Do You Talk Shop With Your Other Half?
If ever I talk shop with Karen (and I try not to) I keep it very simple. Patronisingly so. There's a reason for this - she knows not the first thing about computers. It's comical how little she understands.
The other day I said on Twitter:
Win Phone 7 ad on TV. Wife says "Windows phone! What's that?" I say " A phone with Windows on". She says "Windows? Like the internet?"
She honestly seems to think that Windows and the internet are one and the same thing. I can only guess that this is because she's using Windows to get on the internet and so Windows is the internet. Who knows what's going on in her head.
It's not that she's stupid. She's a reasonably intelligent person who just happens to be one of the many that struggle with computers. When she was at work she used to say how she'd been to see the "idiots in IT" to get her laptop sorted and all the time I'd be thinking "those poor, poor men".
I know there are some of you who married people in the same line of work. Personally I like that Karen knows so little. As a rule I don't talk about my work outside of the office or working hours. Unless asked.
Last night we were at mum and dad's and I covertly recorded a conversation between Karen and my dad on things internet. It would make for a great podcast - "Jake's Dad & Wife Talk Computers". You can't believe the stuff they come out with. If the sound quality is good enough I'll post is here at some point (assuming I get their permission, which I guess I need?).
In the mean time I'll continue to posts Karen's pearls of computing wisdom on my Twitter.
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Do You Talk Shop With Your Other Half?
Only if she has trouble sleeping....
:-)
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i rather talk to her in Chinese :) She does not have a clue about computers.
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... wow.
What will happen, if she reads that?
No hacky panky for a year?
Liver every day?
... I think you should call 911 to stand by.
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It's not that bad. I did call her "reasonably intelligent".
She doesn't tend to read this site. It's too hard to find, as she has to first type in www.google.com and then type www.codestore.net in to the search box. No, seriously - that's what she does.
It's 999 here for the services. Although I'd imagine 911 acts as a "shortcut" to it.
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I sometimes do. But she pretty much made up her mind about how she wants her computers to work anyway. Before I actually built them. Here requirements were pretty simple:
1) Must be in Japanese (hardly surprising since she *is* Japanese).
2) Must use Lotus Notes for emails (her choice, I didn't influence here in anyway on this)
3) Must be able to watch DVD's on it.
When it's the internal gubbins, she defers to me. So long as she can do what she wants on the boxes, she has pretty much free reign.
As to talking shop to her directly, I have to make things slightly simpler since she's not up with the major concepts ("network connections", OK. "TCP/IP stacks", not OK). But it's nice to bounce ideas off her sometimes. I certainly throw her at GUI interfaces just to see if she "gets it".
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I use mine (wife that is) as a usability tester too. If she can use it anybody can.
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Only when she is about to hit me with the back of the laptop when internet goes down ;-)
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I always know when my wife is using the computer as invariably there's a cry of "why are all these stupid windows open".
Then there's her conviction that if something doesn't work, the thing to do is to hit the same key over and over and harder.
This from a woman who runs an office of 8 people.
I used to have a hash tag on Twitter #mywifehatesmylaptop now it's #mywifehatesmyipad
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I once watched a person (from one generation before mine) do the following to perform some word processing:
* push power button
* wait a little
* start typing
She hadn't even started MS Word. She was typing on the Win98 splash screen. I was speechless. The user asked: "What's the matter, am I doing something wrong ?"
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Perhaps they had used an earlier dedicated word processor, like the Wang 1200.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Laboratories#THe_Wang_1200
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I still have to explain to my Dad virtually every week why, when he opens up 'Microsoft' (that's Word to you and me), he can't find files like pdfs or excel. He gets in a panic and thinks he's lost everything because Microsoft can't find them. I (try to) patiently explain the difference between Word and windows explorer/the hard drive and how it all works to him, but it's never sunk in. This is after being self-employed for 15 years and using Windows for most of that time.
Oh, and trying to explain to him how to use the address bar in IE, that's a whole different story in itself
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nope, mainly because although she understand what i do, I DONT understand what she does (PHD in linguistics )
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I do only when I'm completely stuck on a problem.
Strangely anough, the very reason is because she's lacking all the basics about computers.
She asks tons of questions and gives as much ideas, forcing me to explain her in other ways I'm usually thinking.
Most of the time, this ends by another way of thinking the problem and a better comprehension of the problem.
This succeed very often.
Otherwise, no. I spend enough time at work for avoiding loosing the small amount of time we share together and with our kids.
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Speaking to the other half about work is probably why I do not have an other half.
I am still undecided as to whether this is a good or bad thing! ;-)
To be honest, as I grow older I find myself doing less "work" out of hours. (And IBM's licensing has helped immensely too, by ensuring I can't legally run Domino at home without spending money - but that's another issue...)
