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So You’re a Computer Guy, Huh?
Send this to all your family members who insist you fix their toasters and microwaves
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A long-time friend recently introduced me as her “computer guy.” She’s known me for over 20 years, but I’m sure she won’t be able to accurately describe what it is I actually do with computers.
When she first met me, I was crawled under her desk plugging in a cable to make sure her network printer worked. At that time, I was installing custom software at her workplace and connecting the noisy dot-matrix printer.
Since then, I’ve worn many hats in the information technology world, but even my mom who knew I got a Computer Science degree, still describes me as someone who simply works on computers. For a while, my now ex-wife thought I repaired computers and printers all day.
There’s a reason it’s called Information Technology — it’s all about information and data.
Here’s an oversimplification of the various roles that describe the computer guys and gals out there. To have a context that most people might relate to, let’s use Amazon — the website, not the river — as our focal point, and how it relates to data (information).