Rants, Raves, and Ramblings

Being a tech for fun and profit comes with a lot of baggage – some of it nice, some of it not-so-pleasant.

For example, I work at a very conservative financial company, and I have long hair. Were I anything but “the computer guy” (or maybe a member of cleaning staff), this would probably not make it to the acceptable appearances list. But nobody has ever voiced a concern about it to me, and I think that’s probably because of the stereotype propagated through popular culture (and to a lesser extent, reality) of what a “computer guy” looks like.

I consider this a plus. Though I’m not that attached to my long hair, I do prefer having it over shorter hair. Would I be willing to cut it, if my employer asked? Probably. But would I prefer to? No, I don’t think I would. I like having that option left to myself. Call it a personal preference.

True to the stereotype, I am often somewhat awkward in social situations. Being a tech guy makes for a half-humorous, half-serious excuse for that sort of thing; and surprisingly, it works quite well. I’ve pulled it out numerous times, and it always acts as my “Get Out of Jail Free” card. Score.

On the other hand, some aspects of the stereotype I’d rather avoid, futile as that hope may be. I’m hard-pressed to think of any that really grind my gears, but I can think of a few that provide a mild annoyance. And what else are blogs for, if not for recounting pointless minutia* and petty grievances? (*I hate trying to spell this word)

In that spirit, I have decided to catalog a few of the most-despised misconceptions that I encounter. Please feel free to share others that you find I’ve left off.

1. I don’t really play video games. I think this likely comes more from the combination of being a younger guy and a tech, but I get it often enough that I feel it’s presence on this list is merited.Full disclosure: I grew up living and breathing video games. From about the ages of 7 to 14, video games were probably my biggest hobby, and certainly my favorite. My love of video games is what inspired a lot of my early ventures onto the Internet, and kept me there long enough to turn it into a habit that has yet to fade. I’ve also hosted LAN parties for the last four years, and have been an attendee of such events for the last seven. So I can see why people might get the impression that I actually am into gaming.

   However, once you scratch the surface of those statements, things become a little more clear. First, there’s a reason I stopped playing games regularly when I entered high school, and that is that they got really, really boring to me. Most video games these days just don’t hold my attention, and I can’t say I’ve ever really cared enough to determine if that was because I changed, the video games changed, or both. Though I still like to pull out a game now and then, it is probably only once every other month on average, and even then, not for very long. I rarely spend more than a half-hour playing any given game.

   And the LAN parties? Well, let me just say that while I do get a kick out of the games we play, the real reason they exist is for the social opportunity to see so many of my geeky friends together in one spot. If video games are what sells them on showing up, so be it. I’m just there to hang. The gaming comes second.

   I’ve also noticed that since I’ve left the video game world behind, its grown by leaps and bounds. The video game industry is huge now, and is no longer the exclusive domain of young punks and technophiles. Video games have become a national pastime, with all sorts of fancy subcultures and the requisite obsessive losers. Really, I take offense to being lumped in with such a pathetic group of time-wasters; it’s a lot more refreshing to me when I hear someone my age talk about reading a book instead of the new Metal Gear Solid or whatever.

2. I am not always totally psyched to be talking about something techy. Hard is this is to believe, I don’t spend my every waking moment absorbing tech news and tech info, then fall asleep and dream in Perl about all the nifty stuff I assimilated. I actually have a large multitude of outside interests, and I engage in them quite regularly.Sure, I read Slashdot religiously; I even submit articles and comment from time to time. I also have a fairly large collection of computers, and a mildly voluminous workbench area. But reading /. is just as much education as it is entertainment (that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it), and my workbench is no different from most men’s garages. In other words, I’m really not uniquely obsessed with computers – more like normally obsessed with them.

   People (usually students at Owens) often approach me and try to engage in a conversation about tech stuff. Generally, I welcome this sort of off-the-record interaction, as it is a great way to develop relationships with people. At times, I even find it quite flattering, since the notion that people think my opinion is worth seeking says a lot about their assessment of my knowledge.

