New Vision (Kampala)
17 October 2009
opinion
Kampala — GENERALISATIONS are by definition, inaccurate. To assume that all Kyaliwajjala residents are sexy studs just because you see me there is to court disappointment. Similarly, to assume that all IT professionals are evil, black hearted trolls is, theortically at least, erroneous.
Now, I have some friends who work in IT and I love some of them because they are wonderful people, in spite of their profession. Why then do I advise you readers to treat every IT person you meet in their professional capacity with open hostility?
For two reasons: First of all, it is a better way of managing your emotions. If you suspect every computer person you meet of a penchant for flagrant wickedness then you won't be surprised when they eventually destroy you.
On the other hand, if it is one of the very rare occasions when they do NOT act out of their natural malice, you will be pleasantly shocked.
The second reason: You should hate IT people on sight because they hate you too. I recently discovered that IT people- and here I am not generalizing; this is a true, statistically verifiable fact- all think we are idiots.
Really: The way a writer approaches a reader is with respect and humility (even when I said above that I was a sexy stud, that was very humbly written). The way a doctor approaches a patient is with compassion and a heart eager to help.
The way an IT person approaches a client, however, is with disdain and a gorge full of barely-contained vomit. This is what they are taught in IT school.
Let me illustrate: Assuming the gigabertz capacitator of your Windows 435 connection phylum has disrupted the processor of the Zone v.2.1 loading module of Explorer. What do you do as a normal person? You call IT and say, "Dude, my Internet is off."
IT may respond by asking you for more details on the precise aspects of this state of being off that you report your internet as having lapsed into because to IT people 'off' is a very vague word which may mean anything on God's green motherboard of an earth.
To us humans it means only one thing-- that someone from IT has to come over and switch it on again. But to the IT person on the phone, this is not as clear. There are just so many nuances to the word!
Well: You could try to offer more info on the actual way the Internet went off. You could say, "I was trying to access the integrator node and then I got an error disruption alert that said the operation was terminal." But I would not advise that. Because now it will sound like you are trying to do the IT person's job for them.
The silence on the other end of the line is full of screaming scorn. You can hear the words that are not being said, "Excuse me, but do YOU have a Masters in programming?
I didn't think so. So stop trying to be an amateur superhero pretending-pretending that you know about things your small brain cannot even fathom."
"You mean it went off?" is what they will likely say, witheringly. n
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