Imagination vs Reality

When I left school at the ripe old age of 16 to do an HND in Computer Studies we were told at the start of the course that I would be almost guaranteed a job after graduating. The reality was people wanted a BSc or similar to hire people unless you wanted to be stuck in tech support. This is one of the Imagination vs Reality situations I've come across.

I did go and do 4 years at a University and still graduated age 22 with my good ole degree...and I ended up doing tech support. I can't complain. I met my wife through that job but I imagined I would be coding up a storm.

I imagined I still would be coding for fun at home, something I did until maybe I was 26 or so and then I realised I needed to get a bit of a life.

The biggest shock however is that office life is not quite what you see in the likes of IT Crowd, The Office or anything like that and while you see videos about people running around the office dressed in pac-man suits chasing someone else dressed as a ghost, the truth is seriously disappointing.

It's not without its laughs. My first programming job was mental. We would go out frequently on a Friday and get seriously happy from 5pm until rolling in home at 3am.

Then there was the minor pranks. One of my bosses used to get upset if the paper cupboard under the fax was left open so every time he left the room we slid the door open a few cm. He would walk in, see it open and close it to much mirth of myself and another colleague. We even took it to the next level by using packing take so when you closed one side it pulled the other door open.

We would race mini remote control cars in the corrider.

The directors would even occasionally partake in a network game of C&C which was always a laugh and we always had to cut it short - an hour was not enough time and we had work to do after all.

The time old classic of removing the mouse ball doesn't even apply any more in the days of optical mouse - the replacement being take a small post-it note and cut a square, stick it over the sensor.

The confusion, oh the confusion.

Telling users they were getting kicked off the mail/conference system because there was a transient network glitch when in reality you were clicking log user off on the admin screen just for shits and giggles.


The reality is this is about as far as it goes and often not as far. No stapler in jelly, no "rowing" down the aisles in the open plan offices. The office I'm in is more akin to a library with a "be quiet" sign and even then the local library where we take the kids to at the weekend is a regular riot compared to the office.

If you have an office job where pranks are commonplace, please share them.

If you yearn for this kind of stuff then you can do no worse than read the wonderful tales written here: http://bofh.ntk.net/BOFH/index.php