We are big fans of the Christmas pulp. It’s A Wonderful Life is high up on that list. We were wondering what it would sound like if George worked as an IT admin…and it was 2017. This is “It’s A Wonderful Secure Life”.
It’s Christmas Eve 2017, in Bedford Falls, New York, and George the IT Admin is suicidal. Prayers for him reach Heaven, where Clarence, Universal Network Admin 1st Class, is assigned to save George in order to earn his fibre-optic Admin wings.
Clarence is shown flashbacks of George’s life. The first is in 1994, when 12-year-old George saves his younger brother Harry, who had Accidentally installed the Q Casino thinking he could strike it big (of course he was a bit too early to win a cryptocurrency jackpot).
5 years later, While hanging out after school at the local computer lab, George sees that his lab instructor, Mr. Gower, distraught over the lost 3rd floppy needed to play Duke Nukem, and saves him by stopping him from opening an email wishing him a happy new year, and stops him just in time from getting Happy99.
On George’s graduation night, George talks to Mary, who has had a crush on him from an early age. They are interrupted by news that his brother had been infected by the Pikachu virus. George postpones his post graduation travel plans in order to sort out his family’s computer only to discover that his entire neighborhood had been infected. Worse yet, many got the virus from Bits & PCs, a local computer repair shop. Mr. Potter, their local competitor, wanted to dissolve Bits & PCs and take over their business. George convinces the shareholders in the repair shop to vote against Mr. Potter. They agree, on condition that George runs the business, along with his absent-minded Uncle Billy. George and Mary get married, since he’s stuck in town after all.
On their way to their honeymoon, they witness a bunch of customers asking for returns from Bits & PCs, and use their honeymoon savings to make up the financial difference until the store can reestablish their reputation. Over time, George establishes Java Computer Cafe, one of the first establishments offering free wifi in town, allowing locals to easily surf the internet instead of overpaying for Mr. Potter’s dial up services. Mr. Potter, frustrated at losing control of the dial up market (and the pop-up ad market), attempts to lure George into becoming his assistant. George is momentarily tempted, but rejects the offer.
During the switch to cloud, George isn’t able to join because the family business simply doesn’t have the capital for a data center. His brother Harry somehow gets work at Amazon Web Services, and a few years later when he cashes out stock options he’s able to offer George a partnership to build out their own regional service provider. They set up shop, but are want for customers – slowly the news spreads that they may go bankrupt.
It’s Christmas Eve and George wishes he were dead. He runs to the local bridge to jump off, but sees a man in the water – it’s Clarence, Universal Network Admin, 2nd Class. To get his fibre optic wings, he tells him, he has to show him that his life is worth living after all.
Clarence shows George what life is like without him. Bedford Falls, New York, lacks affordable internet connections (and at low speed, to boot). Most of the townspeople are still paying off debts charged them because Mr. Potter refused to help them recover files and data lost to the Pikachu Virus, WannaCry and other major attacks, not to mention that he gave little assistance in upgrading from Windows XP for all those years. Mr. Gower is a local laughing stock for installing QCasino, and his brother Harry works at a local burger shop after getting kicked out of school for spreading the Pikachu Virus. Coincidentally, Mary, his wife, seems just fine, but she’s not married to as nice a guy as George, and he watches as a distance as she sadly chats via AIM with a teenage boy from Manhattan.
Realizing what life might be like without him, George tells Clarence he wishes he were alive. Clarence grants his wish, and soon as he realizes he is back in the world he knows, George rushes home to tell his brother, wife and children that no matter what the financial situation, he will always be there for them. To his surprise, when he arrives home, local business leaders are already there. George’s given them great service for years, and they want his data center to succeed. They pledge their business – local ecommerce, business services and more – to help him grow, and they get great prices too. George and his daughter hear a dial tone in the distance, and his daughter says “Every time a dialtone rings, a network admin gets his (or her) fibre optic wings!”
It may seem cheesy, but it really is true. IT experts rarely get down on themselves, but when they do, they need to realize that for all this computer stuff, nobody could do it without YOU!
Happy Holidays!
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