"Liam, Nicola's Watching Prisoner Cell Block H"....

Now, as you probably know I spend most of my time at work doing techie things and pretending to know what I'm talking about. It's the part of my job I like the most and the one that takes up most of my time.

Last week a colleague of mine did something that made me laugh so much I had to write about it. I don't name names on here so I'll refer to him as 'Mr Chocolate Milk' throughout this piece. He's a very good friend of mine and regularly has me in hysterics as we share the common bond of both being east end gangsters born and bred. Innit...

Just don't ask me who I am

Anyway, we have a great piece of tech at work called DameWare which I'm sure is used all over the place. It allows the user to log remotely onto someone else's PC so they can fix it, show the person how to do something or generally check up on them if you're that way inclined. So, Mr Chocolate Milk phoned me up and then logged onto my PC to show me how to do something specific. All was ok, it went well and he showed me what I needed to know. Now, the problem is that when someone logs onto your machine, they also have control over it aswell and can basically do whatever they want. And guess what? This is exactly what the cheeky git did.

He decided to go onto YouTube and have a search around for something to show me. He came up with an episode of 'Prisoner Cell Block H' and pointed out where the show was filmed as he'd recently been to Australia himself. Now, this is all very interesting, but why was it so funny? Well, he then decided to shout across to one of the managers nearby in his office and in a very loud voice said "Liam, I've just remotely logged onto Nicola's machine and she's watching Prisoner Cell Block H. That's terrible"...

Never trust people who work in IT...

I could have swung for him if I wasn't laughing so hard. Luckily I know the manager in question and he knew it was a joke, but it could have gone a bit wrong if it'd been someone else! Pretty much since then Mr Chocolate Milk has been threatening to log back onto my PC to see what episode I'm up to!!

The reason I found it so funny is probably because it's something I would do myself! I love a joke at work and I think people know me well enough that I'll take it as well as give it back. I guess the moral of the story is be careful what you have on your screen just in case someone logs on or make sure you trust who has the power to check up on you! I'll get him back, don't you worry about that...

I was also doing some testing at work last week and whilst having a quick cuppa took the photo below of me with my feet up in a comedy style and posted it on Twitter. Mr Chocolate Milk decided to share this picture with my office manager the following day who thought it was hilarious. To anyone who doesn't know me it probably looks very much like I in fact don't do much work at all, but in reality I am always at my desk till gone 6pm and rarely have a lunch break anymore. All of my own doing so don't feel sorry for me, but I guess it makes it amusing because it's completely the opposite of who I am. If I was a lazy git it wouldn't be as easy to wind me up I suppose.

A laptop, cuppa, biccies what more could you want?

A word to the wise, never trust people who work in IT. They have the power and the means to make you look very silly indeed. But on the other hand they can fix all your PC problems so maybe buy them sweets and keep them onside as you never know when you might need their help.

My little notebook which I keep on my desk for writing down the random things I hear has become famous! My colleagues will now say something, look at me and ask "are you writing that down for your blog?" It seems this section has become infamous and my little goldmine of amusement is trying hard to make the grade from notebook to blog post! So here's one of his best from a few weeks ago.

For some reason he was rummaging through his rucksack looking for something. No idea what he was doing, but I heard a mumble and looked up to find he was holding a cherry tomato. I carried on with what I was doing until he shouted again and was holding another one. This went on for some time until he became very animated and shouted "It's out of control!! There's about  6 of them at the bottom of my bag!!" In the end there was actually about 15 of them all rolling around loose in his bag. No idea why and I don't think he knew either which is what made it so funny. It was kind of like watching a magician, but instead of pulling coloured scarves out of a hat, it was tomatoes from a rucksack. He continued to look in his bag and informed us all that "I've also got a headlamp, some cables, a very small pack of cards and a tin of fish". It was the most random selection of stuff I've ever seen. He also used to carry a small canister of gas for a camping stove around, but that's another story.

I have a feeling that we may have found the final resting place of the Holy Grail and perhaps Shergar. They're both in the bottom of a rucksack in the Midlands with some salad tomatoes if you're interested...

