Today I was at the computer repair shop, having a fried hard drive replaced in a laptop. When a client arrives with the diagnosis already made, repair folks are only being smart when they question it. I assured the gentleman at the front counter that I had booted into the laptop's BIOS and found no hard drive listing. Also that I had also tried running two flavours of Linux off CDs/DVDs and both freaked out when they found no hard drive.
At that he took my word for it. and I walked out with a new hard drive installed in less than fifteen minutes. (For the record, the laptop is now running Ubuntu with one PEBKAC* wireless issue since overcome.)
The gentleman seemed surprised at me being a Linux user, and asked what prompted me to use that operating system. Not wanting to drag politics in it, I explained that it makes web programming in the PHP/MySQL space a little more seamless when work is promoted to a server.
It turns out that he's starting to learn web programming just now, but that it isn't always coming easy. So I handed him my business card and told him that he was perfectly welcome to call on me for help when he was stuck. Just as I was able to call upon my elders in my times of need. (And, 's'matter'o'fact, still do.)
While I savour the few opportunities I've had to repay my elders for what they've taught me, it's equally delicious to be able to smooth the path for someone else. Sometimes it's not even a matter of catching a logic-bug or pointing to a more appropriate API or anything even remotely technical. Sometimes just knowing that someone won't consider your question "stupid" is more important than the answer itself.
I do hope to hear from him. Because that means that another craftsman is joining the trade, and auto-didacts who aren't afraid to ask for help are an asset to the guild.
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* "PEBKAC" == "Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair"
