Well, in that case, I'd say you had a crappy helpdesk guy (or was extremely overworked). But there's a big difference between being rude to IT because of a general master-slave viewpoint (the lack of respect the original author was askng about), and being a jerk because the IT guy is a prat who can't get his tasks done. The latter makes sense.
Though I do agree with the other responder. You really should have gone to see him in person after week, and then escalated your question to your supervisor. This sounds like a case where both parties could have handled it better.
Another possibility I forgot to include: find some way to interact with your coworkers outside work. IT is by nature invisible. They only see us when something breaks. Meeting up outside work (dinner, fantasy sports leagues, etc) can help them realize you are a living, breathing human being.
I'm in a similar position. Sole IT guys for a 70-ish person company (mostly engineers), though I have access to additional techs when something major breaks.
I've only been there a short time, but it has already become obvious to most employees that the nice guys get their requests finished sooner. The ones who ask, not demand, and show basic friendliness ("Please" and "Thank You" go a long way) get top priority from me. I'll do a two-day task for them before a 5-minute job for one of the "other guys" (they aren't exactly rude, but have that condescending nature that so many engineer-types fall into even when discussing something they know nothing about).
Engineers are temperamental at best, and often are at that level of tech competency to be dangerous. The ones who recognize when they are in over their head this can be great, as they give fantastic trouble reports. Those that don't just muck things up even worse.
Now, I've seen this same pattern since high school (scrawny white nerd at a magnet program located in the middle of the ghetto). Geeky types are picked on because they let themselves be picked on. IT guys get no respect because they allow themselves to be made into peons.
If you really want their respect, here's my suggestion: ***Confront them*** A lot of the time, jerks don't really understand how they are coming off. If you discuss it with them, it can help. Don't be sheepish, don't get angry, yell, make ad hominem attacks, etc. Stand up straight, look them in the eyes, and explain your issue *as* *an* *equal*.
Having said that, some guys are just assholes. They know it, and they don't really care. In those cases, the best you can do it avoid them as much as possible. Some people can't be won over. You catch more flies with honey, but some flies are best caught with a flyswatter.
And remember the advice of the immortal Scotty: always pad your time estimates by a factor of 3 if you want to look like a miracle worker.
Of all the courses to institute online texts, the sciences? I had nothing but issues with online material when I took Chem and Physics in college. The biggest issue wasn't the texts, though, it was the helper apps that came with it. In both courses, we submitted our homework online, which was automatically graded. This became a real issue when dealing with units, as the parser had the most obtuse formatting requirements. You'd end up with answers that looked like this when typed in:
I realize that's not a valid reaction, but it illustrates my point. I spent more time figuring out the damn formatting than I did solving the problems.
Problems came in sets of 5, so if you screwed up the formatting of one, you had to do them ALL over again (and they always changed the problems slightly). Same problem when dealing with complicated units in physics problems. The physics parser couldn't even handle spaces gracefully. y[2] = 3.689 {(ft)*(lb)}/{(sec)^(2)} ---correct y[2]=3.689 {(ft) * (lb)} / {(sec)^(2)} ---incorrect
I got so sick of the formatting issues that I wrote a little helper app to handle the formatting for me.
In some classes, though, having no textbook at all wasn't an issue. One professor taught all his courses via Powerpoint, so he just removed key words from the slides and printed out two hundred pages per student (400-student classes) at Kinkos (college bookstore charged a lot more to print copies). $20 a student and we were set.
Online texts may well be the future, but when it comes to math/science/engineering, the texts just aren't ready. Social sciences, sure (I took a few archaeology courses online with only a few issues stemming from Blackboard being the biggest POS in existence), but not hard sciences.
I don't care which engine they use anymore. Thief 1/2 engine or Thief 3, either one would work with some enhancements. Yeah, the Thief 3 engine had some *issues*, but that whole generation of ragdoll games had issues. DX2, VTM:B, Thief3...
My biggest hope is some improved AI. Sure, I could make some long, insightful post about the shortcomings of the AI in all three games, but CAD summed it up quite nicely: http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20040616
The problem is the mindset. The idea of just throwing on a pair of shoes and running *is* dangerous.
Running itself is not dangerous by nature, but people should approach it like everything else: with caution. If they take the time to learn how to run correctly, they can avoid injury.
