26 Jun 4705 - Informational Technician Versus Computer Scientist Round One Million

I am IT guy. An informational technician. My task is to use whatever technology is available for whatever task is at hand. My creed is to disparage code, and use developed and tried tools to do anything. I should be just as at home wielding a fire extinguisher as a mouse, just at home in front of a computer as behind a digital camera. Within the instructional sphere, I have to guide users through the use of programs and devices, whomsoever they be, and am therefore congenially polite and attractive.

I am CS guy. A scientist of computers and computing. My task is to use a small array of sophisticated devices to do absolutely anything asked of me. My creed is to use code first and ask questions later. I should only be at home in front of my terminal at my workplace, which is usually surrounded by open computer towers and not enough light. Within the instructional sphere, I have to be prepared to handle professionals, but generally this is little different from any other CS guy in charge of server operation, security, and maintenance. Since I almost never meet the end user in person, I am dressed casually and do not bother to sex myself up in the slightest.

This is my life. I prefer to think of myself somewhere towards the dashing end of the spectrum. I am unafraid to dive into code as an IT guy, and fully willing to seek a graphical front end of a solution as a CS guy. I will plumb software and hardware with equal depth and willingness, and I guess I keep myself attractive and presentable for more than just the clients, so nevermind it.

This afternoon, though, I was IT guy asking CS guy for something from the server. Actually I was a subcommittee of another who was asking for me since I had said so, but the chain of command isn't needed for the story beyond the opening gambit, as seen in several episodes of MacGyver. It went as such: I finally found a place in Dreamweaver to enter in some text to make several aspects of a website connect. This is a fundamental part of my project right now. The instructions for the operation that I had specified that I needed to know a string that is specific to my server, which after some looking on my own, I decided I would need CS guy to tell me what it is, so I told the boss to go ask for me.

Nothing doing. Not only will I not tell you, I'm not going to admit that that's even what you need to be doing, or that the information exists. CS guy said it in this order:
It is a security issue, I can't tell you that.
If it worked with Frontpage, it should work the same way in Dreamweaver (for the record, it worked in Frontpage three years ago, not yesterday)
You should call the IRC about any Dreamweaver problems.

So he went from telling my boss that the operation is impossible, to admitting that it should be an easy translation of software (just replace the word Frontpage with the word Dreamweaver in your tutorials, right?), to telling her to call herself about the problem (we are the IRC). Hoo boy.
Boss recognized that I much more knew what I needed and how to talk CS (read: how to speak without having it come out meaningless buzzwords), and so got me on the horn with CS guy while she listened and helped out where needed.
This was most satisfactory, as he quickly went from being just another jackass who directs people to their own offices to being a helpful server admin who knows all about the server file structure, and lets see if we can do this together.
Over the next hour we traded back and forth what I was doing and how, went through the same steps to where I was having the hangup, and then...

He hit the wall too. Something that should have been working just wasn't. Not only that, but his CPU redlined while trying to do the operation, and he had to kill it and start again. Not only was I up against a wall, so was he, and this spurned him on to figure out how to make it work.
So I get praised for basically not accomplishing anything. Bureaucratically I accomplished a lot. I changed an answer of "I can't help you" into an "I'm going to not rest until I know how to help you." All it took was an appreciation of CS guy's position, and a little knowledge beyond the fleet of buzzwords that is the body of IT. I am the daywalker, as it were.

And as it relates to being directed to one's own lab (for what is one good story but room for another?), I recall a morning months ago, I think near the winter break of last year.

I got a call from the IT department secretary, who asked me where to go to get replacement teacher evaluation forms. I have no idea why she thought I would know (or maybe she thought I had them?); that's not at all what my lab does, but hell, I had nothing else to do, so I gave her the "I'll get back to you."
About twenty minutes later, Adam came in for his shift, making two LAs in the lab once again. I told him about the call and how I planned to call back in another couple minutes with the "no dice" response, and have a nice day, but he thought he could help:

Adam: Any department secretary should know where to get more. Most professors do, too.
Kaz: Nah, this was a department secretary.
Adam: Reeealy. Well I know one prof I could ask. He's a friend of mine and he knows his way around.
Kaz: Sure, what department is he in, I'll get him on the horn.
Adam: He's in the IT department, here's the extension for the dept. I usually just call the secretary and have her transfer me.
Kaz: Dude, that's the same number that the client left me.
Adam: So the IT department secretary called you with this question...hold on, I have an idea. Let me make the call to her department and ask to be transferred to the prof. I'll get the info from him, then give it to you, and you can call her back and tell her.
Kaz: Wait, so we're pulling a game of phone tag that could be solved by having her walk down the hallway and knock?
Adam: Yes, but this makes us look like we know everything.
Kaz: Oh, we're so doing this.

And we did. The secretary thought that the two calls were completely unrelated. Here's a guy who wants to be transferred to his professor. Sure. And here's a different guy who is calling back with the specific information I requested, seemingly from nowhere. He's good. The best part is that we managed to avoid telling her to call herself, but only because we bothered to look before calling. It would have been very easy to bobble the call and end up grousing at the woman to just walk two doors down and ask. Our way, we avoided looking condescending or being rude, kept the circle small, and accomplished exactly what was asked as well. Perhaps we even avoided making her look bad, as the professor need not know in this case that his secretary didn't know where to get the replacement forms. On top of it all, Adam and I got a good chuckle out of our little prank. It was a refreshing reversal from the few times that I had been directed to call my own extension.

How may I help you?

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