Being raised by a computer engineer dad, mom who decided to help the dad run a computer business and a bro who, apparently, took after the dad, my sister and I were never very crazy about technology. It was out there, it was available it served its purpose and that’s where the story ends for us two. However, living with two tech freaks and having a lot more of them as friends did teach me something – what I can and can’t do to and around tech freaks.
Dissing his area of expertise and his beloved subject of interest is like spitting into a tech freak’s face. Okay, you don’t understand what’s the big fuss about, it’s just machines, that’s all! But try to speak your mind in a way that’s not insulting technology and all its benefits. If you have nothing good to say, be quiet and if you can’t be quiet, ask questions. Who knows, if your chat buddy manages to make his story interesting enough, you might even have a change of heart and start considering getting a modern gadget yourself.
Not even if you share the same computer! I did this to my bro a couple of years ago and he totally flipped out! Poor guy, I never thought reinstalling system on the computer we shared would be such a big deal for him. He has done the same more times than I could remember and I never had a problem about it – the only thing I asked is for my files to be transferred to a safe location.
Lol! It does sound a bit weird but it’s pretty much the same as walking into your own home only to realize that somebody has rearranged everything! People that spend a lot of time in front of the computer have their own method of storing and arranging the files and folders and, what seems like a big mess to you, makes perfect sense to the main user. If your boyfriend, fiancé or a husband is a tech freak, don’t even think about doing this to surprise him because that’s probably the one surprise he won’t find interesting at all.
I’m not exactly a tech freak but I’m a “shoe lady” so I definitely know how it feels when somebody is insisting on borrowing your “brand new/favorite baby”. State your case and ask once, if the answer is no, don’t push it. Saying “No” once is uncomfortable enough, you don’t have to go on and on about it trying to make a tech freak choose between total humiliation and his fav gadget. It’s not fair because, although the thing you want to borrow may be just an iPod, Laptop, Palm reader or whatnot for you, it certainly isn’t “just that” for a person that likes and uses it.
Never tell a tech freak you know somebody that has a better, more advanced gadget or that you think their gadgets don’t suit them. I actually made a mistake of telling a guy he has a girly laptop and well, that really didn’t make him the happiest chat buddy ever. What could I do – I did see that Swarovski crystals embellished MSI in Cosmo! Would you appreciate somebody telling you, “Yeah, those shoes are nice but they are really not your style, plus I have a friend that has a much better pair”? I guess not!
If technology is his/her world, expressing your doubts that he/she can get a certain tech-related job done is a major burn. Especially if the a fore mentioned tech freak accepted to do this job as a favor to you. If you think the person knows considerably less than you would ever dare to mention in its face, call a professional and pay for the job well done.
Okay, let me put it this way – you don’t have to take a really good care of your computer, iPod or whatnot. They are yours and you can act whatever you want. However, if you ever happen to borrow or frequently use a tech gadget that somebody takes a really good care of, don’t practice your negligence when the owner is not there to witness it. Turn the gadget off after every use, use the same cleaning methods the owner does and do not download potentially harmful software. It may seem silly, it may seem like a waste of time, but think about your tech freak and how sad he or she will be in case anything happens to the gadget in question. Now, you certainly don’t want to cause that, don’t you?
Pretty logical set of rules, I’d say. However, listing them like this won’t hurt, especially because we often forget about them. What do you think – which behaviors the tech freaks you know could find potentially insulting or saddening?
Top Photo Credit: P i c t u r e Y o u t h