IN AN earlier age, a wife would typically give up her job, community, family and friends and follow her husband, wherever his career path might take them. Times have changed.
Last year Mariam Melville moved to King Island to take on the role of King Island pharmacist, and her husband Nathan followed.
Working for NinjaOne, a remote monitoring and management software company in the US, he is able to work from home – and from the CWA House in Edward Street on Fridays.
Computers have always been his forte.
“My background has been telephones, IT and basically sales since I was about 14.,” he said.
“I’ve always been in the game from that point.
“I remember dad’s old Windows 95 computer breaking down and me having to play around with it, being able to fix it for him at the age of five.
“So, I guess I always had a bit of a knack for touching things and having the magic fingers, so to speak,” he told King Island Radio.
The next step for Nathan is starting Lighthouse IT. Melville loves to support and help the community with their phone, tablet and computer-related problems.
“A lot of it can be done remotely now. But the focus should never be taken off the face-to-face customer service side of things, where you’re there to have a chat and also help out the community at the same time.”
To bring his business a step closer to the public Melville decided to start pop-up sessions at the CWA Hall on Fridays, where people can come in with their problems, have a chat or make an appointment for a follow-up session.
The first couple of sessions people came in with a variety of questions.
“The questions often relate to the internet and then specifically speed and connection problems”, says Melville, “and phone problems, like setting up 4G Telstra, how do I use my phone? How do I set it up?
“ It’s basically general knowledge questions that people just want a bit of help to understand and how to use the technology when they’ve failed to upgrade from the old phone.
“I don’t want to overburden people with information because at the end of the day, if they’re not going to use it.
“I get phone calls from people asking how to solve an internet issue or something very simple.
“I try to not overcomplicate anything. With phones, everything’s very simple – if it can make a call or receive a text message, then most people are happy. If it starts getting a bit deeper, that’s when I can start doing a bit more explaining.”
In his first CWA drop-in, he had general enquiries, and one customer needed help to set up her mini thermal printer so she can label her products with ingredients and weights.
Nathan can help King Islanders with a wide range of technologies and fixes from phones and tablets through computers and laptops, internet and other connections, software and glitches.
For more information, you can find Nathan Melville on Facebook. Search Lighthouse IT or call on 0472 739 485.