   And at other times, I’m just really not interested. I find that this depends on two major things: my mood, and the topic at hand. I’m fairly certain I’ve rubbed a few people the wrong way by seeming disinterested in the particular subjects they bring up, but I guess that’s just because…well, I am. I do try to be polite, but this is where I’ll fall back on that excuse about techies not being that great socially.

   Overall, I like talking shop as much as the next guy, but keep in mind that technology is such a broad term these days – even when implying just computer technology – that every tech has their areas of interest and disinterest alike. It’s not realistic to assume I enjoy talking about the caveats of Java programming just as equally as the nuances of memory voltages. If you’re keen on discussing something with another person, make sure that the person you’re speaking to has somewhere near the same degree of interest you do; doing anything else is a recipe for awkwardness, and you run the risk of leaving a bad impression.

   To take it one step further, I don’t always feel like talking tech stuff. After all, I’m surrounded by it constantly, and it’s nice to get away from time to time. I think we’ve all known someone who got a job at a restaurant that they liked, only to end up losing their appetite for the food after working there for a few weeks. The same thing happens to tech people; we don’t always feel like we’re doing our job when we’re not working. It’s strictly psychological.

3. I don’t have an orgasm over every new technology that comes out. Really, most new “technologies” that come out simply aren’t that impressive. The only things that grab my attention are the ones that demonstrate 1) a new approach to a problem and 2) a more effective way to solve the problem. Dual-core processors were interesting. Quad-core processors were not. I like the stuff that mark little revolutions, not the stuff that just repeats previous victories in an amped-up fashion.I’m not sure why so many people assume I have technolust over every shiny new toy. My only guess is that overly-obsessed techno-geeks make for better expository passages in TV scripts and bad novels, so the image has become emblazoned in our national consciousness as a truism.

   Corollary: I don’t use an insanely overblown, expensive, and needlessly complicated computer at home. Most of what I do with my PC involves reading e-mails, exchanging a few IMs, and reading web pages. I occasionally write a small program, play a video game, or code a web site. Call me a minimalist – I just don’t have any use at all for anything beyond a fairly standard computer from years ago. Sorry if this ruins your little fantasy about techs being walking egos who believe every drop of marketing hype and have deep enough pockets to squander a truckload of cash for every stupid new widget that comes out. (Then again, that pretty much describes the typical Apple fanboy, so I guess I see how people get confused.)

   I’ve always put more of an emphasis on systems that are stable, reliable , and that have just enough performance to do what I do with it, and little more.

   In fact, people that go out of their way to brag about their ridiculously overpowered system tend to make it onto my short list of losers to avoid being around. Why? Well, when you ask these people what they intend to do with all that horsepower, the answer invariably comes back, “Um, well…you know, nothing special I guess.” “So…why do you have this??” “Because it’s cool! :::big smile:::”

   Listen: there’s nothing impressive about being so rich and/or so stupid that you flush money down the toilet just for the chance to show off how rich and/or stupid you are. I tend to increase my opinion of people who use sound logic in making their decisions, and lower my opinion of people who proudly display such narcissism and wastefulness.

   The whole thing just reeks of annoying. How insecure do you have to be to want to be judged as a person by your possessions? It’s like when you were a kid, and there was always that asshole kid at school who clearly got off on showcasing whatever obnoxiously overpriced toy his obsessively doting parents would get him, just because he knew he lacked the personality to make real friends and tried to make up for it by being the guy with the latest gizmos. I always hated that kid.

   And I still do.

4. I’m not messy and disorganized. I’m actually quite the opposite, which is, as far as I can tell, a novelty. Every job I’ve had that involved other techs invariably meant I had to do with a severe lack of order, which agitates my OCD-like desire for structure. I’m really not exaggerating when I say this; every tech gig I’ve had involved tools strewn about, placed where they were last used (rather than where they were stored for easy reference), parts thrown into piles or boxes with reckless abandon; you name it, someone went out of there way to do it. And I have no idea why this is.I think part of my success as a tech has been, in part, because I am a rare flower blooming amongst these weeds. Good for me. But it’s also meant that I’ve spent the equivalent of many days working non-stop to inventory, group, and store any number of parts, tools, and devices which have accumulated. This can be kind of stressing, especially when the system you set up gradually erodes, owing to the carelessness of other techs. Oh, they’ll praise you for getting things organized, but they’ll curse you when they can’t find something – and they definitely won’t expend a moment’s worth of effort to keep things in the order you put them.