The problem is that people make a numbers game out of it. It is all about how many miles they go, or how fast they do it. I see so many people out running, hands clenched, jaw clenched, heel striking, looking like they are *fighting* the road. Yeah, they are gonna injure themselves. At the risk of sounding like an Eastern mystic, safe running is a style of "harmony" with the road. You don't fight it, you adapt to it. The famous runners (Kenyans, Indians, etc) run like this.
Walking and taking the stairs is a passive approach, which will keep you from getting worse (ie, your risk of heart disease doesn't get worse). Higher intensity things like running are an active approach, and can improve your health (actually lowering the risk of heart disease). Both approaches are fine, it just depends on what you are shooting for.
AC is right, a softer surface will help, albeit not much.
One of the big causes of shin splints is overstriding. The next few times you run, pay attention to where your foot lands. It should not be in front of you. The problem with overstriding is that it will cause a reflex contraction in the shin muscle.
On a similar note, try not to heel strike. Landing on the balls of your feet instead will result in less stress to your shin. My track coach used to say "If you can hear your foot land, you're doing it wrong". Short strides, landing vertical on the balls of your feet will be almost silent. Heel striking or flat-footing will be noisy.
If those aren't enough, try doing some exercises specifically targeting the shin. You don't want your calf to be too much stronger. Muscle imbalances are never good, and can cause lots of pain, especially with leg and back muscles, which in some cases are hit with several times your bodyweight each time you land. Some good exercises can be found a little ways down this page: http://www.sportsinjurybulletin.com/archive/0161-shin-splints-treatment.htm
Try the exercises for a week or two, and you'll probably see reduced pain. And the more often you jog, the less pain you'll see. It is just getting past the initial pain phase that's the difficult part.
The spring effect from your heel after landing varies depending on the type of running you do. Distance running uses a slightly different form than sprinting (the former being all about the most energy efficient gait). When sprinting, you typically don't see the heel slap, and the runner stay entirely on the balls of their feet. The heel slap is more common in longer distance events.
My knee was always sensitive after my injury, but I found that the surface made a huge difference. I can't do more than a couple miles on a hard surface like asphalt or a treadmill. But trail running is much less stressful (dirt is nature's shock absorber). I usually do about 7 miles per run (the length of the longest loop at the state park I run at) with no pain at all.
Posture helps a lot as well. Staying vertical and not pronating too much keeps much of the strain where it belongs, in the muscles and the arch. Heel striking or landing forward of your body puts a lot of stress on your joints and bones, which can be painful if you have weak knees. The nature of trails helps. Uneven surfaces, roots, rocks, etc will strengthen all of the smaller support muscles in your legs that normal track running doesn't work. Strengthening these muscles distributes the force of the impact even more, further reducing strain to your joints. If I hadn't come across trail running a few years ago, I likely wouldn't be running at all, either. Hard, man-made surfaces are a beast compared to soft trails.
Back when I was in school, I ran on the track team for a few years. The way we were taught was that when you land, your foot should be directly beneath your torso (posture almost vertical). This is very difficult to do when you heel strike.
The way we were taught went something like this: (1) Land on the ball of your foot (2) As you continue forward, your heel comes down, striking the ground and immediately lifting off again (almost a spring effect). (3) Never, ever, ever land your foot ahead of your body.
When you heel strike, you are essentially putting on the brakes for a brief moment. This is a very inefficient way to run. Landing with your foot ahead of your body (a heel strike) also changes the force dynamics. The calf takes less of the strain, and the flexure of your foot is less efficient.
When I got into trail running, I heard the same advice, only for different reasons. Landing on the balls of your feet reduces the amount of potential twisting if you land poorly (uneven ground, on a root, etc), making it easier to avoid a sprain.
From personal experience, I find my knees hurt more when I heel strike, though this is partly a result of damaging my left knee playing soccer as a kid.
I tend to do my best work when I'm away from the civilized world. My current favorite is a state park about half an hour outside my town (Orlando, FL). A couple miles into the trail is a little covered rest area with some benches. I park myself there and dive into my work. No cell signal to distract me, no noisy cars, no annoying neighbors, etc. Typically, I tote my netbook, since my laptop is too heavy to carry 5-6 miles round trip.
