Quarantine Tech Support with the First K9 Storm Employee
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Have you ever been asked by someone in your family for help with any of their electronic devices?
Sometimes the problems are insanely difficult, but most times unplugging/plugging in the router will make you look like an absolute genius.
At K9 Storm, like with any business, we are not immune from the horrors of email not working, the database inexplicably formatting the text to be 10 times larger than it should be, or passwords not inputting correctly (make sure caps and number lock are always, ALWAYS, off). With this in mind, we have adopted a simple mantra that helps out almost every day:
When in doubt, sign in, sign out.
If this doesn’t work we call for back-up, which means figuring things out as a team. This is what an original K9 Storm Employee found herself doing on Easter Sunday. That person: Jim Slater’s mother, Iris.
Iris and Jim Slater in 2011
In the late 90’s, Iris came out of retirement to work for K9 Storm as the very 1st employee. She answered the phones, created invoices, and helped K9 Storm customers get exactly what they needed from her son’s brand new startup. She was a natural, having worked over 30 years as a customer service representative at the bank just down the street from her cozy 1 story bungalow. Even today at 90 years old, her memory is still as sharp as a whip. Ask her what her favorite part of working at K9 Storm was and her answer is always the same - helping the first customers get set up with custom-fit K9 Storm Patrol Swat Vests to allow them to do their job and come home safely.
Even though she’s been retired from K9 Storm for 15 years, believe it or not, customers she helped back in the day STILL ask us how she’s doing! One person in particular from the San Jose PD, retired K9 handler, Ofc. Washington, still has a way of making her blush. Every now and then he will help size dogs in the California area and whenever he calls he always ends with “Please say Hi to Iris for me!”. She never fails to remind us that he has the “smoothest voice ever” (She isn’t lying. His voice is literally a cross between Morgan Freeman & Dennis Hayburt).
Want to know an easy way to tell if someone is truly skilled in their craft? They respect the people around them.
Ofc. Washington and PSD Jago - One of the first duos in the USA to work in a custom-fit K9 Storm Patrol Swat Vest. Circa late 90’s.
A few years after her retirement, Iris started to notice changes in her vision. The reason? She had developed the early stages of macular degeneration - a medical condition typically associated with aging, which results in blurred or no vision in the center of the visual field. This makes it extremely difficult to do many simple everyday tasks that she was once able to do with ease. Although she remembers everything, she can no longer see almost anything, which makes dealing with things like technology both extremely frustrating and sometimes incredibly disheartening.
So when she called me on Easter Sunday from her retirement home, upset that her TV wasn’t “working”, I knew she was calling for back-up and something needed to be done.
How does one go about helping an elderly person who is damn near blind solve a tech related issue remotely?
You Storm Through Anything™ and think outside the box.
The whole ordeal took well over 15 minutes, but Iris never quit! If there is one thing we’ve learned from her life in general, its do whatever it takes to get the job done.
Be good to each other and your family always, but especially during this time. You would be surprised how positive a simple check-in can be in their lives.
Much love and Happy Easter from everyone at K9 Storm!