Friendships in the IT Workplace?

Greg Cantori asks: "We've seen stuff like this on TV and in movies. Policemen, Firemen, Astonauts, Army guys, etc, all gathered round a BBQ on a sunny weekend, chugging a few cold ones and maybe talking shop, wives and girlfriends preparing salads, kids running round the garden. Middle class bonding and fun, eh? Now, picture your IT workplace. Look around at your workmates. Do *you* get together on weekends? Do your spouses know any personal details of your workmates' spouses, beyond what may have slipped out during a long forgotten company Chistmas ball? Do you go bowling, play poker, or help your colleagues pave the driveway of their new home? Do you even have drinks with them after work? Is it just the professions who share some element of physical danger where this stereotypical bonding occurs, or can it occur with nerdy programmers? What are your experiences with friendships in the code-cutting office?"

Comments

WTF?

[underpaidISPtech]

Why is Ok for artists to drone on and on about technique and musicians making asses of themselves jamming in a bar (no they are not the line-up act), all while sipping wine or snorting coke, but geeks are being "geeky" when they get wet over cat5 cabling and Q3? Even in the eyes of other geeks?

I cant count the number of times I've been stuck at a party where the drummer and guitarist fucking bored me to tears with their top 100 countdown (girls swooning over this shit too !?!), and yet it's socially unacceptable
for geeks to talk amongst themselves or to others about a common interest, something that is no longer a "fringe" interest.

Oooh, I hate the term "IT"

[Junks Jerzey]

It's a nebulous term trying to roll lightweight programming jobs under one umbrella: CGI scripting, website Javascript, "enterprise" applications written in Visual Basic and Delphi, SQL and other database interfacing, etc.

I can understand that jobs involving the above are a lot less techie and stable than classic programming work. In the latter, the programmers are the key (think of embedded systems) where in the former you're just a tool of management.