife holding a gun with one bullet allowed, safely and… 2/

…carefully tucked away in a deep pocket,” Environmental Crime Investigator BUT I had no formal training in IT - only personal and fascination/exploration knowledge. 3/

Chief Deputy District Attorney, Mark Jerome Jones (MJJ) - Mark J. Jones, Chief Investigator Peter K Martin (PKM)- friends and bosses/mentors lobbied then District Attorney David C. Henderson (DCH) to give me a shot at the job - a tremendous opportunity for me that I was so… 4/

…very grateful to have.
The office had just moved to a new location and one of my first, major tasks was to change out DCH’s computer. 5/

Background: DCH was the charging attorney back in the day, reviewing all incoming reports from Law Enforcement, making the decision to charge and then composing the charging documents to print out and hand out to the Deputy District Attorneys in the morning meetings. 6/

WordPerfect was the “King” for “legal beagles” due to its ease in generating pleading lines in documents and merging canned language. DCH had several “Forms” folders on his computer that he would use to merge that language and header/footer info. 7/

Keep this in mind, for the “Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story” details below. 🙏
I started the task in the early afternoon, after he left and figured it would take about 2 hours to complete. 8/

Well, shIT happened and for the life of me, I could not get the system to boot after cloning the drive. I spent the night at the office rebuilding the system from scratch - taking catnaps on his office floor from time-to-time. 9/

I finished at 5:47 am and felt grateful that “I got the bosses PC done and dusted,” patted myself on the back and headed home to shower, change and get ready for work. 10/

Later that morning, MJJ and PKM, both came to me and let me know that DCH was “HOT” as I had directed WordPerfect to the wrong Forms folder and ALL of the morning Complaints had the wrong address. 11/

If I recall correctly, it was Deputy District Attorney Kelli Brooksby - Kelli Norquist Brummett❤️ who picked up the error.
DCH stormed out of the meeting and kicked the hallway door on the way out. It left a hole in the wall. 12/

<Once the wall was patched, a memorial meme was attached to the wall - LOL>
MJJ and PKM both lovingly protected and nurtured me that day and DCH forgave me and gave me a second chance. 13/

I literally dropped down on my knees in front of him, begged forgiveness and pointed WordPerfect to the correct Forms directory so that he could redo all the Complaints.
I would NOT be where I am today if not for MJJ, PKM and DCH’s #SecondChance. 🙏❤️🙏 14/

@threadreaderapp, unroll svp. 🙏