I don't need a running commentary on your life!

The BBQ Pit
1

Look. I realize you may occasionally have problems with whatever it is you’re working on. Sure, you may have to ask for help every now and then- and, hey, if I can, I’m glad to render assistance. Just ask.

But… you know… you’re only sitting about five feet behind me. We’ve only got a thin cubicle wall between us. As such… hearing you doing color commentary on every fricking thing you do is starting to really grate on my nerves. Strike that- it’s more like someone has taken an industrial sander, applied it directly to my flayed skin, and then squirted lemon juice into the wounds… all while playing a mixture of rap and country music at full volume in the background.

“Hmm. I can’t get this file to open.”

“That’s weird. I swear this file’s got a different name.”

"Okay, why won’t this file open?

“Well, I can’t open this file.”

“I guess I’ll work on something else.”

“Well, maybe I can get the program to run.”

“Hmm… I can’t remember my login name.”

“Oh, never mind, I’ve got it.”

“Oh, here’s a bug.”

“Hey, maybe if I…” BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! <reload> BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! <sounds of screams fill the office, somebody frantically calls the police while hiding under their desk, and I search for more ammo to empty into your bloody, quivering body*>

At least, that’s what’s going to happen, if you don’t fucking give me a break on your constant monologue. You’re an old friend. I love you dearly. But I won’t hesitate to take your ass out if you keep this up.

I. Can’t. Take. Anymore.

[SUB]*Not really. But I’ll WANT to.[/SUB]

2

This was too fucking funny! The cow-orkers are wondering why I’m laughing. I thing I heard someone load a gun!!

3

Wow! You know Jennifer also!

Usually, after her long discussion with the computer, she winds her way to my desk asking for assistance (Note: I am NOT in IT, I don’t get PAID what the IT’ers make, and I just want to do my job). But, I usually attempt to help her.

OK… You can’t cut and paste into Excel from our main program.
“I can’t?”
(Well, you’ve been trying now for…ooohhhh…30 minutes. Haven’t you figured it out yet?)
No. You can’t. Would you like me to show you the workaround?
“The what?”
(Hearing aid, anyone?)
The workaround. A manner in which we can get the info you want in Excel into, well, Excel
“But you just said I can’t”
No, I said you can’t cut and paste, BUT there is a workaround.
“A workaround?”

…continue until I neigh on physically remove her from her computer and just do it, rather than attempt to explain further.

Gah.

4

Ahhh… situational awareness! It’s a wonderful thing isn’t it? Assuming it ever gets practiced correctly, that is.

I understand that most air forces the world over refer to “situational awareness” as being the stuff that gives fighter pilots “the right stuff”. That is, sirens can be going off, buzzers screaming, missiles locked on to you, bogeys to the left, bogeys to the right… and through it all the greatest pilots can disseminate all the incredible competing bits of information and prioritise it and make the right decision - every time. That’s what world class “situational awareness” means.

OK, so now apply such logic to just life in general. Think about all the dumb fucks you see every day who do really stupid, utterly dense things just going about this infinitely less stressful thing called life. Most of us will never know even one tenth the sort of uber-stress that fighter pilots get to deal with. And yet, the total lack of situational awareness in people in general is just fucking frightening. Whether it be talking waaaaaaaaaaay too loud on the phone in the office, or stopping with your shopping trolly to talk with two other people with shopping trolleys in the middle of the sliding doors of an entrance to a shopping mall, or juggling a map on the freeway while you’re talking on your mobile phone while the cops are frantically trying to pull you over…

As I said… the total lack of situational awareness that I see in almost all of the general population simply makes me wonder with incredulity as to how we (as a species) have survived this long… honestly.

5

You, my friend, are a genius. However, I wouldn’t quite characterize peoples’ actions as stupid. They are just oblivious to what’s going on around them. It’s not solely a lack of focus - it’s a general inability to pay attention. The average American could drive past a 100-foot wide billboard with a picture of his mother on it, and ten seconds later, would not be able to tell you what was on the billboard he just passed. To get better than a 50% positive response, you’d have to specifically tell people, “Now, be sure to look at the big billboard, and try to remember what you see on it”. This is what accounts for the present state of popular entertainment, and especially, advertising. Ever notice how many times the name of a product is mentioned in the typical commercial? If it’s a new product, more than half the script probably consists of the name of the product being repeated again and again until a normal human being wants to chew his own foot off. You have to beat people over the head with something, or it just goes in one ear and out the other.

On the plus side, it’s really easy to look smart by comparison if you just pay attention.

6

I read this little blurb recently…A cognitive scientist made a video of two teams, one in black, one in white, playing a furious game of basketball. Into the midst of the game runs a guy in a gorilla suit. The gorilla goofs about for a few seconds and then exits the frame. Subjects were instructed to watch the video carefully and report back what they saw. Only about 50% of viewers saw the gorilla. In fact, when the scientist showed this video to audiences, many were so astonished, upon review, (haveing been clued into the fact they missed something major) to see the gorilla, they accused him of showing two different versions of the scene.

It’s not uncommon to completely miss what is right under our nose, because of our ability to prioritize what we see. What our visual receptors record, and what our minds apprehend, are often at great variance. I honestly don’t know if it’s better or worse to have fighter-jock-level situational awareness on a day-to-day basis. Yeah, if you’re engaged in a Mach 1.5 dogfight, and you’ve got people shooting air-to-air missiles at you, it’s great, but when you’re driving to the supermarket, could one possibly fall victim to stressful hypervigilance if they can’t “turn it off”?

7

Sorry slight hijack.

Is that word “workaround” a company only use of that word? Because I’ve never heard a backdoor or shortcut (what we’ve always called how to get where you want to get by tricks or such), referred to as a “workaround” either.

8

The way I’ve always used or heard workaround used is, if a program lacks a certain feature, (in this case the ability to cut and paste into Excel), there are often ways to get it to behave as if it had that feature.

Usually it requires more steps or more coding than the actual feature would have, which is why it isn’t a shortcut. It’s not a crack or a backdoor, it’s using the program’s existing tools to produce the same effect as if the program had the desired feature.
Feature feature feature. Feature. It doesn’t look like a real word after you repeat it several times, does it.

9

You have just perfectly described the idiot that decided to stand in the middle of the road and have a mobile phone conversation. I am trying to drive down the road and the fool was so busy talking on the phone he didn’t even see me! I had to stop mere inches from knocking him over and beep the horn repeatedly before the idiot would move.

10

I use software called Pro/Engineer. We use the word “workaround” a LOT.