Technological Voodoo... It is what managers demand IT Guy's to Perform.
Between when some upper management type has a advertising inspired dream to feather his nest and pad his resume and the finished product is where the Technological Voodoo is performed. I will give you an example:
Manager: I want an Ipad that I can do everything on...the same as my windows desktop.
IT Guy: Umm, that is not possible the Ipad has limited capabilities and does not run all of the App's that a PC does.
Manager: I saw an Ad that said I could be 22% more productive in more places by switching to an Ipad and I think that the Ad knows more than you do because it is on TV.
IT Guy: Ok I will look into it.
This is where the Technological Voodoo begins, First you sacrifice a goat to your Pagan God...wait...wait.
Actually what happens here is boring and time consuming so a brief breakdown of what occurs is:
working out what App's the manager uses 8 hours (10 mins of real work 7h 50 mins of trying to get coherent information out of the manager)
10 hours of trying to make Apple IOS play nice with exchange.
7 hours of getting all the various document types said manger wants to use (who the fuck uses publisher now days)
6 hours of getting the VPN client to play nice with IOS.
and just when you have it ready and useable...
30 hours of training and user support in the first month of use as the manager has never used a touch device or IOS before.
The real Technological Voodoo is the chemical reaction in your brain that stops you from beating them to death with said Ipad, 61 hours of your life wasted on a product that is used a total of 15 hours before the user moves on to the next shiny object spouting advertising drivel as if it was gospel truth.
Now there is a funny saying...Gospel Truth...think about it for a minute if the gospel is the truth then what about every other religious text ever written? What if one day we find out that the buddhists had it right or the Hindus? That would make it the gospel lie now wouldn't it. I find it increasingly amusing the extent to which getting into "heaven" requires you to have "unshakeable faith" At what point does the rational mind turn off and stop questioning something written 2000+ years ago? translated several times into several languages and interpreted by people and delivered as sermons around the world on any given sunday?
If someone was to give you a book on humans being able to fly and the caveat of it was that in order to fly you had to have "unshakeable faith" to be able to achieve it would you :
a) Jump off a cliff
b) Spread the word about it
c) Call Bullshit and throw it away
Part of me is Kid on christmas excited to see what happens at the end because the possibility of it just being nothing is as good a chance as anything else.
Back to the Technological Voodoo... Alot of what happens behind the curtain in IT is not mystical or magical it is hard work, research, diagnosis and years of experience. Much like doctors in the middle ages we are seen as performing acts of the mystical and magical, A lot of the stuff IT Guy's perform is mundane and repetitive to us and is as magical as the old coin behind the ear trick...Amazing to someone who has never seen it before but obvious to anyone who has paid attention and seen it done before.
None of this is to be confused with Technological Ninjary...the act of making problems disappear in a puff of smoke (still working on making managers disappear in a puff of smoke) We have all kinds of names for things we do in IT to make it seem more awesome than what it is because in essence most people have a hard time following and not dying of boredom when we explain the details of exactly what must be done to get the requested result.
I know I did not present anything from my childhood this blog so here it is...When I was a kid I was helping my Dad in his computer shop building some machines and installing windows 3.11, To break the monotony and to answer a long standing internal question I decided to install windows to a different location just to see what happens...I learnt 3 things that day:
1. You can install it wherever you like just don't expect anything else to know where you installed it.
2. Dad will teach you a great lesson on why you follow a procedure...and make you install the OS on the machine 10 times in a row so you don't get any stupid Ideas in your head.
3. There are no stupid questions just stupid people.
Wednesday, 16 October 2013
In the Beginning.
In the beginning god created the.....WTF what sane person over the age of 6 believes this???, In the beginning fuck knows what happened because none of us were there Not Darwin not the Christians and sure as shit not a single scribe / writer. At what point did humanity decide that we needed faith?, What catastrophic event happened or better yet which sneaky weasel decided that he could make a fast buck (ok maybe score a few free goats back then) by creating "God". I spent my entire childhood having this Imaginary being jammed down my throat and lived in fear of it coming to get me if I didn't obey my mother and father. - I will come back to this later...
I have started this blog as a way to order my thoughts and for lack of a better definable term express my thoughts and feelings in a manner that is less offensive to everyone around me, I have a talent for just saying what I think...I care not what the reaction is from people around me and merely state my observations of situations without thinking to sugar coat it for everyone else. Why should I be wasting time, Energy and thought process on how someone will react to my thoughts?. Does this make me selfish? Do I care?
I will admit to the occasional feeling of glee or delight at the prospect of someone feeling sheepish or uncomfortable at one of my statements but lets face it If I was trying to be funny I would try stand up as a career path.
There are many things I am good at and a fair few I suck at that I would like to Imagine I am quite good at...Why is it that humans have such a problem with admitting when we have failed or made a mistake? Is it fear of what other people will think or is it that we are just geared towards covering up our fuckups?