Beware of out of control fruit

Have you tried it in Chrome?....

Now, I don't really write much about my job for a few reasons. It's not something that I want to share cos it's work right, and also it's quite hard for me to put into words what I actually do. I've never considered myself to have a career and I was never someone who was driven to be anything in particular so why would that be interesting?

When I was young I seem to remember that I wanted to be a vet. But when I found out about how long it took to study etc I was kind of put off. Not that I was lazy, nope, just more interested in reading or music than studying. I always add at this point that this doesn't mean I'm not clever. I have an extremely good memory which I think can come out as intelligence, but I do not class myself as academic. I did ok at school though, but I didn't really like it much as I was one of those kids on the outside. I wasn't cool, but I wasn't hated either. I was just there I guess. I carved out a role being funny when I was around 14 and I think that's when my love of sarcasm started. It's still something I do now, but quite often it falls flat as people have no idea if I'm joking or not. As a disclaimer, approximately 90% of what I say is usually sarcasm. Right, now we've got that cleared up let's move on...

So why am I writing about work and what do I do? Well, I'm not going to name who or where I work so don't ask me that. What I will say is that my role is mainly quite technical, so yes, I am a geek. I work with IT, but I'm not in IT, although I think I should (and would like) to work in IT. I was never employed as a tech, but due to my understanding and ability it has become a large part of what I do every day and I have to say, it's my favourite part of what I do. I decided to write about it as I sometimes think I am quite different to other geeks as I am a non-tech working in tech which can be quite hard as I don't come from the same background. Someone I work with regularly picks me up on it and says "are you sure you don't work in IT?" due to the things I say and do. My favourite quote from him was this: "you are the most technie non-tech I know". I like that one and I think I might have it put on a t-shirt...!

I never set out to work with computers or systems, but everywhere I've worked I've ended up learning and then teaching the system we used. I spent a long time working in insurance and had to learn and use bespoke systems as part of my job. It came easy to me and this is a pattern that has continued. Any time there is a new system or website at work, it usually ends up with me to work out or manage in some way. This is also the same at home. My family always ask me about computer stuff and I am the go to person with mobile phones whether I know about them or not. I recently got asked to update the contacts on a Samsung phone (never owned this brand in my life) whilst being asked which wi-fi printer is worth buying (don't have one of those either). And yes, I did both of those tasks.

Yeah, I can reset one of these no worries...

In my office I sit with a group of programmers and they often like to test me with words or check my understanding of things. More often than not I'll get it wrong, but one day I'll be able to explain what a GUID is correctly, just you wait!

I guess the reason this post was in my mind is because of something that happened this week. I attended a conference and met other people who did kind of similar jobs to me. It was nice to be with other geeky types for once although it was obvious that not everyone gets as excited about tech as me. I have to admit I didn't actually realise it excited me either until I found myself explaining something to some people and caught sight of myself being all enthusiastic about it like a loon. It was a bit of a lightbulb moment when I looked at their faces, realised they had absolutely no clue what I was talking about, but there I was enjoying telling them all about plugins and stuff. Slightly embarrassed to say the least...

I loves it

Now this is all very well, but it's probably not that interesting to you really. It just gives you an idea of my personality a bit I guess and the fact that I am thinking about my career for once. I considered writing another blog about being a technie non-tech, but I'm not sure it would be that engaging or I would have enough to say really so this post will do for now.

Here are some things I've learnt that could help with your IT problems (in order of importance):

1. Have you tried turning it off and on again? This is key to everything.
2. Have you tried it in Chrome? A newer one, but it seems that Chrome is apparently the god of browsers sent to save us all from the inadequacies of IE.
3. Which site are you trying to access? Yeah, your network password is probably not going to log you into Twitter my dear (unless its the same one and then I'd maybe reconsider that actually love).
4. Is it actually plugged in? If your keyboard isn't working, stand up with it in your hands and take 3 steps backwards. If it stays in your grasp then it's not plugged in...

You can't get away from technology, it's everywhere so perhaps you should embrace it and see what happens. I will say though, if you hear any mumblings about Skynet, be afraid, be very afraid...