I will say, one of the odder/funnier work issues I get into is the "yes I am a humanities major, but that doesn't meant I am helpless at computers" thing. There have been several occasions when I had to jump into the wayback machine and call up my incredibly rusty and outdated geek lingo just to get various computer people to take me seriously.

I have found that claiming any kind of relationship with SQL does the trick, but it sometimes takes a couple of iterations of "poor wittle you, how can I ease your wittle wittle woes?" before it gets to that. I have been working here 9 months, and only Friday could I get a warm body to look at my machine and admit that I had a version of the company email software 4 releases out of date. Hey, maybe that is why emails with attachments from Mac users sometimes disappear! Whaddya know!

It's Allyson Appreciation Day at TheFuselage.com.

This is surreal, because no one there really knows who I am, so it's all, "I don't know Allyson, but I sure do appreciate her!"

I've been laughing all morning.

If someone reports a problem, we'll at least take a look since even if it's user error we can attempt to show them what they're doing wrong (though if you keep calling us for the same user-error related problem you get relegated to the bottom of the list) but sometimes we can't get there right away.

That's pretty wacky, Allyson.

My husband is a Network Engineer and second from the top of his IT dept. I don't think he's taken a single CS class in his life. His degree is in history, I know he taught himself Perl on the job, and he just realized in the last year or so that he no longer has to exagerrate his experience to get the kind of jobs he wants.. OTOH, he was around computers and tinkering with them from a pretty young age - his dad bought Tandy kits that they'd build, stuff like that.

interesting talk. especially since I am looking a possible career change and I am hoping to find a position that relies on on-the-job training for teh specifics.

lunch today was supposed to be a salad from home, but instead it is a bean and cheese burrito from 7/11. At least I resisted the slurpee and am drinking water.

It's Allyson Appreciation Day at TheFuselage.com.

You get Appreciation Days at The Fuselage? Sweet deal.

Why? Or am I being naive in assuming that you struck the word "only" from the sentence, and not something more disparaging?

Oh, we're being very disparaging here at Chez Shrift. Partially due to lack of food, and partially due to my grumpiness at not being more brilliant.

As far as programming goes, I seem to be annoyed with myself that I bake from a mix and not from scratch. And as far as writing goes, I've been doing something similar, but now that I've been stuffing my face with food, I'm less inclined to put my self-confidence through the paper-shredder.

So, you people sound like you know a lot about computers. Can anyone tell me why the fuck my computer will no longer print envelopes??? It fakes like it's sending to the printer, but the printer never gets the job.

I don't mean to disparage your ilk, Kalshane. I do find that, once over that hurdle, most of the tech folk are quite helpful and willing to converse at my level. And I can understand that there needs to be a hurdle -- you can't talk tech the same way with a newbie and with someone who isn't a newbie.

I just wish there were a universal password or handshake or decoder ring to signify to all tech folk I call up that I am on one side of the hurdle and not the other.

(Ngh. Similarly, when I am being lectured at about the Cool New Process involving Software 2.0, which is not yet released, and I ask, "Does 2.0 fix that bug in 1.0 you and I talked about?" the correct answer is not "I don't know.")

Probably because it doesn't want you to send that letter. They're capricious beasts, computers. Passive aggressive to a fault.