If You're Not Tech Savvy, You're a Muggle

My good friend Cal Evans of the PHP community lovingly jokes about non-programmers as "muggles," referring to the regular people in Harry Potter without magic skills. You might think that's a bit unfair to those who aren't computer savvy.

I'm going to make an argument for why you'd be wrong.

To fully appreciate my argument, I hope you're familiar with the Saturday Night Live skit, Nick Burns, Your Company's Computer Guy. If you're not (and I guess I'm dating myself here, since this is from 1999), please head over to the NBC website and give this a watch.

Image Credit: screen cap from nbc.com

Have you ever had to ask your tech friends for support? Did you feel kind of stupid? Did they give you a "Move!" or a "Was that so hard!?"?

Here's Why

Technology is really, really hard. It changes exponentially and requires incredible patience. Unless you've spent hours or even days trying to debug thousands of lines of code to find the one reason why your software isn't working as you expected, you may not fully appreciate just how difficult it is.

Often, when it comes to computers and technology, muggles just want a quick answer. They see the computer as a tool to help them accomplish something, and they are right. Unfortunately, it's a very complex tool operating on multiple stacks of innovation. Some people have spent decades of their lives understanding those layers, pulling them apart, and teasing out meaning from what sometimes feels like chaos. Those who stare at screens for hours on end, sometimes skipping a night of sleep to figure something out, those computer nerds and geeks, they are wizards in a world of muggles because they have knowledge and skills which are hidden to most people.

They are often greatly unappreciated.

If you need help with a technical problem, and you haven't spent the months or even years required to fully understand how the system works, and you want quick answers so you can get on with your task, what your body language, tone of voice, and impatience communicates to the techie is this:

My time is more valuable than yours.

If you're saying, "I don't have time to figure this out right now, I just need it to work. I have important things to accomplish," then you're discrediting the years of training, study, and effort that went into understanding that system. You're implying it's a waste of time to sit at a monitor, reading RFCs, learning specifications, tinkering with things until they break and then figuring out how to fix them. You're saying that's a stupid way to spend your valuable time.

The irony is, the person you need help from did exactly that. They sacrified their valuable time to understand something on a deep level. You want the results of all that effort. You want the answer so you can move on.

If the person you're interacting with acts a little like Nick Burns, if they treat you like a muggle, it might be because they know exactly how you feel about the value of the years of life they spent trying to figure things out. Things you consider not worth your time to understand.

The antidote?

Be Grateful

Recognize the value of their expertise and the time they invested to figure things out. Show them respect as experts. By all means, ask, but do so respectfully and be open, teachable, and ready to invest some time of your own. Don't expect them to be as good with people as you are. Remember, they stare at computers all day. What may seem obvious to you socially might be completely foreign to them. In the world of human relations, they might be the muggles and you the wizard.

Appreciate your techie friends and value their time. In the future, their wizard powers will only be in higher demand as technology continues to influence every area of our lives.

P.S.
If you enjoyed this, check out 5 Keys to Preventing Marketers and Developers from Pissing Each Other Off.