Why people need the geeks…

// June 24th, 2009 // Life's Happenings

Good enough that I am my own tech support person.  And with the credibility of todays’ technology, I also handle the support calls of family, friends neighbours, acquaintances an the likes. Actually, its not that I’m smart. Its just that the smart people today have learnt that they can get their work done and more by ignoring the petty details of the tech in their lives. And then when the things go wrong, as they always will, they’ve figured out they can find some kindly geek to set things straight. Tragically, they are right.

The concepts that seem obvious to us who cultivate technical savvy are totally alien to the non-tech majority, or as I happily refer to them, technologically challenged entities. Yes, its a shortcoming on their side. But its justified with good reason – since most products and services aren’t remotely as simple as the techies and tech companies believe.

Really, I know people who get confused with their TV and Audio system remotes and cant figure out how to watch that cable TV show, or even the ones who think they its smart to copy their data to a second drive-until the first drive crashes and they realize that the second “drive” was just another partition on the same dead junkware, and maybe even the ones who think the mail they saved etc resides on their hard drive, but fail to access it 38000 feet above the Pacific. Plenty of users fail to grasp the basics like this, well until its too late.

Contradictorily, people who are unaware that something is amiss with their tech may be happy for it. Consider, millions of TV users might think they watch great picture quality on their TV, HD broadcast et al. But do they even own a hi-def TV ? Even if they do, maybe its not connected to the hi-def program source. Well, they are actually saving money there!

People like me live while paying attention to such details tend to get exasperated when friends/family who are no longer “novice users” fail to understand or a ignorant about what we consider SIMPLE. In fact, the “logical” tech world is arbitrary, whimsical and proprietary. If you follow the tech world,  then you know the answers to all such questions (by people referred to as n00bs).

Ive spent hours and days living up to the kind image of geekdom. Coz tech is so illogical and arbitrary, it needs folks like you and me to explain it to everyone else. For everyone else, if you’re not a geek, you’d better know one.

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6 Responses to “Why people need the geeks…”

  1. ksavai says:
    June 24, 2009 at 5:52 pm

    It all depends how you define “GEEK”. everyone have +ves and -ves. For you its technology (electronic+computer) is geeky thing.

    think about different profession..

    lets say doctors, why do they need to know about partition of hard disk, if they know partitions in heart its good enough for them and im sure they must be know lot more then any “geek” knows and for partitioning of hard drive he can hire a geek.

    If we talk about engineering, think about mechanical/material engineer, they wont think about whats coming in HD they might be more interested in how slim the screen and what is technology used behind it.

    So point is, every1 have strong points and weaker points and as we go old younger generation might be telling us same thing :P

    just my point of view (who is not as much as geek like u :) )

  2. Saaket says:
    June 24, 2009 at 9:42 pm

    Haha…you gotta read this :
    “The term “geek” originally referred to the carnival performers whose act consisted of biting the heads off chickens and eating glass. Over time it came to be applied to anyone who got paid to do work considered odd or bizarre by mainstream society.

    The term now enjoys a special status within the technical community, particularly among particularly knowledgeable computer programmers. To identify oneself as a “geek” indicates a recognition that most people still consider programming computers to be a bizarre act, along with a certain fierce satisfaction in being very good at their inglorious profession.

    That most software geeks now easily earn twice as much as the average laborer just sweetens their defiant embrace of the term.

    Note: Unlike the word “nerd,” which is always pejorative, “geek” often carries a positive connotation when used by one of the group. The use of the term by outsiders is considered insulting. “

  3. Ankit says:
    June 24, 2009 at 10:08 pm

    Awesome post !! ;)

  4. Saaket says:
    June 24, 2009 at 10:21 pm

    Thanks…

  5. Priyanka Nanda says:
    June 29, 2009 at 5:39 pm

    Nice post! :)
    And nice work on the blog!!

  6. Saaket says:
    June 29, 2009 at 5:42 pm

    Again, thanks. Blog still under development.

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