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A Common trend? 2

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nexcar

Programmer
Jun 30, 2003
49
US
I was an IT manager for 5+ yrs and now I've moved to another company working as a software engineer. Something I've noticed is that my co-workers don't have personal computers. Out of 8 of them, myself and one other guy are the only people with PCs. I can't imagine working in this field and not having a PC. Its like a mechanic not having a set of tools at home! My former co-workers have told me that my replacement says he doesn't have a PC at home either! I run my own 3-PC network at home and couldn't see keeping up to date without them. How do these people keep up with growing technology or programming trends? Is this common in your workplace too or have I just stepped into the Twilight Zone?

RUN FunnySignatureMessage
 
Its kinda like finding a chick that likes football or stockcars. They are one in a million!

RUN FunnySignatureMessage
 
And if anyone wants to know what Tarwn's signature means, it says 'Got Coffee?' in Binary. Sorry, Tarwn, the geek in me couldn't resist converting it to ascii.

RUN FunnySignatureMessage
 
Now there was me thinking it said ?eeffoC toG. Byte order blues.
 
Thats alright, I could have sworn I changed it a couple weeks ago...it's really funny seeing people try to decode base 27 encoding with byte switching :)

[sub]01000111 01101111 01110100 00100000 01000011 01101111 01100110 01100110 01100101 01100101 00111111[/sub]
minilogo.gif alt=tiernok.com
The never-completed website
 
If girls who like football or gaming are one in a million, I'll have to let my husband know just how special I am, I like football AND gaming!! I must be one in two million! I may not spend hours on the computer, but get me a good PlayStation quest/RP game and I'm hooked until the end of the game (or at least until the football game starts)!

Leslie
 
I can embroidery too! No really I can!

Leslie

(***off thread announcement: another of my "fun things to do" includes climbing. Unfortunately I suffered a shoulder injury a few years ago and recently had shoulder surgery. Five months ago, I couldn't even move my arm, but Saturday I CLIMBED AGAIN!!! It was just a boulder problem on our climbing wall at the house, but I made it to the top!!! end of off thread announcement***)

 
Leslie: Yes, you ARE one in two million. In no way am I a
ladies man or anything, but I hang out with a lot
girls, and videos games, anime, and sports are just
about the worse things you could possibly do in
their presence. They act like you murdered their
mother!! I imagine it has a little to do with the
fact that attention is diverted from them and thats
a bit hard to swallow for the average girl (just a
theory)


Thread: I'm a developer and have a PC at home. I acutally
enjoy getting on my home PC, because its MINE.
There's nothing on there that I dont want there.
Movies, games, anime, porn ... its quite the
entertainment device! It does help though to live
with friends who have an equal (or greater)
interest in the activites mentioned above, however.


-Jedi420

A man who has risked his life knows that careers are worthless, and a man who will not risk his career has a worthless life.
 
Nexcar, I can totaly relate to many of these threads!
I find that many of the people the I work with also dont have home machines. I feel that as my experience increases so does my efficiency. I have had 5 PCs networked and now I am down to 2 (laptop and Desktop.) It is crucial to my trouble shooting skills to have machines to work on and I am taken back by people that dont. nothing against there skills or ability but I also find that many also dont know the basics either.
I think that our careers are heading to a point where some people just show up at the office and say "OK I am here, tell me what to do." a good example of this is one of our guys has a degre in networking but has never networked two machines. (fortunatly he is only on the help desk)
I agree on many peoples Idea of "different strokes for different folks" but dont come in and assume that after 6 months on the help desk that you should be the IT director either if you havent done your home work.
Thanks for for the subject. This is one that I find a bit troubling. I dont feel that you cant do great work unless you have a network at home, but the people that do work or play on a home PC tend to under stand what its like to have problems, and how important it is to fix them for our end users. gives people that little extra foundation I think.

 
It's the separation of work and home life.
If your job is work you don't want to do it at home. If your job is your passion then it's different.

Cajun..
>>Classifying yourself as a hobbyist definately puts a different light on the situation, and if that's what you enjoy doing in your spare time, and it doesn't detract from your marriage, then more power to you.

Definitly, it's not work, that's the key thing. After quality time with my family I get my daily high but booting up, hobby = passion, work = pays the bills


Jedi..
"I acutally enjoy getting on my home PC, because its MINE."

Oh yeah! This is exactly how I feel!





- É -
 
Is it possible that a lot of the people that feel they need a computer at home to keep up their skills work in networking or hardware, while the people who don't want anything to do with computers when they get home tend to work more in software? Just curious if there is a trend at all.
 
Well I have two computers at home, but I rarely use them for anything resembling database programming.

Mostly they are surfing the net and writing short stories and a novel I'm working on. I also play dvds on the laptop while I write on the desktop!

I have all my work software loaded, but I spend enough hours at work, I want to relax when I finally get home.
 
Hum..

I'm one of the weirds.

I have 6 computers at home (including Notebook), all with different OS's (some machines with more than 1), and all networked.

I work as a software developer (mainly) but also do network/installation stuff on my free time, and when I get home I use the computers for all kinds of things, including gaming, email, plain web browsing, foruns (helping others), and also programming on stuff I don't do at work, or for other customers.

The main thing is that I enjoy doing it, and there is nothing better to me than a challeng to solve someone else problem's (If I feel it's not homework!!).

And I still have time for my familly.




Regards

Frederico Fonseca
SysSoft Integrated Ltd
 
Hi,

I have one PC, but there are two other desktops in the house that that I manage, but belong to other people. There is also a laptop that goes in and out as my sister goes off and comes back from uni, ditto I am responsible for keeping it running smoothly.
I also do it for a few friends and relatives who live near where I do, so have another 2 desktops to look after.
These are all standalone systems and have fairly standard Windows/office/IE/OE installations.

John
 
I haven't heard anyone talk about passion. I realize that everyone needs balance in their life, but I for one have a passion for programming. I too saved up for my first computer (CoCo 2), which used a cassette drive. At the time I was 11. I then continued to saved and was able to buy a floppy drive, the whole time reading the introduction to color computing book. I am not a full time programmer so I am looking at it from a different perspective, but I have always considered myself lucky to spend time doing what I love and getting paid for it. Staying an hour over at work on my time to finish a project that I am proud of and excited over has never been an issue for me. As far as the family aspect, my wife has always been understanding. Like I said, I do see merits in each of the responses, thought I would weigh in from a different perspective.

Fred
 
"I have always considered myself lucky to spend time doing what I love and getting paid for it. Staying an hour over at work on my time to finish a project that I am proud of and excited over has never been an issue for me"

Then you are exactly where you want to be ;)

Every person is different, but few are blessed to be passionate about their work.
 
I have not PC at home until last year. I was a great relief to get rid of work troubles and have a rest to my eyes.
I have got my father's used computer. It eats money, has less memory and has some troubles with Windoz version vs. CD-writer software version, so I cannot run some programs at home. Now I can prepare some test for my wife who is a teacher, and print out letters on my color printer in better quality. I advice - especially for workoholics - _not_ to have computer at home, as long as possible.

Ferenc Nagy
122130@elofizeto.hu
 
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