Put up your dukes

Last night DarkAngel was playing in the front room of ManRay, and I danced to it. As I listened to the lyrics I only come here bringing peace it reminded me of the time when I heard this song, and got into a brawl with some tourist. The first fight I'd been since since I stop taking martial arts, with me 4 years out of shape, not having thrown one punch or kick.
I while back a friend of mine almost got into a fight when leaving ManRay. And just the other day, another friend narrowly avoided a confrontation while going to the movies.
In their cases, they walked away from the issue, no fighting occurred.
Conventional wisdom says that the bigger thing to do is to walk away from the fight. Don't validate their position, don't start the cycle of revenge, don't stoop to their level.
What conventional wisdom doesn't deal with is how to handle the feelings you have afterwards. The inadequacy because you backed down to someone. The fear that you aren't able to defend yourself. The rage that you have to let some ass hole spew his venom and stupidity.
I think everyone should get into at least two fights in their life. One of them you should lose. This shows you that not matter how good you are in martial arts or boxing or whatever, that you aren't invincible. You also experience the reality of being hit; it's not a shock to you anymore. You survive the fight and know you can take it. The other fight you should win. This shows you that you aren't a victim, that you can defend yourself. And it shows you that you CAN win a fight. So that you don't have to get into a fight to defend your manhood, or your pride. That you don't have to get into another fight.

You IT people will appreciate this.

1. When a tech says he's coming right over, log out and go for
coffee. It's no problem for us to remember 2700 network passwords.

2. When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it
buried under half a ton of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals,
dried flowers, and trophies. We don't have a life, and we find it
deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours.

3. When tech support sends you an e-mail with high importance, delete
it at once. We're probably just testing out the email system.

4. When a tech is eating lunch at his desk, walk right in and explain
your problem(s) and expect him to respond immediately. We exist only
to serve and are always ready to think about fixing computers.

5. When a tech is at the coffee machine or outside having a smoke,
ask him a computer question. The only reason why we drink coffee or
smoke at all is to ferret out all those users who don't have eMail or
a telephone line.

6. Send urgent eMail ALL IN UPPERCASE. The mail server picks it up
and flags it as a rush delivery.

7. When you call a tech's direct line, press 5 to skip the bilingual
greeting that says he's out of town for a week, record your message,
and wait exactly 24 hours before you send an eMail straight to the
director because no one ever returned your call. You're entitled to
common courtesy.

8. When the photocopier doesn't work, call computer support. There's
electronics in it, right?

9. When you're getting a NO DIAL TONE message at home, call computer
support. We can even fix telephone problems from here.

10.When something's wrong with your home PC, dump it on a tech's
chair with no name, no phone number, and no description of the
problem. We love a good mystery.

11.When you have a tech on the phone walking you through changing a
setting; read the paper. We don't actually mean for you to DO
anything; we just love to hear ourselves talk.

12.When we offer training on the upcoming OS upgrade, don't bother
going. We'll be there to hold your hand after it is done.

13.When the printer won't print, re-send the job at least 20 times.
Print jobs frequently just disappear for no reason.

14.When the printer still won't print after 20 tries, send the job to
all 68 printers in the office. One of them is bound to work.

15.Don't use online help. Online help is for wimps.

16.If you're taking night classes in computer science, feel free to
go around and update the network drivers for you and all your
co-workers. We're grateful for the overtime when we have to stay
until 2:30am fixing them.

17.When you have a tech fixing your computer at a quarter past one,
eat your lunch in his face. We function better when slightly dizzy.

18.Don't ever thank us. We love this AND we get paid for it!

19.When a tech asks you whether you've installed any new software on
this computer, lie. It's nobody's business what you've got on your
computer.

20.If the mouse cable keeps knocking down the framed picture of your
dog, lift the computer and stuff the cable under it. Mouse cables
were designed to have 45 lbs. of computer sitting on top of them.

21.If the space bar on your keyboard doesn't work, blame it on the
mail upgrade. Keyboards work much better with half a pound of muffin
crumbs, nail clippings, and big sticky drops of Coke under the keys.

22.When you get the message saying "Are you sure?" click on that
"Yes" button as fast as you can. Hell, if you weren't sure, you
wouldn't be doing it, would you?

23.Feel perfectly free to say things like "I don't know nothing about
that computer crap". It never bothers us to hear our area of
professional expertise referred to as crap.

24.When you need to change the toner cartridge, call tech support.
Changing a toner cartridge is an extremely complex task, and
Hewlett-Packard recommends that it be performed only by a
professional engineer with a Master's degree in nuclear physics.

25.When something's the matter with your computer, ask your secretary
to call the help desk. We enjoy the challenge of having to deal with
a third party who doesn't know jack sh*t about the problem.

26.When you receive a 30-meg movie file, send it to everyone as a
high-priority mail attachment. We've got plenty of disk space and
processor capacity on that mail server.

27.Don't even think of breaking large print jobs down into smaller
chunks. God forbid somebody else might get a chance to squeeze into
the print queue.

28.When you bump into a tech in the grocery store on a Saturday, ask
a computer question. We work 24 hours a day 7 days a week, even while
at the grocery store on weekends.

29.If your son is a student in computer science, have him come in on
the weekends and do his projects on your office computer. We'll be
there for you when his illegal copy of Visual Basic 6.0 makes your
Access database flip out.

30.When you bring us your own no-brand home PC to repair for free at
the office, tell us how urgently we need to fix it so your son can
get back to playing DOOM. We'll get right on it because we have so
much free time at the office. Everybody knows all we do is surf the
Internet all day anyway.