I want my IT staff back

I can live without power and people to boss around.

I can live without regular paychecks.

But I’m just not sure whether or not I can survive without on-premise tech support.

It could be worse.  The other day I was talking to a woman completely stumped by why her computer wasn’t recognizing her new printer.  I have, at least heard of printer drivers.  And when a friend of mine was having problems redirecting his domain-name specific email to Gmail, I read Google’s instructions and figured it out.  Arcane web site issues – at this point just bring them on.  If it can be solved by going on-line, pointing, clicking and searching FAQs, it might take me a while but sooner or later I’ll get it.  (I might have to look up a technical term or two on Wikipedia just to be sure that I know what I’m doing, but I’ll get the job done.)

In fact, it appears that I’m turning into other folks’ computer expert.  This makes me nervous.  It’s one thing to find the extra space my mom accidentally put in her customer address mail merge template that makes the labels print wrong.  It’s another thing entirely to give someone serious advice about a tool they use to run their business.

After all, I haven’t even had to buy a computer on my own since 1992.

So what if I’ve spent a couple of decades around technology people?  To the hardcore geek types I was a “fluffy marketing person.”  Then again, to my employees I was the scary boss who expected everyone on the marketing team to really understand the products we were pushing. 

I guess the best way to describe my technical expertise is this:  if you need a point-of-sale, have I got some suggestions for you.  But when it comes to deciding on a replacement for my own on-its-last-legs laptop, well, that’s another matter entirely.

(I don’t think I’ll be exploring career options at Best Buy if this consulting gig doesn’t work out.)