   Ah, well. You’ve got to take the bad with the good, I suppose.

5. I don’t use Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, et al. I think Schneier said it best when he explained that young people today are socially skilled when it comes to technology, but not technologically skilled. People often confuse the two; it’s easy to assume competence with something is the same as understanding it, especially since competence is a trait we see so often from our repair guys at work. From shallow observation, the two would appear to be the same. But they aren’t.Because people often don’t notice this distinction, it gets assumed that knowing how computers work is synonymous with using them constantly, especially for popular things; this works the other way around, where it gets assumed that if a youngster uses their computer to get on the net a lot that they must possess some skills with these devices and should therefore go to school to become Computer Scientists or Electrical Engineers. And young people often buy into this belief, overestimating their own talent only to get taken down a peg or four when they see what Computer Science or Electrical Engineering actually involves. But that doesn’t impact me nearly as much as the first misconception that stems from this logical fallacy.

   Now I am certainly usually aware of what “the kids are doing these days”, as far as Internet and PC usage goes. But that hardly makes me want to partake in any of it. I’ve long grown beyond finding the ability to hit on/deride/troll random strangers on the Internet to be a mind-blowing capability that warrants a large investment of my time – I think it’s part of achieving technological adolescence. I of course still find the net to be a fascinating way to spend lots of time, just not for the same reasons. I like to think more intelligent, detailed conversations are a better way to take advantage of this powerful resource. Call me crazy.

   So when people ask me if I’m on Facebook, I have to laugh a little. MySpace has thankfully started to become passe, so now I’m just waiting out Facebook’s popularity so I can laugh at everyone who uses it. Aside from the concerns over privacy and user data, I just don’t find the idea of putting myself in touch with people so easily to be that appealing. Wake me up with anti-social networking sites become chic. (Or was that what Deadjournal was supposed to be?)

   I’m not sure what people have against good old-fashioned personal web sites, or e-mail, or even AIM these days. Everything has to be a blog (which is just a personal site with the ability to leave comments), or a twitter account, or a Facebook wall, or whatever. People…there are many ways to communicate using the net, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. You don’t have to go with whats popular, or what makes yourself available to the largest number of people. Sometimes, it’s nice to be a little obscure.

6. I am not well-versed and knowledgeable about everything, nor do I want to give off the impression that I am. Since many technicians seem to have a borderline-Autistic inability to communicate, there is this stereotype that many of us are essentially mantoddlers who crave nothing more than a boost to our ego in the form of some hyperbolic praise or facetious hero-worship. Let me assure you that, at least in my case, none of that is necessary. I’m quite happy simply resolving a problem, with no need for applause from the people affected. It’s definitely kind of a dick move when you insult me or find a way to blame me for your problems after I fix your stuff, but fortunately that is a fairly rare occurrence.There is also this thought amongst non-technicians that simply because a person uses technical terms, they must be trying to make themselves appear more knowledgeable than they really are. Granted, enough people do this to make that stereotype occasionally true, but I really feel that I don’t encroach on this territory like other people do. I am careful to keep things simple, unless I’m speaking with another technician, but occasionally, there are words or concepts which have to be used or at least explained in order to answer a specific question. Far too many people ask difficult questions expecting the answer to be simple when it is not. It is not because I’m concerned with looking smart that I give you an honest answer; and yes, I am dumbing things down, believe it or not. For some people, that’s still not enough.

   What can you do?

Anyway, I just wanted to get these off my chest. These things don’t exactly keep me up at night, but they are a bit bothersome, and I hope other technicians read this and know that they aren’t alone when they get taken for something they are not.