Fruit Cake

Many IT guys have the emotional range of a bad fruit cake.  I was reading an article earlier this year which discussed the high percentage of people who suffer from Asperger's syndrome who exceed in IT related ventures.   I am not that disconnected but I can admit to having been so utterly focused on problems over the years that I shut off everything around me.

And if portions of the "everything" is family and friends then that is not so good over time.  Fruit Cake... like crazy.  I wasn't really thinking about the word in that way but now that I used it as my anaology I guess I should explore that double meaning.  

It is crazy doing what we do.  Working so hard.  Building ourselves up as data saving super heroes.  And all the while if we are not careful the things that are most important are being lost around us.  That was me.  And I know that is not unique to my field.  Many guys do this.  Maybe some of you gals, too.  But I know that day is not coming where I will look back and say, "Gee, I wish I had spent more time at the office or on the road."

Solving problems for us in this environment is a great escape because to the extent that we understand our subject matter we can genrally "fix" stuff.  We can make it better.  And then one day we walk into a room and people are bowing down and calling you "Oh great Guru."  And maybe that goes to your head after a while.  

And all the while those touchy feely things elude us.  That hurt which our wives and children feel blows right over our heads.  This fruit cake let it all go past him.  I may have cared more about other people's data than my legacy.   Some days at work I was a hero.  I did some "great" thing with a mouse click and the "end users" were amazed.  But at home I was a failure.  

Or so I thought... to my kids I was a hero every day.  I just did not see it.  I did not see anything as much as I ran from the problems I could not solve.  

A friend once told me it would be easier if people were like computers.  You could just correct bad programming and move on.  But that's not so easy.  Too much fuzzy logic to work thru.

But now I am on a quest to change me.  Let me rephrase... a quest to allow myself to be changed... As I proved I really could not do it by myself.  So it became necessary to bring in an outside consultant.  

He's pretty good.  He started out in a small office in Israel.  Since then He has moved up quite a bit.

His knowledge of human programming is pretty good.    I will keep you posted.

The Old Clock Radio

Okay.. 

First of all for all you politically correct individuals who will want to question both the usage of HNIC and nerds I can just say to you get over it.  Now that was easy.

I am the Head Nerd in Charge.  I manage IT for a small community college and that moniker is my own.  Self deprecation keeps me somewhat humble but not very much.  I am a nerd.  I have always been more interested in how things and processes work than I have people and their "issues".  And I have realized now as have crossed that magical middle age boundary that I had a nasty habit of applying those same problem solving skills on people.  Empathy was not my strong suit.  But coming up with solutions on how to solve the problem as "I" saw it was.    

But those skills which have made me a decent troubleshooter for routers, switches, servers and other instruments of mass communication over the years have not necessarily made me the best person to talk to a soul.  And now that I have turned all that analysis inward I hope to make the new year a time to reflect more upon others as they are and not upon how they work.  I want to enjoy people.  Many people in my position have sometimes developed an "attitude" toward the "end users" but these are the people who make us relevant and validate our existence so to that end I would like to have a vehicle to keep myself in check.   

In my Little Red Book With My Poems In It (yes I'm a Floyd fan) I finally put down a thought on this thing I seem to do at times:

You can't pull me apart

like an old clock radio

How I tick is none

of your business

If you pull out my

heart you'll never

put it back in its proper place

and it will be 

bruised and scratched

unable to keep sound time

You don't need to know how I work

Just watch me dance

Because my sway is erratic

Doesn't mean I am broken

Don't pull me apart

like an old clock radio

We all have so many quirks and ticks and habits but in a country that prefers every exit of the interstate to look just like the next with an Applebys, BP, Cracker Barrel and a Super Walmart the temptation to conform is strong.  So we tend to hide those special gifts which make us unique until  somewhere along the way we lose track of who we really were.

Hopefully these musings will allow me to explore me.  And if anyone else finds them of benefit that would be okay too but to be honest it really is for me.  If I could cite a song which might be relevant it could perhaps be from Eulogy by Tool.  

"He had a lot to say.  He had a lot of nothing to say."