The other day I perpetrated the employment sector equivalent of "I'm not a racist; my garbageman's an Esquimaux, and my, he does a marvellous job, the pet".
"So I was at this poetry slam last night," I'm telling my sisters. "And there's this fantastic woman up on the stage. Big hair, black cape, and she's going at her poem like she's a steam train. And her partner's there in the audience, and in the break her partner turns to me and asks me if he knows me from work. And - get this! - it turns out he's one of the I.T. people. One of the I.T. people - at a poetry slam - which just goes to show that computer people are people too."
My sisters can program Excel and they'll translate any integer you name into binary code quicker than you can say "this sentence constitutes an ontological challenge to the logonormativity of the academy", so they weren't very impressed by my limping belatedly into the fair pastures of I.T. person tolerance. But to them - and to all you other I.T. person tolerators out there - I say this: my prejudices were not entirely without foundation.
This morning I burst into my office, zinging with superluminary insights gleaned over the course of my six minute tram trip. I'm all ready to boot up my trusty old mac and enunciate the Solution to Literature. Only where is my trusty old mac, I ask? My desk is a barren plain, punctuated only by the drifts of dust and sandwich crumbs that waft around the perimeter of the five thousand unmarked essays I meant to savage and return to their authors a week ago. The trusty old mac is nowhere to be seen, and I start recalling all the flights of oratory and administrivia I committed to yon trusty old mac without bothering to Back Them Up. In perfervid panic, I stagger up the corridor to ask my admin comrade if she knows where the trusty old mac is. This is the first she's heard of its abduction, but she rings the I.T. people (rather than the police, which shows somewhat more presence of mind than I myself have mustered), and after several denials (which turn out to be the I.T. person's notion of humour) it transpires that they have my trusty old mac. Yes, they are two flights of stairs away, waiting to transfer the contents of trusty old mac onto obscenely fancy new mac, with 24-inch LED cinema display, camera, and vending machine. Did it occur to Mr I.T. person that he should inform me I would arrive at work today and find myself stripped of mine puter? Why no, quoth Mr I.T. person to my admin comrade. No.
So this is farewell to the mac of yore, why, hello sailor to the mac of non-yore, and a warning to the young: keep your valuables superglued to your desk. Those I.T. people are no respectors of personal property.*
* even though it's not technically my computer (cough).
13 comments:
You realize that you will now have to learn to drive the new beast.
Good luck, best wishes and if we don't hear from you by Christmas we know where to look.
From someone who owns and cherishes one of those 24-inch beasties, they are a fine thing, and I congratulate you on having entered into (that is to say, having been dragged kicking and screaming into) a new era of computer usage. Enjoy.
Thanks, Martian. And JahTeh, I had a high opinion of my beast driving abilities, but it turns out I didn't factor in this factor: I need an administrator's password in order to change ANYTHING. Want to connect to the printer? Admin password. Want to connect to the internets? Admin password. Want to install Microsoft Office software updates? Admin password. Which admin password, of course, is kept in the slimy vaults of the IT persons' vaultitude. And wouldn't you know it? They've all packed up and abandoned their posts at 3.30 on a Friday afternoon.
Not that I needed to print anything important, just enjoying waxing grumpitudinous.
Rookie mistake, on their part.
At my university work, I am stuck in limbo land with the dreaded admin password. We no longer have a dedicated IT dude for our faculty and now have to rely on the cross-campus Job Ticket waiting line. I have been waiting in line since June. None of my software works except Firefox. I can't email for help, it doesn't work. Their phone number is either engaged or enmachined and no-one will return my pathetic cries for help.
I finally went into my boss's office two weeks ago and gnashed and wept. She picked up the phone and rang the IT office, who rang her straight back and promised action. I'm still waiting. *SIGH*
So I spend lots of my working day visiting the oddest internet sites I can, in the hope that they'll notice me and come and slap my wrist for wasting university broadband. I will then lock them in my office until they fix everything.
[WV= listrob. zigactly.]
I actually walked down to the I.T. grotto, with my own two foots, yesterday, and said "Would you please connect me to the printer, please? I left a message with you last Friday." They said, "Leave your phone number and your name and we'll get back to you", and I said, "It's very simple. I just need you to use your administrator's password." And he said, and I said, and he said, and finally we agreed that he'd do it, in five minutes, and he did, bless his socks. Given that I normally run like a herd of wilderbeests away from anything vaguely resembling confrontation, I was quite pleased with myself.
Wow. I don't know where the new IT grotto is, but you've encouraged me to try a personal appearance when my holidays are over, if nothing has been done by fairy elves in my absence...
When they see how cool your haircut is, they'll repent and rush up and help. (Though I'm sure they're as overworked and blah as anyone else ...)
I have in my possession a CD what will obliterate that there need for an admin password, all legal-like and everyfing. Not that I'm suggesting anyfin', like.
Oooh, that's a very tempting non-offer. The trouble would be if ever I needed to pester I.T. again, and they tried logging onto my machine from their grotto and found - oh my? but where? but what? but who wiped our access? And then I'd be sacked, and I'd have to spend my days at home playing with the kittens and writing that thing I'm writing today.
Or not sacked, but forced to go back to the 1999 model emac, the one with the no camera or coffee-dispenser.
Hmph. Granted, I see your point, but on the other hand, I fear the IT department (such as it is) will continue to shenaniganise their way out of assisting you whenever you find yourself possessing of a powerful need to have administrative system privileges, which can only lead to an escalation of hostilities, culminating in violence and explosions. *waggles his password-desecrating CD suggestively*
In any case, you can set the password to be merely an empty dialog box, allowing remote access in the process.
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