Pinkerton's Weblog

IT Rockstar!

Right next door to the company I work for is an IT training school. It offers classes on anything to do with computers -- graphic design, systems management, etc. Because it's owned by the same organization that owns my company, I go in there sometimes to borrow whichever cool toy I've managed to fool my managers into believing I need.

("You need a Gauss rifle?" "Yeah, I need it for this Executive Summary I'm writing." "Why?" "I want to explain how proactive we are in the field of Magnetic Linear Accelerators." "Oh. Well, okay. Here's the keys.")

Anyway, because of the proximity of the school, I've gotten to know a lot of the students' faces during my time here. One could easily place them into several distinct stereotypical categories, actually, if one were so inclined. There's the "fat/stupid" category, for instance, composed of corpulent, missing-toothed women and stringy, indulgently tattooed carnie guys, either of whom seem to regard both hair growth and maintenance as little more than an amateur hobby. Why these people have chosen to enroll in an IT program is anyone's guess, though if I were forced to come to any conclusion based on scant evidence, I might suggest some manner of government subsidized "back-to-work" welfare program, or a convincing late-night IT college advertisement shown non-stop during commercial breaks in the Monster Truck Country Hoe-Down Mudwrasslin' Revue.

The second category seems to be composed entirely of recently arrived immigrants, who've no doubt tried out the Canadian workforce for a few years, realized the minimum wage, horrible hours and no benefits offered in the service industry are a ticket to an early death in a pine box, and hightailed it to a college with low entrance fees in the hopes that they might get any kind of job offering a slightly better standard of living than that currently provided by dunking tater skins into a deepfryer for $7 an hour at TGI Fridays.

Both I've come to know (and, in the case of the former category, ignore) during various smoke breaks over the last four months. However, there's one student who defies both these categories, and in fact has garnered a bit of a fanbase among both. With his long hair, designer sunglasses and tight jeans, he usually corrals any conversation in the smoking area around to himself, and basks in the glow of admiration. He is, and I say this with as straight a face as possible, an IT rockstar. There's no other term for it. Carved straight from the mold of John Romero, IT Rockstar clearly rejects all of the values forced upon him by the uptight IT establishment, preferring his cars fast, his women loose and his information managed.

He's such an anomaly to the place that I usually get endless enjoyment listening to him lecture his followers in the smoking area (in addition to his rebellious attitude to information technology, IT Rockstar is also in contempt of any opinion requiring a modicum of actual fact to buttress it).

Over the months, I've placed him in all manner of progressively more idiotic scenarios to amuse myself. I imagine him in class with his rockstar cowboy boots docked up on the desk, wearing his sunglasses in rebellious indifference to the low light conditions of the room. He is called upon to illustrate a coding principle, and to the gasps of the room, refuses. His professor rounds upon him furiously, demanding an explanation for his impertinence, and IT Rockstar calmly illustrates a different solution to the problem -- one that avoids
conventional coding methods, is ludicrously extreme and fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, yet to the professor's sputtering consternation, gets the job done.

"You could be the best Oracle 9i Database Administrator I have," his stuffy mentor informs him later, "But you won't focus! Your approach to Oracle architecture is far too adventurous! One of these days you're going to get someone killed!" But IT Rockstar is having none of it, of course. "Why don't you let me aggregate data using group functions and single-row functions MY way, old man, and you aggregate data using group functions and single-row functions yours?"

IT Rockstar's methods are brilliant and unorthodox -- but his taste for the IT lifestyle and tech-groupies are insatiable. His crusty mentor sees IT Rockstar is headed for trouble, but IT Rockstar isn't ready to slow down, man. He codes for the fans, not the corporations.

And so on ad nauseum. Though I can imagine you're already bored of this cliched "Days of Thunder/Top Gun" premise just from the above paragraphs, I've somehow managed to amuse myself with endless variations on it every time I go out for a cigarette. One of these days I'm going to have to introduce myself to IT Rockstar and ask for his autograph. Then patiently explain to him that every theory he's told people about every book he's read has, to date, been laughably and thoroughly wrong.

My Movable Type Skills (Lack Thereof)

Note that this page seems to bleed down past the bottom nav bar. I don’t know what’s going on there. It is beyond my skills to repair. If you know what the hell that’s all about, feel free to let me know. Otherwise, this page will bleed past the nav bar – and you’ll like it, you bastards.