Humour

Rules for the social jungle

T A Balasubramanian on cell phone etiquette for techies.

Having waited for many nail-biting weeks, Bobo Jitter, the unhappy CIO of Bazooka Company, finally gets an appointment with the fabled Dr Don Jong. Dr Jong is also called The Oddfather, given his propensity to come up with odd fixes for the treatment of technology-induced psychotic conditions, particularly in the CIO and CTO community.

Bobo, chatty as usual, hopes that a de-stressing session under the care of Dr Jong can help clear up some of his current dilemmas.

“So let me get to the root of problem you mention, Mr Jitter, or Bobo … of course you don’t mind me calling you Bobo? You feel that there is a complete incomprehension of social process in the IT fraternity? Is that correct?” says Dr Jong, gently.

“Yes, Doc. Let me give you an example. You must be aware of the most common nuisance that technology afflicts in crowded places these days.”

“Ah, no. I do not go to crowded places any more.”

“Well, to cut a long story short, I am talking about the shrill beep and musical tone of a mobile phone at the most inopportune moment—especially when the moment demands a hushed silence.”

“Mobile phones, oh yes. But I don’t use these silly devices, Bobo. I rely on these old-fashioned clunky black things on my desk with the dial and big numbers that I can actually read.”

“Oh. You are lucky, Doc. At a recent meeting of one of our company’s big customers, where we IT specialists were expected to listen with pin-drop silence, no less than three very technically smart individuals had to grapple frantically to find and turn off their mobile phones over the course of an hour. The worst moment was during a song recital by the customer’s daughter.”

“Ah, it must have been … embarrassing for your beloved CEO, Bazooka Zinca, or Bazoo, as you call him in private?”

“Yes. He might have fired the offender with the beeping phone on the spot—but the man slipped out too soon, the little rat.”

“I can imagine how bad that must have been for your customer, too.”

“Well, suffice it to say that Bazoo had to nearly stand on his head to appease him. This bizarre little story cuts to the very heart of IT priorities today, especially when it comes to applying a social process.”

“I do not connect, Bobo. What is your point?”

“But I was coming to the point. In a room filled with technology specialists of all kinds, what does this say about our ability to follow a simple process, such as showing respect by putting off the mobile phone?”

“Hmm. You tell me, Bobo.”

“It says they are in deep trouble with simple process understanding. I say that IT guys must be quick to understand, explain and implement processes, especially with respect to themselves. What was the offender in this case thinking? That his call was more important than the solemnity of the occasion? Of course, I may be clever in my ability to negotiate with suppliers when I am required to buy a batch of the latest servers, or draft a life-saving clause in a contract with IBM, or in framing a policy to keep viruses out of the company’s network, but that is only to be expected since I am a technical specialist who knows my onions.”

“Of course. So you are.”

“But we tend to be nerds when it comes to social graces.”

“Ah, so you notice that. That is very good.”

“I question the integrity of technical gurus who supposedly grasp complex IT issues, yet seem to have a disdain for the basic rules of social behaviour.”

“Ah, I believe it’s more accurately described as “selective intelligence” coupled with a form of deep self-absorption and narcissism—techies lost in their own universe, too busy to notice that people around have emotional lives.”

“That’s exactly right, Doc. Selective intelligence. But mind you, if it were up to me, if someone cannot grasp social manners, I wouldn’t hire him to walk my dog, much less run my network servers. The guy can’t put a mobile phone off for a while, but you’re trusting him to code or work in a highly sophisticated computer environment?”

“That’s a little too harsh, don’t you think, Bobo? We’re all not gifted with social smartness. Some of the brightest people on the planet are like apes when you try chatting with them.”

“Not really. I see that social grace is an indicator of real intelligence, Doc. I once worked with scientific researchers (who unlike me) had three degrees in things like Quantum Physics, Nuclear Physics, etc. The brightest ones, who had the Nobel Prizes could explain in plain language what they were doing. More importantly, they took the time and effort to do the explaining, sometimes repeating things over and over again till I could see it.”

“Ah, maybe you have seen the patient ones, but they are, by and large the exception. The majority are apes.”

“Why should that be so, Doc?”

“Well, it has to be our ape origins, Bobo. If you watch the great apes, they are always playing roles. When an ape wants to prove he’s the alpha male, the biggest in the bunch, he will growl ferociously and thump his chest, even charge at the perceived threatening usurper. Likewise, we are pretenders. We invent arcane slang and invent needless complexity in order to justify our existence—figuratively thumping our pretentious chests.”

“So how does that help?”

“Pretenders survive. Think of the old axiom, ‘If you cannot dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with pretense.’ So the absent-minded IT savant who forgets to put off his mobile phone may not be absent-minded at all. The act is to show off his own importance to the world. The mobile phone ringtone is the exact equivalent of the ape’s chest thumping.”

“Ah, that is beginning to make sense, Doc. We’re essentially apes, even after centuries of good social breeding, so we tend to let our origins hang loose from time to time?”

“Voila! You comprehend, Bobo. We have to give room for the ape inside each of us to express some growling. Even if it means bad manners to a lot of people around us.”