Excerpt from a student essay…
Eventually, the Ramons conquered the Geeks. History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long. At Roman banquets, the guests wore garlics in their hair. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Nero was a cruel tyranny who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them.
New Sales Guy: “So, what’s the difference between JPEG and PHP?”
Me: “Are you serious?”
New Sales Guy: “Yeah! I mean, if I’m going to sell this stuff I need to understand it, right?”
Me: “Ok. Could you make some time for me to give you some basic lessons?”
New Sales Guy: “No. I’m pretty busy. Could you just email it to me?”
I sent him a link to Google and wished him luck.
He quit a week later.
The other day I walked into this little place that sells old software, old computers, and some new software. I walked up to a sales clerk and said, “Do you guys carry Linux?” He took one look at me (I am 15 years old) and, not knowing what Linux was, he checked the rack with games. I said, “No, Linux is not a game — it’s an operating system.”
He looked confused, then stuttered, “Uhhh…yeah…well check that rack, we’ve got stuff like Quicken there.”
When working as a computer consultant in college, a co-worker and I were playing around with the NETSEND command in Windows NT. At one point he accidentally sent a message to all the NTs in the lab that said, “Can you see me?” Shortly thereafter, a girl came to our station looking perturbed.
Girl: “Um, my computer is talking to me. It’s asking if I can see it.”
Co-Worker: “Can you see it?”
Girl: “Yes.”
Co-Worker: “Click OK.”
We laughed for a good fifteen minutes after that.