The Dipwad's Ox

"Hey Wry, this is Alan. Listen, I know you haven't been working for me in six months, but I really need your help. Three different clients have called saying the server is down, but the datacenter technicians say it's not their problem. Could you take a look at that for me?"

Thus began my 5 p.m. moral dilemma.

::

A little background:

Alan is a freelance web designer whose business has been on the rocks for some years now. I'm a freelance web developer and system administrator, and Alan was my employer off and on for around three years. Our working relationship ended early in '06 when he chose to leave his wife and children and I felt I couldn't support him in good conscience. It's a long and drawn out story that probably deserves a post in and of itself, but for the present moment, here's what you need to know:

• Alan left his family and is filing for divorce


• He considers himself a strong Christian and believes that God gave him permission to do this, in spite of the fact that his wife was not unfaithful.


• When they married, his wife had nearly a quarter million dollars in savings and investments, while Alan was $50,000 in debt. His wife covered his debts, and he squandered her remaing cash trying to get his web development business going. Of course, now that they're split up, neither one has any significant debt, but neither one has any significant assets either. He sucked her dry and ran off without so much as a "thanks for all the cash".


• Alan is making less than $20,000 a year, because he refuses to get a steady job. His wife is now getting a paltry $750 a month to support herself and their three children.

There's a lot more to the story, but the bottom line is this:

At this point in his life, Alan is behaving like a total boogerhead.

I know there are all sorts of murky moral and perspective issues involved in making judgements about the behavior of others, but for cryin' out loud, you've got to draw the line somewhere. The guy is being a jerk. He drained his family's finances dry, then walked out on a wife and three kids. And he believes that someday, God is going to bless him and his web design business is going to take off and make him a rich man.

::

Here I stand, by the side of the road, eyeing the dipwad's ditchbound ox. Of course, this particular ox looks less like a beast of burden and more like a beat-up, run-down server living in an excessively airconditioned corporate datacenter. But deep down inside, it's an ox, and it's in a ditch.

I note with a wry smile that this particular dipwad is, quite literally, my neighbor -- Alan and I lived two doors apart for a number of years.

The fact that Alan is being a dipwad doesn't make him any less my neighbor. And if I should love my neighbor as myself, I suppose that means I should love Alan as myself. But how?

How do you help the people you love, when they're in active rebellion against the things you know to be true?

I sigh. I stare at my shoes. I pray.

No bright ideas.

I open my laptop and contact the ornery ox. After a few minutes of investigation and experimentation, the problem is fixed. The ox returns to the pasture, munching grass and making money for the dipwad.