Humour

Nowhere near IT perfect

T A Balasubramanian focusses on a techie's biggest dilemma—social interaction.

With the usual expansive style of expressing himself, blowing pipe smoke at the ceiling, Dr Don Jong continues to unravel the strange and restless musings of Bobo Jitter, the CIO of Bazooka Company. Dubbed ‘The Oddfather’ because of the unusual fixes he offers, Dr Jong has a special talent for exploring the unique facets of technology’s eccentrics and their nervous concerns, offering his own brand of kooky solutions.

“There’s something quite fearsome about the changes in my profession, Doc.”

“And why is that, Bobo?”

“The changes actually require me to become more comfortable in social interaction. I have to become skilled in dealing with people—especially users of computer services. Real people. Angry people. Impatient people.”

“And why is that so fearsome?”

“Let’s face it, Doc. Many of us geeks got into IT ( it was then called DP) because we had limited social skills to begin with. There was little need for me to show any psychological sensitivity, because computers have none. What I loved most was being left alone with my systems, free to experiment, explore, and create. For me, the fact that these machines were expected to run a business was of little importance. Their primary purpose, as I saw it, was to provide me with an escape from the world and a dose of intelligent entertainment.”

“Ah, so you found your profession entertaining?”

“Absolutely, Doc. As machines go, computers were unique. They required a direct input of human intelligence and rewarded me with a wondrous array of products. The higher the intelligence, the more remarkable the product. This was called programming, and it was essentially a solitary function best done in cloistered detachment near coffee and junk food machines.”

“It was like being perpetually in college, eh? Free and self-centric all the time?”

“Exactly. The problem was that the best among us—those with the least developed social skills, least capable of exercising psychological sensitivity, and therefore the most likely to work in solitary detachment, creating brilliant software—were soon promoted to management.”

“That means becoming responsible for developing people, not just programs?”

“You said it, Doc. I was a highly technical loner suddenly asked to manage people who wanted no management, because they, too, were loners. So being poorly organised, uncommunicative, and considering all end-users as a nuisance, I became a manager who hired people like myself, who loved technology and could work independently.”

“Not a very happy scene for your users, eh?”

“They are more than unhappy. To the rest of the company we are aliens who speak in acronyms and have no listening ability and poor eating habits. If the outcome for the users is not always satisfactory, at least meetings are mercifully brief. They can’t stand talking to us. Mainly because we tend to speak geek, and very few users can follow, for example, a description of how storage space is important for optimising the performance of a server’s network behaviour.”

“Rather like us, I imagine, Bobo. Very few of my clients would follow a clinical diagnosis of their condition if I chose to express it in our private jargon.”

“Well, Doc, in truth, during the early data processing days, before computers became demystified, the CIO-subordinate cabal was rather exclusive and clannish—an alliance based on shared secrets. No one outside the IT glass house knew how the beast with the thousand cables worked. In those days, ‘the system crashed’ was an acceptable explanation, and those who brought it back to life were imbued with God-like powers.”

“I can well imagine that.”

“Like conspirators, CIOs and the programming clan shared the mysteries of the blinking monster—the mainframe in the isolation ward. The passing on of that esoteric knowledge was an initiation for the chosen. The users, like the terminals on their desks, were kept dumb. It was us, not so much against them, but us separate from them.”

“And now, all that mystery is gone, you say?”

“Yes, yes. Now everyone has a computer on his desktop, and ‘the system crashed’ is only a modestly acceptable explanation for Windows users. The mystery is gone, and users are painlessly initiated before they come to work.”

“So you are now weakened considerably?”

“Correct, Doc. The demise of the glass house came with a subtle shift in power. When the computers were safely behind locked doors, we were Gods. Users got only what we gave them, and their biggest concern was response time. Occasionally they came to us with their humble requests knowing it would be many months before their needs would be addressed. With distributed processing and networks, the users took charge of their own destiny.”

“Ah, so you were left with no thunderbolts to throw.”

“Yes. Before, we catered to the needs of the machine; now we were expected to cater to the needs of the company. Users now come to us with demands, shaking their fingers at us. They want it yesterday, and it had better work the first time. And this shift of authority requires a very different type of IT manager. While technical managers are still valued, the CIO has to possess superior people skills and the ability to manage multiple projects.”

“And few candidates possess all these skills, I presume.”

“Indeed so. Meanwhile, the pressure on everyone has been increasing. While no salesman is expected to close every deal, IT is expected to function perfectly, all of the time. The system must be available, the software must function flawlessly, and communication lines must be operative 24/7.”

“That is something I can see, Bobo. You lost your God-like power, and now you find that you have God-like users demanding that you perform to their expectations perfectly. The shoe, as they say, is on the other foot?”

“Quite so, Doc. That is what I find most distressing. How do I cope with this pressure to be perfect?”

“By letting them be like your demanding parents.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, if you look at the way you would respond to your father or mother if they were to demand perfect behaviour from you.”

“You mean I bow to their wishes and just become their obedient child?”

“No. By becoming a clever obedient child.”

“Clever? I never was, so I have no clue about what you’re saying, Doc.”

“Well, if you permit me to use the monkey example again, what does the little, helpless monkey do when he is cornered by the big bullying monkey?”

“I don’t know. Gives up and rolls over?”

“No, no. He offers the big monkey a little banana. To appease him and make him go away.”

“Ah, so I get it now. I give the user something that appears to be a solution to his problem, but not necessarily so?”

“Voila, you comprehend, Bobo. I shall expect you to master this trick, my friend. It is the key to survival, as we shall see.”