Anyway, if I couldn't bore a Hypothetical Her with work, I could probably manage it with photography or whisky. Well, probably is a bit optimistic. Certainly would be more like it!
If there's one thing I've learnt, it's not the subject that matters - it's the failure to notice that there's no interest, and ploughing on anyway...
(Now, if I could just get a Hypothetical Her that realises this is also true with soap operas and myself, I'd be set...)
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Sounds like Jen from the IT crowd....
I.T. stands for "Internet Things"
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
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The IT Crowd FTW. One of best shows to ever come out of the UK. Mind you ive only seen that show and The Office UK lol
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I don't talk shop to my other half, mainly because once I'm not at work I would rather not spend the rest of my time thinking and talking about it.
With regards to some of the other comments, I find it incredibly frustrating that (the majority of, usually fairly intelligent) people seem to automatically assume they don't understand something simply because it is computer-related.
This mental attitude towards it pretty well turns it into a self-fulfilling prophecy as they don't really even attempt to pick up things as they go along and their brains are turned off before you even start.
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You've met Karen then.
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Generally no because work is work and other than "how did your day go" and some sort of summary on my part, it stays at work.
On rare occasion, however, like when I'm really stuck on a problem, I can explain it to her and she will comprehend enough to be able to actually come up with a workable solution. I kid you not. She's not a developer by any means, but she's pretty smart given a good explanation to start her off. She even upgraded the firmware on our camera one time. I didn't even know it could be done till then! Some time after she was complaining that her iPaq didn't recognize her 4GB SD card. I was about to suggest something when she completes her own thought "perhaps I should check for a firmware update?"
Yep - I'm fairly expendable. :-)
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I'm impressed.
Karen probably thinks firmware is underwear to help hide any wobbles.
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The only time I talk shop at home is when my wife or one of the kids tells me that something "doesn't work". Actually, the words are often more colorful than that, but never any more useful. Although I am frequently told that "if you'll just show me how to fix it myself, I wouldn't have to bother you", in most cases I remember that I'm better off not even trying because if the same procedure is not guaranteed to work for every similar problem every time, the result will be even more frustration -- for them, and for me.
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I do, but only in general terms. And that goes both ways. She's a doctor, so she's more than capable of burying me in technical details that I can't follow. We're both too specialized to get into anything specific.
I don't really want to talk about work when I'm at home, though. The only reason it comes up is when one of us needs to vent. She does much more venting than I do, but then in fairness her "end users" are vastly more stupid than mine. The things we all laugh about people doing? Sad and pathetic, true. But talk to an MD sometime. Seriously, there are some spectacularly idiotic people in the world, and doctors see many more of them than computer geeks do.
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Funny you say that. My wife is a school teacher and I think the she has a majority when it comes to non-thinkers:)
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Really agree with CJ. They do not understand it because they have decided to not wanting to understand it. It is not about anyone's level, I've seen computer-savy self-taught 86 year olds of medium intelligence.
It's the same with math and most things technical. People do not like them and choose not to understand them.
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I try not to but we do talk about our day, not really the particulars, but in more general terms. I know that she isn't really interested in tech stuff and she knows that I really don't care too much for lesson plans and high school drama (and I don't mean the class :) ). But we do try to keep one another up on how things are going and our plans for the up coming week.
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I talk shop with my wife, who's in the medical field. But I have to keep it very basic. She understands that the computer and the Internet are different things, but where she struggles is when something goes wrong. Is it the web site? Her browser? The Internet connection? Or something else?
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Jake, this story made me remember about this: :)
The IT Crowd - "This, Jen, is the internet."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAUyaELfwBo
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My wife complains only about using Lotus Notes 4.6 web mail at her work. She ignores it as it is too cumbersome to use.
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Too much talking shop can get you into trouble. Although I no longer work in web development, people know it's got something to do with computers. Therefore, if someone has a problem with their hardware, they ask me!
But it's funny how different genders handle this. When I get home, the last thing I want to do is talk about work. My wife, on the other hand, unwinds by giving me a run down on her whole day. She's a nurse, so it involves lots of technical details and terminology which I'm supposed to remember but can't, so it washes straight over me. And my approach to the human body is like her approach to the internet - I just want it to work, I'm not interested in the inner workings, if you can fix it don't bother explaining what you're doing because I won't understand it anyway.
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I do talk to my other half about work as he is also very technical.
But all the comments about helping out non-technical family members reminded me of this, which I have stuck on my wall at work:
http://xkcd.com/627/
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Since my wife started working at IBM about ten years ago she has had to work with Lotus Notes every day. She's a user, not a developer, but she's even showed me a thing or to I didn't know about the Client. She's become much more computer literate in that time.
So I can tell you that it is quite satisfying to be able to talk a bit of shop with her from time to time. But not too much. For her it's just a job, not an all consuming passion.
I think I'm a lucky guy :)
Rob:-]
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