(no subject)

[random-c.livejournal.com]

Give me *strength* I've got a couple of girls on my little pod of desks now. It's supposed to be developers down here, and in the reshuffle we acquired some interesting people (and lost the NRA member) but we've also got these two girls. Now, I'll admit I don't much like girls at the best of times, but coming in to find them plugged into my switch (it's there for providing DHCP addresses to my test kit in a very limited and therefore predictable range, which obviously doesn't happen with the office network) and whining that the network's broken. No it isn't, and you're bloody lucky I'm not running PXE boot yet...you'd think the 'NOT OFFICE NETWORK!' sticker on it would be a giveaway, but some tit had moved it from my desk to hers and turned it upside down in the process.
Tom the support guy is, understandably, running round looking like he's about to have kittens. Everywhere in the building otherwise intelligent people have turned into absolute morons and can't plug in their own mice. So, I figured I'd do him a favour and traced and labelled all the connected network cables and made sure everyone was connected to a wall plate. The rest I rolled up and plonked on an unoccupied desk (which rapidly became the 'this isn't mine' space for everyone) then sorted out the two new girls (which, because someone can't be careful with a chair leg and ripped one of the network ports out of the wall, meant finding a switch and sharing a cable between them. I explained what I was doing, and the blonde one asked how she'd get network when she didn't get network through the switch before.
"This is a different switch."
"Oh... was the other one broken?"
"No, it's not connected to the office network though, only my server."
"Oh... so how do we get office network if it's not connected to it?"
"Through this one which *is* connected to the office network."
"But it looks the same..."
This afternoon she's asked me why it's a problem that I have no drivers for the second graphics card/monitor on one system, because one of our developers has written a batch file to control it... I had to explain the difference between the content that gets displayed and the drivers that make displaying possible... I still don't think she got it. And she's diagonally opposite me. She's going to keep saying stupid things. I don't know if I can cope with this.

Comments

[heathwitch.livejournal.com]

I've got a couple of girls on my little pod of desks now. It's supposed to be developers down here, and in the reshuffle we acquired some interesting people (and lost the NRA member) but we've also got these two girls. Now, I'll admit I don't much like girls at the best of times

Heaven help you if you ever come across a female techie then! LOL :)

[random-c.livejournal.com]

Other than looking in the mirror, you mean? I think one of them might be the one that tried to have a conversation about my shoes... I was under the desk trying to trace a network cable then as well, for a new guy we'd just started... who the hell starts a conversation with a protruding arse?

[thalionar.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's that she's a girl... on my desk, we're about 50/50, and have equal % of stupid people of each sex.

dumb is dumb, no matter what sex!

[random-c.livejournal.com]

So far as I'm concerned, there's geeks in all their varieties (developers, BOFHs, techies etc), male and female, and there's blokes and girls... the blokes are generally fairly ignorable, and seem to make at least some effort to understand... but the girls... sometimes I think they've got a string on them somewhere and if you pull it they say 'Math is HARD!' when you let it go.

[taleya.livejournal.com]

oh god....please don't tell me they're the giggly gosspy type who think because they know how to put italics in word that they're masters of computers...


If they are, I promise you, no tech female OR male will convict you for rising up and stabbing them in the face. Stomp them down! For fuck's sake, even my rooomate who barely knows how to plug in a mouse knows that if she thinks of touching my network sudden death will descend with an upraised screwdriver.

(although I did have to explain to her very patiently that NO, you will NOT have internet connectivity when Taleya takes her computer to a LAN bash. Why? Remember that lovely little proxy server that allows your dumbfuck machine to access the net? IT LIVES ON MY GODDAMN BOX AND WILL BE 20 KILOMETERS AWAY)

[random-c.livejournal.com]

I've not had any proof yet of giggles, but it's early days... I'm nervous though, after the giggly, high-pitched permed woman (I never did find out what she did but I don't think she was replaced so probably 'not much') and her constant stream of equally loud and squeaky friends... not to mention the ringtone from hell... what's the point of a mobile you always leave on your desk?

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

It makes for an artistically elegant arc across the room into the paper shredder.

[megpie71.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain.

What annoys me most, I think, about the whole situation is that *being able to use a computer isn't that bloody hard*. Gods above, it's easier than wrangling three-year-olds for a living, because at least computers understand *logic*. There is no arcane formula which needs to be applied - just plain, simple, common sense and a reasonable conceptualisation of what cause and effect means.

Oh, and for those who aren't aware: there *is* a distinction between girls and women. There are also distinctions between chicks, broads, and dolls. Large numbers of women understand this. The distinction is between the type of person who has realised that no matter what the glossy magazines say, using the brain tends to make life easier; and the ones who believe the glossy gospel.

[random-c.livejournal.com]

Well yes... I don't think any of them will ever understand that I'm untidy *on purpose* and that my baggy t-shirts and clumpy boots are every bit as much a statement of Who I Am as their designer labels... even the one that tried to talk to me about my patrick cox's on the day I had a meeting with someone from Outside.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Dear Stuffed Shirt:

This is my uniform. It is who I am and what I do. It is a deliberate and calculated part of my image and marks me as a truthteller, a competent and intelligent source of technical knowledge. Much as that overpriced set of recycled curtains you call a suit marks you as an untrustworthy waste of space.

In the world, there are people like myself who design, build, repair, maintain and clean up all the tools you use on a daily basis to earn a crust. Then there are the people who still can't figure out how to set the clock on their DVD player. Let's face it - if you and yours weren't so blitheringly stupid when it comes to being able to function in a business environment, you wouldn't need us to come and de-pooch your screw-ups every five minutes.

Now, given our relative situations, do you really think I'm going to be interested in what YOU think is fashionable and appropriate?

Yours sincerely,
The person who can remember a password for more than two minutes.

[random-c.livejournal.com]

...is it bad and wrong that when asked to pick three new passwords for something I specifically chose ones that are difficult to type?