Thursday, July 13, 2006 9:29 AM
First go read Chris' post here. Now, for my response.
This might be deep, but I think there's some truth. Think back, geek reader, to your childhood. All of it. Do you remember being popular? Do you remember wearing jogging pants up to grade 10 or 11 or higher, and other fashion disasters (some might not need to look quite as far back for them, but I digress..)? Do you remember NOT having alot of friends that were girls? Do you remember not having many friends at all? Being picked on, beat up, laughed at, mocked, etc.?
Here's my point: Many geeks remember their realization-years that way. We had to build up alot of defenses to ward away the evils of the liked and popular. We didn't really hang in packs, so we didn't really deal with alot of team involvement. It was mostly you against the world, and the one thing that we had over our counterparts was our intelligence, knowledge, and skills with a 20 sided die.
Fast forward 10 to 20 years, and now we're full fledged IT geeks forced to work within the constraints of companies that preach teamwork and cooperation which to many geeks are foreign concepts. It wasn't all that long ago that developers would just be happy to sit in front of a computer and not have any interaction with people (the old “just slide food under the door” jokes).
This isn't true for everyone obviously, but there definately is a hint of chestbeating...I've noticed it and experienced it. One of the most annoying things to me is when people throw their experience around as a broadsword of “shut up and listen to me”, when mutual respect and teamwork mean more (personally).
Anyway, that's my thoughts. You might have different ones...but who cares, my 50th lvl Paladin can kick your Ranger's ass any day. :P
D