Typecast # 45: The IT guy
He was the quiet kid at high school who kept to himself, but was always attached to something electronic.
Having completed many multi- acronymed types of computer training, he was head-hunted by a large corporation that needed to figure out where to find the server room. Now no office in the world can exist without him, and doesn’t he know it.
A recluse in his seventh floor office, he patiently waits for problems to hit crisis level before coming to the rescue, as only he can, then yields his power upon the techno-dummy masses who gaze in wonder after him.
He has the power to make you wait a week to fix a 10 -minute problem, probably caused by a leftover wine gum stuck in your keyboard, but he’ll never tell you that.
On a personal level, he is more than likely a Star Wars fan, has the entire DVD collection, and back-ups on his impressive hard drive.
Personal appearance is not a priority; testimony to this is the greasy hair, drippy with a mix of Brylcreem and natural oils generated from running fingers through his mess of lanky locks while solving issues of e-mail, servers and error reports.
His slightly wan complexion comes from too little exposure to the sun, and he has weak calf muscles under those cargo pants. A fashionista he’s not; Mr Megabyte considers himself cool in a fading Metallica T-shirt and leather wrist band, but is also known to favour thinning, collared cotton shirts bought at Woolies sales.
For effect, or the result of a childhood of computer gaming, he wears glasses. Other accessories include two memory sticks on lanyard, a bluetooth headset and PDA phone, the kind that makes bleeping noises and has to be prodded with a little stick. And he knows the name of the stick .
A typical IT diet consists of Tinkies and licorice while on 36-hour network- fixing sessions, for which the entire office is evacuated on weekends.
And you know he goes through the folders marked “personal” and your desk-drawer chocolate collection.
Personal growth translates to consistent personal upgrades, and books on programming with words “quantum” and “javascript” in green typeface litter his office and home station.
Common folk can’t fit in his mould; we would not understand the code. The universal language for him and his kin is 1s and 0s. In his world, binary code is more sacred than Sanskrit.
When he uses phrases like “cookie”, “host” and “dongle”, they mean nothing close to biscuit, receiver of guests or dangly body part .
The IT guy is not short of cash so his fancy ride will be kitted out with radar devices to detect speed traps and scramble camera footage.
The IT professional is not social , but has friends who frequent dimly lit bars and get trashed on shooters . Should you come across him and his crew, don’t point and laugh. Be nice.
One day he is going to take over the world. And he will distribute pictures he found in your personal folder. What were you doing with that yak?
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