none of teh funny here, just an IT related rant - please move on
Already this qotw is proving to be a belter and I have nothing even remotely as funny as some of the gems posted here.

Once, however, on a bus coming home from work some years ago I overheard two off duty bus drivers have a conversation that made part of my inner child die as I came to the realisation that my profession would never command any respect in society. Ever.

I hate comedy nights.

Comedian: 'Ere, what do you do mate?
Me: *sigh* I'm a code monkey.
C: Eh?
M: I'm a software engineer.
C: Oh, computers 'n that? You mean you work in IT.
M: *sob sob*
C: Yeah must be pretty boring.

On second thought, I don't hate comedy nights but rather I hate comedians. Especially comedians that think taking the piss out of the front row is an acceptable alternative to bringing some material with them.

Anyhoo, I digress...

So female driver A is telling male driver B that she's had enough of driving busses and wants to get out. It's hard work, shit pay and you have to deal with the general public *shudder*. Her solution to escape this career path?

"I'm going to get a job in computers!"

Of course she is.

"You see, you look at all them adverts for jobs with computers it's 50, 60 thousand a year plus."

Is it really?

"Yeah, I've got a mate who knows all that stuff already and he says I can come over and he'll show me what's what. Or I could get on one of them courses they advertise on the tele."

...

"Some of them are learn on the job type things so I can be 'earning', while I'm 'learning'. Wicked eh, innit?"

Well fuck me furiously with a broom. I never realised it was that simple.

At the time of this conversation I'd held down a proper job for less than a year. I was 24 and had 'one of those jobs with computers' but despite having a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from a red-brick university I seemed to earning less than half of what I apparently should be. I realised there and then that my vocation would never be viewed seriously by society.

I immediately launched forth to the female bus driver a rebuttal that is now also well rehearsed prior to every comedy gig I attend:

"To say I work in IT is like saying an architect is good at colouring in. To say I 'work with computers' is like saying an accountant 'works with a calculator'. Both technically correct but missing the point very badly. I'm a software engineer. I know the syntax and semantics of all modern programming languages including every subtlety to do with object orientation and reflection, I understand the difference between memory allocated on the stack and memory allocated on the heap and how to do garbage collection on the latter, I can pass by value, pass by reference and do pointer arithmetic, I know dozens of different abstract data types (how they're used, how they're implemented, when they're appropriate for use, what their time and memory complexities are for all associated operations). I appreciate the complexity Apple had porting applications from the PowerPC chip to the x86 chip owing to the pure little-endianess of the latter. I understand what it means for a problem to be called NP-complete and can prove it too :P I know how to calculate the big-O complexity of an algorithm, I know how to write the algorithm using recursion, how to test the bloody thing when I'm done. I know about critical sections, semaphores, concurrent processes and avoiding deadlocks in distributed environments. I know about system architectures, how to write a .Net DLL that implements a COM interface, I know about OS paging, what the kernel does, whether my program is likely to be IO, network, database or processor bound. Perhaps you'd like me to describe the ISO OSI 7-layer model to you illustrating the interfaces built on top of each other and the protocols these networking abstractions use to communicate with each other. I can even get back to philosophical fundamentals with logical truth-tables and De-Morgan's law, state whether your language is Turing complete, assert that we'll never know if your program will end owing to the Halting problem. It's not just transistors either, I understand how neural networks work as logic gates using their weighted pathways to train themselves, how it's possible to store memories in a Hopfield net. I appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of various programming paradigms: imperative, functional, logical. All this and I can write your sodding program via the waterfall, spiral or evolutionary software design methodology if you'd like.

You wouldn't attempt to draw up a will after reading a book on law for 5 minutes, you wouldn't try and build a house after watching a DVD on structural engineering and you wouldn't offer to do an appendectomy on your best mate because you saw one done on ER. I have spent 8 years at university learning my craft, give me the respect I deserve! I... am... a software engineer."

Nah, not really. I just got off the bus, walked home and cried.
( djtrialprice, Thu 29 May 2008, 21:44, 14 replies)

you actually read all that pish?
Apologies. I'm not normally such a self-important twat in real life.
( djtrialprice, Thu 29 May 2008, 21:46, closed)

I feel your pain....
Im a webmaster / programmer / windows systems admin, but I tell my parents I fix computers just because it's easier than explaining about how DHCP works, why you had to work late cos the only DC with a GC on it failed etc etc etc.

Have a sympathy click.
(LargeDoner, Thu 29 May 2008, 21:47, closed)

have a click...
from an accountant.
(miffytherabbit, Thu 29 May 2008, 21:56, closed)

but... but...
you wouldn't seriously contemplate the waterfall model, would you?
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 29 May 2008, 22:15, closed)

Neural Nets for the win!
Nice PhD you've got there!
(Peljammy Watching Godzilla, Thu 29 May 2008, 22:21, closed)

I thought the OSI 7 layer model
was more of an abstract model that explained rather than dictated how the then protocols in use worked together and has now been largely superceded by the TCP/IP 5 layer model which more accuratly describes how protocols used in networks today work.
(Cuthbert Annihilator, Thu 29 May 2008, 22:23, closed)

Thanks for the solidarity *sniff* it means a lot.

Re: the OSI layer, I'm showing my age there I think and I doubt I could remember all the layers off hand. I just have vague awareness when to use TCP/IP sockets and when to use UDP streams.
( djtrialprice, Thu 29 May 2008, 22:42, closed)

I feel your pain *click*
The worst bit was me understanding the vast majority of it and realising that in the end, it all means bollocks as no matter what someone will ring you when your doing something non computer related asking you to fix it for free :(
(buzzmong procrastinating since 1987, Thu 29 May 2008, 23:00, closed)

Same boat click from me...
'Lots of money in computing' I'm told, no, there bloody isn't, if anything it is above average until you become top dog (architect, lead, etc...), specialise in a methodology/ technology, get your own company, or charge old people 80 pounds an hour to replace their hard drives.

Edit: sorry, very ranty but I'm hacking at PHP today and my brain says nooo!

Z
(Mmm Zebalicious is wondering..., Fri 30 May 2008, 4:51, closed)

Edumucayshun
Heh. I did, in fact learn my appendicectomy technique that way - although it was 'scrubs' rather than 'ER'...
(Ted Cunterblast, Fri 30 May 2008, 8:22, closed)

All that,

and your best advice is "Have you tried re-booting?"
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 30 May 2008, 9:31, closed)

Very impassioned but ...
... I hate to burst your bubble. You're not an engineer yet, any more than a 24 year old mechanical engineering graduate (even one with a PhD) is an engineer. Give it another ten years, some real experience, some project management and the letters "CEng" after your name.
(ubergeekian, Fri 30 May 2008, 10:38, closed)

Chartered Engineer
Nay, can't see CEng ever being bestowed upon a lowly Software Engineer, there's not even a real professional body yet and doubt there ever will.
How many times I've heard 'that's not Engineering', in a Crocodile Dundee tone of voice.
(Mmm Zebalicious is wondering..., Fri 30 May 2008, 11:25, closed)

I'm sorry
It's people like me who give people like you a bad name. I can best describe my job as "working with computers" but can't pretend to have even half your level of knowledge, yet people still group us all together because it's too complex for them to grasp.

If we "worked in a hospital" I'd be the receptionist and you'd be the neurosurgeon and people would understand why we couldn't just swap jobs.

Awesome rant though, I'd applaud you if you stood up and said that to a shit comedian with no material.
( e.m.m.y. foxtrot uniform charlie kilo india tango, Fri 30 May 2008, 13:58, closed)