Alison Bezzina

If Bill Gates received a cent for every swearword that is provoked by Windows he’d be a multi millionaire! Oh wait, he already is! Thanks to his ‘solutions’, IT and Business have become so intrinsically interwoven that it is ridiculous to talk about one and not the other. It has also become very easy to make the most horrendous, life-altering mistakes at the touch of a button.

 

With the exception of land mines and alcohol, computers are today’s most dangerous human invention. Let’s take email for example - in the past five years alone, email volume has doubled to more than 50 billion messages a day, so it comes as no surprise that the list of email faux pas is endless. I’m not talking about the somewhat harmless, but unnervingly annoying emails that are sent without a subject, nor am I talking about the ones written without any form of etiquette, no, I am referring to the catastrophic, ruinous, and hilariously funny ones that prove beyond doubt, that to err is human but to really foul things up requires a computer. Such is the story of the helpful HR assistant who sent out an email with every employee’s extension and mobile number to all staff members. What she did not realise was that the spreadsheet also had hidden columns that revealed everyone’s pay, bonuses, and stock options! Fortunately she had another job lined up.

 

As popular as it may be, email communication has its obvious drawbacks. For starters it could weaken business relations because we miss out on making strong connections in person, and secondly it is so overused that email blasts are losing their significance. How many times have you been copied on a message just so that someone, somewhere, can have you as a virtual witness to the exchange of communication? And how many times have you been copied on emails that just say ‘thank you’, ‘ok’ or even worse ‘you’re welcome’. So unbearably frustrating!

 

Nowadays computers are being called upon to perform many new functions - from the mysterious destruction of homework formerly eaten by the dog, to the delivery of all sorts of devastating news like romantic breakups and job dismissals. I know a guy who has grown so fed up of being dumped over email that he now insists (as from the first date) that women reject or dump him in person – it saves bandwidth!

 

Admittedly email is by far used and abused, but the triumphant story of a relative of mine who lives and works in North America, makes it all worthwhile. Claire, a young stock broker working in a male dominated financial firm, was so fed up with her sexually perverse boss, and even worse the company’s inadequacy to address her situation, that instead of quitting her job, leaving in peace, and moving on, she prepared an email listing all of her boss’ sexual advances, dirty requests and ridiculous sexual habits. She then packed her things and timed the email to be sent ten minutes after she left the building for good. This was how her employers, the company’s entire staff, suppliers, clients and her boss’s wife, found out that she was not going to return to work the next day, that she was suing the company for tolerating sexual harassment in the work place, for sexual discrimination and irreparable psychological abuse of an employee. That she was also reporting the firm for tax evasion and the spreading of STDs was just the cherry on the not so creamy cake.

 

Whether we like it or not, IT has become an intrinsic part of doing business, but, company heads still find it very difficult to understand what their IT departments are proposing. Because of the jargon, acronyms and abbreviations that come as part of the IT person package, it is usually easier to explain sex to a virgin than the ins and outs of a multi-million Euro IT project to a CEO. Much to the frustration of IT specialists, explanatory attempts of this sort usually end up with the boss claiming that the project could most definitely be done by his teenage son on a $300 budget and an Amiga computer.

 

Whoever you are, whatever you do, you have no choice but to pull up your megabit socks and join the IT revolution. Whether you’re a techy geek forever squinting at the latest gadget, or the simple boy next door who can’t tell a mouse from a webcam, you need to get tech savvy enough to get a job, find a romantic partner, pay your bills or buy a toaster. And, one thing is for certain, and I’m sure that every IT professional will agree with me here – life in general would be so much easier if only we could find its source code!

 

First published on The Sunday Times May 2008