Found this on digg. It’s a funny article that I think all tech people can relate to.
A gentle warning to young or up-and-coming IT professionals: keep your professional identity a secret! Guard your privacy like a superhero, because before you can say “what do you mean reboot?”, you’ll be the neighborhood troubleshooter, constantly on call to save the day.
It’s true! It’s bad enough being the family troubleshooter but take my boss for example. His neighbors know he has an internet startup and he brings in about a computer a week. We all draw straws then make the intern do it. The straws is for drinking later… anyway, before the intern I was the spyware remover / computer recovery person. I did house calls! Why because I like my job and this was for one of the partners.
The worst part is when you can’t fix it. They look at you like you just slept with their sister and caught you selling the sex tape on ebay for a buck. “What do you mean you can’t fix it?”. Look just because I drive a car doesn’t make me a mechanic. I USE a computer, I didn’t invent them or even help create your particular box. Honest!
Here’s another good quote from the article. Its worse for this guy, he’s not even a windows person. So explaining that to people is even worse. Computer != Windows.
It astounds me how few consumers seem to realize that Microsoft is not the only game in town. Moreover, it astounds me that it is, for all practical purposes, impossible to tell most consumers that there is another game. As a sports discussion, it would go something like this:
“Did you watch the Raiders game?”
“No, I don’t follow football ——”
“What do you think of the new quarterback?”
“Really, football’s not my thing. I don’t know.”
“I thought that you said that you’re a sports fan?”
“No, I said that I watched tennis.”
“Right, so what did you think of the penalty called in the Raiders game?”
“I watch tennis.”
“Why would they call a penalty like that?”
