A few years ago I started a new teaching job and I was chatting with some colleagues. We all came from different backgrounds so we were discussing our university degrees.
(paraphrased from memory)
Me: I majored in computer science and maths.
Colleague 1: Huh! I don’t think computer people are that great. Every time I ask one to help me fix my computer at home, they mess around for ages and don’t even do that great a job. Know what I mean?
Colleague 2: Yeah, they don’t know what they are doing. They are nerds too.
Me: Ha ha! I know you are joking, but some people say things almost that bad. They think because I have a computer science degree that I know how to solve every computer related problem and that I am their servant, available to help any time of day.
Oh my god, no. Then you get the Linux geeks who start to fill your ear with every little trivial boring detail because they are so happy they have found a friend and a fellow convert.
God, it’s been forever since I even touched it but I still have bad memories, it seems. :eek:
This is awesome. I am going to start doing this. (I wish!)
Big, expensive ones. Things like 20 million dollar server farms in state of the art data centers running sites for fortune 50 companies. They’re both the easiest, and most challenging to break at the same time. Easiest because when they’ve just come from development they’re not tuned at all, so even normal load will usually make them fall over. Most challenging because a properly architected app, once tuned, will be almost impossible to break, even with negative testing(bad data, broken sessions, etc.). The fun comes when you correctly reverse engineer their code and find the weakness and then get to exploit it(once) and show it to them. I usually get stunned disbelief, but I calmly explain exactly how I broke this massive multi-million dollar setup with a desktop and a few thousand lines of c code.
Right now I’m working for a reasonably large company and we’re working diagramming the full call flow from the front end all the way to the core system and finding the bottlenecks. The integration is almost always the weak link. If I can fire a bunch of traffic at server 1, and it needs a bunch of data from server 2, then server 1 acts like a multiplier effect on server 2, creating much higher load on the second machine. If I can find another transaction that also needs data from server 2, but different data, then I can cause it to open new connections to service the different requests and choke off the flow of data. Pretty soon they’re locking up and the admins are having to go down to the data center and hit the power button. It’s like a puzzle. Find the weak links, hit them hard, watch the house of cards come down.
Man, that used to be a problem for me back in the 80’s as being one of a few asian-looking kids at my elementary school. With the popularity of The Karate Kid, I’d hear the stupid “wax on, wax off” line at least once a month.
So i wonder what would be a good way of explaining to people the differences of knowing certain kinds of computer stuff. Someone upthread mentioned comparing asking a bus driver to rebuild a transmission. How about something like asking an auto mechanic to fix a jet engine? Or asking a bug exterminator to kill a great white shark with only a knife?
I majored in journalism and am an editor by profession. I hate telling people what I do, because you would not believe how many people have a novel they are working on and for which they need feedback. Of course, I should be willing to do it out of the kindness of my heart because :eek: people don’t actually pay editors before they get published, do they? (Yes. They do.)
I finally just started answering, “Would you read my [novel/short story/comic book/magazine article/play/screenplay/whatever] and tell me what you think?” with, “No. I don’t read for free. Sorry.”
I figure, no matter what you do for a living, there will always be someone out there who will try to get you to do it for them for free.
Try being one of the IT guys at a major hospital. I think that in the past five years there has been exactly one doctor that I didn’t want beat with a traction bar. The ones that ask if you will work on their personal computers imply that you should do it for free.
Not just no, but HELL NO! You’re making more in a month than anyone in IT makes in a year. I’ll recommend someone that will do good work, but you’re going to pay them. When I clock out I’m done. If you’re not related by blood, I have no interest in dealing with whatever crap you’ve managed to download. I don’t particularly want to do it for relatives, but family is family.
I describe my occupation as selling… “thinking services” for people who… well, *companies *that employ people who, are too stupid to think for themselves.
Never had anyone ask for me to do it for free; I think it’s the “stupid” part
Same here. I just have to tell them that work in CICS and ACF2 on a z10 mainframe prodplex with physical processors in three states and people turn pale.
The even worse thing to tell people is that I work for a bank. No, I don’t know why you got charged that fee. No, I can’t “add” some money to your account. If I have any questions or problems with my account, I have to go to a branch or call the same customer service line that you do.
I don’t work with computers professionally, but I like helping people with their computer problems. I just got a printer working for a somewhat distant cousin of mine last Tuesday.
I like fiddling around with computers. I think its fun.
Years ago when I was a teller, one guy was totally baffled that I was not filthy rich, and in fact struggling. Yes, I handle money all day. No, I don’t get to keep it.
Next time someone asks either one of us to work for free, we should take a note from Surok’s book and just say, “Sure! That’ll be $40 per hour. I take PayPal, cash, and checks.”
Oh, my. My coworker just brought her laptop in and asked me if I could fix it. She told me her CD drive wasn’t working! I do not work for free. I figure it’s a hardware problem anyway, which I have no idea about. I had to post it here.
Things like 20 million dollar server farms in state of the art data centers running sites for fortune 50 companies. They’re both the easiest, and most challenging to break at the same time. Easiest because when they’ve just come from development they’re not tuned at all, so even normal load will usually make them fall over. Most challenging because a properly architected app, once tuned, will be almost impossible to break, even with negative testing(bad data, broken sessions, etc.). The fun comes when you correctly reverse engineer their code and find the weakness and then get to exploit it(once) and show it to them. I usually get stunned disbelief, but I calmly explain exactly how I broke this massive multi-million dollar setup with a desktop and a few thousand lines of c code.
