I have a confession to make… I am not, and probably never will be, a techie. It never bothered me before I began working at New City. I have a Blackberry, an iPod. When I came on board here they got me a swank, new MacBook with a separate, large-donkey flat panel monitor (bigger than anything I’ve owned anyway) Digitally, I have arrived… I guess.
I knew I was way, way, WAY out of my league when I would walk into meetings and realize I was the only person bearing paper and pen. A Luddite! I seem to be the only person in the office who gets thinks looking at YouTube on an iPhone loses something in translation. Actually, I think I’m the only person here who doesn’t have or want an iPhone. There might be one other dissenter among us (you know who you are…) The thought of needing an external additional hard drive attached to an already souped-up Apple hot rod (both are de rigueur here at NCM) blows my mind. If I need to speak to someone in the office, chances are I’m getting up and walking to their desk. It took me 3 weeks to figure out what np and lmk meant. Every night I’d get home, bleary-eyed from looking at a screen all day. My brain actually hurt from trying to process information that seemed to be coming at me from all sides… most of it too fast and with too many acronyms. Everyone at New City Media is erudite, witty, hip and very, very good at what they do. I’ve never felt so banal… so slow… so completely a beat behind. And then it occurred to me that I’m probably not alone.
Chances are, you don’t know that much about how web sites are built or designed. You don’t have to. That’s not your job, it’s ours. And chances are, you feel you’re in way, way, WAY over your head. Maybe you are; Web 2.0 is vast and deep. But these guys are the rescue swimmers of the Web. It’s not what they do, it’s how they live. They’ve been amazingly patient at pulling this floundering, gasping non-techie who decided to jump into the deep end outta the drink. I’m even learning a few strokes. So, if you’re standing on the edge, curling your toes over the side- come on in, the water’s fine.
One Comment
pam, you are not alone. i am a LAMP developer in an office full of microsoft drones. i avoid IE, i like my css separated from my markup, and i hate visual studio with the kind of fire that destroys whole cities. i feel unclean from the moment i walk into the office until i shower at night.
so, while i actually DO know how websites are built and designed, i also empathize with your fish-out-of-water feeling. power, sister.
~mike