I have a relative by marriage who managed to never even come close to a computer during his decades in financial management. It is an ongoing mystery in fact how he came to get to the managerial level that he retired at. He has, however, made a fine second career for himself nailing bits of wood together in a shed in the backyard.
For my relative, computers are indistinguishable from voodoo, and anyone who uses a computer for whatever task is by definition a voodoo priest. To his mind, a data entry clerk in a retail outfit is precisely the same thing as a graphic artist with a Mac on her desk, a cracker breaking his way into the FBI’s network in Langley, Virginia, or a Doom freak flailing away at a souped-up Windows box.
He is well-meaning though, and always on the alert for conversations in public where the word computer is mentioned. Then he’ll leap right in, tell the speakers how I am “in computers”, and what a genius I am by definition, and how they should give me a job because I can do exactly whatever thing it is they are discussing. Who knows what other edifices of fantasy he builds in the air for them.
He is always coming over with business cards from computer cabling installers, Unix network security consultants, data centre administrators and so on, and telling me the individual the card belongs to is expecting my call the next day, and that there is a fantastic job awaiting me.
The fact is that there usually isn’t. He just did it again. Yet another rather odd phone call to make Monday morning!
This would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. I have met many people in positions of power who possess as little knowledge of technology as my relative (and indeed all the rest of my family, with the exception of my two younger brothers), including managerial staff of large organisations, and especially in certain IT recruitment firms.
The crazies really are running the asylum. Excuse me while I strip off and run around the supermarket carpark naked.
12:18:24 PM 
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