My Life as a Geek

I work in the IT industry and experienced something rather enlightening the other day. I do realize that I am a blond female and do not fit the stereotype of an IT Geek, but that’s not what I found to be enlightening. Typically, IT Geeks are not social people. We go out of our way to avoid direct conduct with individuals. An actual phone conversation could send someone into shock. To a geek, email was the best invention ever. Well, hold on — Instant Messenger was the best invention ever; email is second. With IM you can have a real time conversation without actually having to talk to that person.

Let me give you a solid example of an IT Geek going out of his way to avoid direct contact with a person. I was having a conversation with two people in my cube the other day. Yes, I know; it was a real live conversation. My email alert popped up. Now being the true geek that I am, I immediately turned my head away from the conversation and checked the email. I don’t know what the allure is to receiving email (or snail mail for that fact) but it tends to excite people. I couldn’t resist.

So I open the email and discover that the email is from the coworker standing in my cube! He is actually on his blackberry emailing me while he is having a conversation with me! What the hell? Have we really become this lazy? I turned back to him and said “did you seriously just email me while you are standing in my cube?” The other coworker busted out laughing. I mean, is this the ultimate example of geekdom or what?

We are hopeless.