Re: Re: Summing up and moving on (I hope)

Hi Kay,

Kay A. Pentecost wrote:

> Hi, Bill,
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Bill Walton [mailto:[email protected]]
> > Sent: Friday, December 13, 2002 8:48 PM
> > To: [email protected]
> > Subject: Re: [XC] Re: Summing up and moving on (I hope)
> <snip>
>
> Another source of the perception of
> > disdain derives from the dress / hygiene "code" which says to the
business
> > person like "I'm more important than you.  You can tell because you have
to
> > dress nice and I can wear jeans and not wash my hair."
>
> Bill, for > 4 years I was a UNIX system adminstrator.  Some days I got to
sit there and
> look pretty, like a receptionist.
>
> Other days I had to crawl on my hands and knees under desks, in the crawl
space, with the
> mouse droppings and spiders and the spiderwebs and dust.  There was no way
to plan ahead
> when cabling crises would happen... and when I bent over the desk to plug
in your cable
> my panties would have shown if I'd worn a skirt...
>
> I never went to work dirty, but I often came home dirty.  And if the cable
problem was at
> 9 in the am... I can just imagine what non-IT people said about me...

I was recounting, per Dale's request, the kinds of things that caused
friction / culture clash between IT folks and business side folks back in
the '80's.  I didn't make or intend to make a judgement about right / wrong.
Only to relate what I remembered about those times.  Much of the problem, I
think, was probably driven by the fact that these were the early days.
Business folks in most areas outside of finance had never met a programmer
or a sys admin.  It doesn't surprise me that you still wore skirts either.
Probably weren't allowed to wear pants back in those days because the male /
female thing probably took precedence over the realities of the job duties
(or maybe the good ole boys that ran the show just liked the view ;-) ).

> But Bill, what confuses me is, you were/are IT... you *started* as a
programmer, didn't
> you?  Didn't you wash and dress nice *then*?

I was a programmer back in those days, but not in IT.  It's funny (in a
wierd sort of way) looking back on it.  The IT group's reputation was
terrible, both at IBM and Compaq.  Not just among the business folks, but
even among the product development groups where I worked where we were doing
much the same work.  And yes I washed and dressed nice then.  Wore a damn
tie and jacket to work at IBM.  Glad I don't have to do that any more, now
that I'm on the business-side ;-)

> Just adding some levity, and a almost flash of panties,

Thanks.

Bill


------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Get 128 Bit SSL Encryption!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/CBxunD/vN2EAA/xGHJAA/NhFolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
extremecustomering-unsubscribe-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org

 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/