When I need a break, there's always something to watch for a few minutes. Turkey, deer, a squirrel trying to steal my water bottle, every now and then I even spot a cougar moving through the brush. In the winter time, blue herons and egrets roost here. http://rain.maestro.freeservers.com/pics/100_0064.JPG
This park is always empty. I drive past two others to get to it, but because it is out in the dead zone between Orlando and the coast, no one ever goes there. In six years of regular trips, I've seen exactly three other people.
Get outdoors, get some exercise, and still get my work done. The perfect combination for me.
On rainy days, I usually relax on the patio with some instrumental music playing softly. Lately I've been going through a Nox Arcana fad. Mixed with the sound of the thunderstorms, I find it helps me focus.
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Well, in that case, I'd say you had a crappy helpdesk guy (or was extremely overworked). But there's a big difference between being rude to IT because of a general master-slave viewpoint (the lack of respect the original author was askng about), and being a jerk because the IT guy is a prat who can't get his tasks done. The latter makes sense.
Though I do agree with the other responder. You really should have gone to see him in person after week, and then escalated your question to your supervisor. This sounds like a case where both parties could have handled it better.
Another possibility I forgot to include: find some way to interact with your coworkers outside work. IT is by nature invisible. They only see us when something breaks. Meeting up outside work (dinner, fantasy sports leagues, etc) can help them realize you are a living, breathing human being.
I'm in a similar position. Sole IT guys for a 70-ish person company (mostly engineers), though I have access to additional techs when something major breaks.
I've only been there a short time, but it has already become obvious to most employees that the nice guys get their requests finished sooner. The ones who ask, not demand, and show basic friendliness ("Please" and "Thank You" go a long way) get top priority from me. I'll do a two-day task for them before a 5-minute job for one of the "other guys" (they aren't exactly rude, but have that condescending nature that so many engineer-types fall into even when discussing something they know nothing about).
Engineers are temperamental at best, and often are at that level of tech competency to be dangerous. The ones who recognize when they are in over their head this can be great, as they give fantastic trouble reports. Those that don't just muck things up even worse.
Now, I've seen this same pattern since high school (scrawny white nerd at a magnet program located in the middle of the ghetto). Geeky types are picked on because they let themselves be picked on. IT guys get no respect because they allow themselves to be made into peons.
If you really want their respect, here's my suggestion:
***Confront them***
A lot of the time, jerks don't really understand how they are coming off. If you discuss it with them, it can help. Don't be sheepish, don't get angry, yell, make ad hominem attacks, etc. Stand up straight, look them in the eyes, and explain your issue *as* *an* *equal*.
Having said that, some guys are just assholes. They know it, and they don't really care. In those cases, the best you can do it avoid them as much as possible. Some people can't be won over. You catch more flies with honey, but some flies are best caught with a flyswatter.
And remember the advice of the immortal Scotty: always pad your time estimates by a factor of 3 if you want to look like a miracle worker.
Of all the courses to institute online texts, the sciences? I had nothing but issues with online material when I took Chem and Physics in college. The biggest issue wasn't the texts, though, it was the helper apps that came with it. In both courses, we submitted our homework online, which was automatically graded. This became a real issue when dealing with units, as the parser had the most obtuse formatting requirements. You'd end up with answers that looked like this when typed in:
(3)((NH[4])[2]SO[4]) ---> (2)(NH[4]OH) + (5)(SO[2])
I realize that's not a valid reaction, but it illustrates my point. I spent more time figuring out the damn formatting than I did solving the problems.
Problems came in sets of 5, so if you screwed up the formatting of one, you had to do them ALL over again (and they always changed the problems slightly). Same problem when dealing with complicated units in physics problems. The physics parser couldn't even handle spaces gracefully.
y[2] = 3.689 {(ft)*(lb)}/{(sec)^(2)} ---correct
y[2]=3.689 {(ft) * (lb)} / {(sec)^(2)} ---incorrect
I got so sick of the formatting issues that I wrote a little helper app to handle the formatting for me.
In some classes, though, having no textbook at all wasn't an issue. One professor taught all his courses via Powerpoint, so he just removed key words from the slides and printed out two hundred pages per student (400-student classes) at Kinkos (college bookstore charged a lot more to print copies). $20 a student and we were set.
Online texts may well be the future, but when it comes to math/science/engineering, the texts just aren't ready. Social sciences, sure (I took a few archaeology courses online with only a few issues stemming from Blackboard being the biggest POS in existence), but not hard sciences.
