Wirin' up blinkenlights

On Fri, 9 Jun 2000 allisonp(a)world.std.com wrote: Sounds like a computer to me. Serious humbug. They were built as expensive toys to play with. Now then, pay careful attention: that doesn't mean that those treating them as toys are careless with their work, they're just having fun and most likely doing much better quality work as a result of their enjoyment of their work. When work ceases to be fun, that's when the bad mistakes, etc. occur due to boredom and an "I don't give a damn, I just want a paycheck for showing up here each day." attitude sets in, when the fun becomes finding creative ways of avoiding actually doing much of any work, annoying certain annoying cow-prkers, etc., as there must be some sort of motivation for at least showing up at work, where fun is the motivation. Why should he not think of that machine tool as a toy, esp. if he enjoys his work and is good at it? Heck, he probably even has a pet name for the machine. No chauvenism intended, just a psychological curiosity: Do I sense that men and women sometimes tend to think of work in the computer field differently, with many women having a dreadfully serious outlook on their work and men treating it more as something that's supposed to be fun and games? Maybe this has something to do with many men growing as boys playing with erector sets, heathkits, building forts, and having soldering irons, hammers, screwdrivers, etc. in their hands while they were still learning to read. Then, after growing up, we still consider such things, whether a little PC, an IBM mainframe, or even a multinational corporation, to be toys to play with. Well said. -- R. D. Davis rdd(a)perqlogic.com http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd 410-744-4900