Ok Back to the original rant (get used to this I have to live with a mind that bounces all over the place like a jack russell on speed)
If you smack a child now days they haul your ass into court and charge you with assault, But back then you could beat a kid half to death and all you were doing was making sure you didn't "spoil the child by sparing the rod". I think that this is the root of my hatred of religion, I mean If I was to take your cupcake, punch you in the face and shit in your mailbox all because this all powerful being that no one else has heard speak told me to (I am sure that burning bush may have been of the Marijuana family) you would be pissed off, without a cupcake and possibly suffering a blood nose not to mention think I was batshit crazy (It's a clinical term I swear). I wish there was a GOD sometimes and not this jesus loves you GOD oh no I mean a hunt you down and strike you with lightning till you are extra crispy and glow in the dark kind of GOD, I mean if you were picking a GOD to back you in the big bad world would you want one that when life (or someone) is kicking your ass would say "turn the other cheek"?...Fuck that I'd want one that's a kung fu master that is helping you issue the beat down on life (or the bully) with extreme prejudice.
I think I may be a little Mad...both in the Angry sense and in the Slightly mentally unstable sense as well but lets face it if I am a little crazy it sure beats the shit out of being average. I have struggled with the concept of simple things, I have difficulty understanding some simple things because in my mind they need to be more complex as the simplicity of it seems to either not do it justice or is wasted on everyone else not appreciating exactly how simple it is. I remember being a kid and someone explaining to me the concept of gravity and to this day I still feel like I am missing something like there is some guy sitting in a lab somewhere laughing at me because I am totally missing the obvious and more complex answer that what everyone learns at some point or other.
I guess that the object of this blog will be to achieve several things:
I have started this blog as a way to order my thoughts and for lack of a better definable term express my thoughts and feelings in a manner that is less offensive to everyone around me, I have a talent for just saying what I think...I care not what the reaction is from people around me and merely state my observations of situations without thinking to sugar coat it for everyone else. Why should I be wasting time, Energy and thought process on how someone will react to my thoughts?. Does this make me selfish? Do I care?
I will admit to the occasional feeling of glee or delight at the prospect of someone feeling sheepish or uncomfortable at one of my statements but lets face it If I was trying to be funny I would try stand up as a career path.
There are many things I am good at and a fair few I suck at that I would like to Imagine I am quite good at...Why is it that humans have such a problem with admitting when we have failed or made a mistake? Is it fear of what other people will think or is it that we are just geared towards covering up our fuckups?
Ok Back to the original rant (get used to this I have to live with a mind that bounces all over the place like a jack russell on speed)
If you smack a child now days they haul your ass into court and charge you with assault, But back then you could beat a kid half to death and all you were doing was making sure you didn't "spoil the child by sparing the rod". I think that this is the root of my hatred of religion, I mean If I was to take your cupcake, punch you in the face and shit in your mailbox all because this all powerful being that no one else has heard speak told me to (I am sure that burning bush may have been of the Marijuana family) you would be pissed off, without a cupcake and possibly suffering a blood nose not to mention think I was batshit crazy (It's a clinical term I swear). I wish there was a GOD sometimes and not this jesus loves you GOD oh no I mean a hunt you down and strike you with lightning till you are extra crispy and glow in the dark kind of GOD, I mean if you were picking a GOD to back you in the big bad world would you want one that when life (or someone) is kicking your ass would say "turn the other cheek"?...Fuck that I'd want one that's a kung fu master that is helping you issue the beat down on life (or the bully) with extreme prejudice.
I think I may be a little Mad...both in the Angry sense and in the Slightly mentally unstable sense as well but lets face it if I am a little crazy it sure beats the shit out of being average. I have struggled with the concept of simple things, I have difficulty understanding some simple things because in my mind they need to be more complex as the simplicity of it seems to either not do it justice or is wasted on everyone else not appreciating exactly how simple it is. I remember being a kid and someone explaining to me the concept of gravity and to this day I still feel like I am missing something like there is some guy sitting in a lab somewhere laughing at me because I am totally missing the obvious and more complex answer that what everyone learns at some point or other.
I guess that the object of this blog will be to achieve several things:
- Order my thoughts.
- Gain some insight into why I do things the way I do .
- Get some perspective on my life thus far and closure on stuff that still haunt's / bugs me.
- Develop some sort of empathy for other Human beings.
How much of this is achievable via an Internet blog will be seen in time I guess either that or I will just be a little less insane by writing my inner monologue (<-gayest word ever) down.
I will be trying to include my experiences in life and IT in this as I go in order to see which sparked my Madness first (think of it as a digital chicken and egg riddle).
So if you have read this and not jumped off a cliff as a result I thank you for taking a peek at what the rat on the wheel in my head is thinking whilst it runs.
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