I.T.'s Just Another Job

I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt this week. It read, ‘Just because I work in I.T. doesn't mean that I want to fix your laptop’. I like that a lot, as for over twenty years I did indeed work in the Information Technology world. No matter that I was at various times a bookkeeper, probate officer, programmer and tax inspector, nor that I wasn’t allowed to do any unplugging or moving of the hardware that I worked with for insurance reasons, I was apparently fair game for some friends. I worked in I.T. therefore it was seemingly all right to suggest that I might ‘just pop round for a bit as there’s something wrong with my computer.’ That ‘something’ could be anything from a paper jam to a completely blown motherboard. They had no idea or inclination to find out. It didn’t matter because their  friend was popping round, and that friend worked in I.T.

'Working in I.T.’ is shorthand for ‘knowing everything that there is to know about every piece of hardware, software and connecting apparatus that has ever been invented, from the nineteen sixties to present day’.

Many of my old colleagues say the same thing, that at every party we go to we hear the words, ‘Really? I.T.? Oh, well I’ve got this problem. Would you mind..?’  It must be the same for doctors. Everyone has an ailment and it’s so tempting to take advantage of the trapped medic. Or software developer.

So, fellow geeks, here’s a suggestion. How about if every time we’re called upon to fix a P.C. problem we reply with the following?

‘Sure I’ll have a stab at it, on one condition. How’s this sound? I know that you're not a professional chef but I’ve heard you say that you make meals at home. So let me ask you a favour in return. Would you come round to my house at a time of my insistence and cook for me please? I don't know what meal I want you to create, or how long I'll expect you to be there, but I'll know whether what you’ve prepared for me tastes nice or not. If it isn’t we’ll bin it and you can start again. I’ll let you go home when you’ve made something that I enjoy, OK?

It may not make you many new friends, but it might lose you a fair few unwanted acquaintances.

© Shaun Finnie 2012