So You believe you studied You’ve Got IT Problems? You Don’t Know The Half Of It
To organize a meeting with a pal, you had a decision of writing a letter or ringing them up. Writing a letter meant finding suitable stationery and a supply of postage stamps. Phoning involved calling from a standard, land-line telephone. In practice this often meant using a choice-box. First, you had to queue up outside the box, usually inside the rain, while some other person conducted a seemingly endless conversation with their Mother in Basingstoke. When you had managed to get within the box then you definitely had to make sure to have definitely the right denomination of coins handy, in any other case use the feared ‘Reversed Charges’ system and check with a battle-axe of a Telephone Operator. Sometimes it just seemed lots of easier to offer up and spend another night in watching Dallas. What a beautiful, high-tech innovation it seemed when the phone card was introduced!
The realm of commercial was a much bigger minefield. Inside the typical 1980s office, for instance, getting the computer boffins to co-operate with you to create an easy report was a prime exercise in office politics, communications and diplomacy. The doorway to the IT Department looked to nearly all people like the Mouth of Hell, only slightly less welcoming and appealing. Not only did you’ve got the spotty, smelly, aggressive and socially illiterate Computer Programmers to address (and I should know, I was one), there were other, even more frightening, difficult and cantankerous people to negotiate with and pacify as a way to get the most simple task done.
Take as an example the most important Punch Department, always peopled by a wholly female work-force and always ruled with a rod of iron by an Amazonian woman called Brenda. Even though you were clever enough to write down your personal computer programs, in Assembler, COBOL or FORTRAN, you still had to beg and plead with the foremost Punch Supervisor to get your program onto the computer. No such luxuries as your individual keyboard and mouse for data input; the mainframe was a dear and mysterious piece of apparatus hidden faraway from view in its own room with its own attendants and even its own carefully controlled micro-climate. Woe betide the hapless employee who wandered into this inner sanctum without definitely the right authorisation.
This place had to be approached with extreme caution, only after making an appointment, and only in case you had the right kind id badge and a program written out on the officially-approved stationery. As a humble Junior Programmer I used to have an awful time of it, struggling to finish coding-sheets to Brenda’s satisfaction. Apparently my handwriting wasn’t up to scratch, and caused alarm bells to ring all around the Data Entry area. While you had tidied up your coding sheets to Brenda’s satisfaction, cleared the information Entry hurdle and got your program onto the mainframe, there was another, even more terrifying obstacle to triumph over: the Computer Operator.
Just as all Data Entry Supervisors were called Brenda, so there was another unwritten Law of the Universe which dictated that every one Computer Operators need to be called Martin, and will dress in corduroy jackets and gingham shirts liberally spattered with gravy and beer-stains. The primary explanation for their existence was to bar access to the Mainframe to mere mortals like me. Heaven forefend that anybody should attempt to get the dear mainframe to really DO anything useful. Incorrect and irresponsible programming was susceptible to make the entirety overheat and possible explode, or go into an endless loop. This was my trademark mistake, and typically ended in the printer spewing out interminable screeds of pricy computer paper, and to another, inevitable rollicking for me from Martin. Oh the shame and humiliation of it. Quite frankly it was much easier to just make the info up, and sort up your personal fictitious report yourself: lots quicker and doubtless just as useful to all concerned.
Nowadays, well, you only don’t know you’re born! Little need to beg and plead with the awkward squad inside the IT Department, no use to spend hours writing out COBOL programs longhand, no use to pull your required information kicking and screaming out of the center of a constipated mainframe computer. Crikey, not even any need for a data of any programming methodologies or languages. All you want is a pc or laptop, an online connection, and away you go, all by yourself. There’s probably more processing power and storage capacity in today’s average home pc than there would were within the entire IT department of a multi-national company back inside the eighties.
So stop complaining about problems along with your computer, because quite frankly, there really aren’t any to chat of. Intermittent internet connection? Broadband speed not fast enough? Don’t make me laugh. Benefit from it, make friends together with your pc; it’s one of the powerful piece of technology you’ll ever own, and it’s so easy. Plug it in, switch it on and get online to any information you would desire, all from the relief of your home. Research into any and every field of human endeavour, share documents and brainstorm ideas, link up and network with like-minded people worldwide! With these facilities we should always manage to organise World Peace, feed and clothe the full population of every country in the world, and design wonderful homes, schools and employment for all, no problem. Creating a Business Intelligence Report for the top of Accounts have to be mere child’s play! Bet I may even find out what my old friends Brenda and Martin are doing nowadays, and send them a message! On second thoughts, perhaps not. I’m tired, let’s just have another game of Solitaire and a short seriously look into Facebook. Saving the planet can wait till tomorrow.
