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Vent Your Spleen Wednesday
It's not always easy to explain my job to people.
As a person who has worked in the field of all things computer, people sometimes ask me "how do the damn things work?" My answer is that they don't.
I spend a huge amount of time working on some ridiculously simple aspect of a program, only to be told that what I have done is broken. You see if you hop on one foot, rub your tummy, whistle and operate the mouse with your foot it turns out that what you have done does not actually work. Such arguments are constructed by strange and evil people called testers, who will go on to explain that this odd group of one-foot-hopping people are the majority of our customers.
Now mind you, this is on a good day.
Most of the time, all someone has to do is just glare at something I'm working on and it will break.
Other times the entire goal will be insane, like creating what amounts to an underwater barbeque grill. At the end of the process, the same group of fools who insisted on this in the first place will look at you like you are crazy and ask "whose idea was this?"
I've tried to come up with a short description of my job for non-computer people after one friend asked me "what is it that you do?" I usually find myself blathering on about .NET or Java only to discover that whoever asked me is now asleep. After much time and effort, I've come up with a short explanation that still manages to capture the essence of what is going on:
3 comments:
:) don't hurt your head! that would be total suckage :(
You've propably seen this - http://www.deadtroll.com/index2.html?/video/helldeskcable.html~content
If you have not, you will love it. I guarantee.
But so's you know, in an age where computers are so super duper wonderful and they "have to work" - you fixing up type people are invaluable to the workplace. And people are stupid with computers (I have heard stories :) Ask Simione sometime about the spaceheater and the computer... )
When their computers break down, they have to haul out the *real* cards to play solitaire ;)
So's you know, even though people are jerks and most of the time are rude to the computer guys, they *do* appreciate what you do. And remember, as long as you're banging your head against an *outside* wall, there's always an escape!! :D
Your job has the same effect on you that mine has on me. Let's hope the Great Aha! comes soon!
Just say, "I am a techno God where I work."
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