I don't care which engine they use anymore. Thief 1/2 engine or Thief 3, either one would work with some enhancements. Yeah, the Thief 3 engine had some *issues*, but that whole generation of ragdoll games had issues. DX2, VTM:B, Thief3...
My biggest hope is some improved AI. Sure, I could make some long, insightful post about the shortcomings of the AI in all three games, but CAD summed it up quite nicely:
http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20040616
The problem is the mindset. The idea of just throwing on a pair of shoes and running *is* dangerous.
Running itself is not dangerous by nature, but people should approach it like everything else: with caution. If they take the time to learn how to run correctly, they can avoid injury.
The problem is that people make a numbers game out of it. It is all about how many miles they go, or how fast they do it. I see so many people out running, hands clenched, jaw clenched, heel striking, looking like they are *fighting* the road. Yeah, they are gonna injure themselves. At the risk of sounding like an Eastern mystic, safe running is a style of "harmony" with the road. You don't fight it, you adapt to it. The famous runners (Kenyans, Indians, etc) run like this.
Walking and taking the stairs is a passive approach, which will keep you from getting worse (ie, your risk of heart disease doesn't get worse). Higher intensity things like running are an active approach, and can improve your health (actually lowering the risk of heart disease). Both approaches are fine, it just depends on what you are shooting for.
AC is right, a softer surface will help, albeit not much.
One of the big causes of shin splints is overstriding. The next few times you run, pay attention to where your foot lands. It should not be in front of you. The problem with overstriding is that it will cause a reflex contraction in the shin muscle.
On a similar note, try not to heel strike. Landing on the balls of your feet instead will result in less stress to your shin. My track coach used to say "If you can hear your foot land, you're doing it wrong". Short strides, landing vertical on the balls of your feet will be almost silent. Heel striking or flat-footing will be noisy.
If those aren't enough, try doing some exercises specifically targeting the shin. You don't want your calf to be too much stronger. Muscle imbalances are never good, and can cause lots of pain, especially with leg and back muscles, which in some cases are hit with several times your bodyweight each time you land. Some good exercises can be found a little ways down this page:
http://www.sportsinjurybulletin.com/archive/0161-shin-splints-treatment.htm
Try the exercises for a week or two, and you'll probably see reduced pain. And the more often you jog, the less pain you'll see. It is just getting past the initial pain phase that's the difficult part.
The spring effect from your heel after landing varies depending on the type of running you do. Distance running uses a slightly different form than sprinting (the former being all about the most energy efficient gait). When sprinting, you typically don't see the heel slap, and the runner stay entirely on the balls of their feet. The heel slap is more common in longer distance events.
My knee was always sensitive after my injury, but I found that the surface made a huge difference. I can't do more than a couple miles on a hard surface like asphalt or a treadmill. But trail running is much less stressful (dirt is nature's shock absorber). I usually do about 7 miles per run (the length of the longest loop at the state park I run at) with no pain at all.
Posture helps a lot as well. Staying vertical and not pronating too much keeps much of the strain where it belongs, in the muscles and the arch. Heel striking or landing forward of your body puts a lot of stress on your joints and bones, which can be painful if you have weak knees. The nature of trails helps. Uneven surfaces, roots, rocks, etc will strengthen all of the smaller support muscles in your legs that normal track running doesn't work. Strengthening these muscles distributes the force of the impact even more, further reducing strain to your joints. If I hadn't come across trail running a few years ago, I likely wouldn't be running at all, either. Hard, man-made surfaces are a beast compared to soft trails.
Back when I was in school, I ran on the track team for a few years. The way we were taught was that when you land, your foot should be directly beneath your torso (posture almost vertical). This is very difficult to do when you heel strike.
The way we were taught went something like this:
(1) Land on the ball of your foot
(2) As you continue forward, your heel comes down, striking the ground and immediately lifting off again (almost a spring effect).
(3) Never, ever, ever land your foot ahead of your body.
When you heel strike, you are essentially putting on the brakes for a brief moment. This is a very inefficient way to run. Landing with your foot ahead of your body (a heel strike) also changes the force dynamics. The calf takes less of the strain, and the flexure of your foot is less efficient.
When I got into trail running, I heard the same advice, only for different reasons. Landing on the balls of your feet reduces the amount of potential twisting if you land poorly (uneven ground, on a root, etc), making it easier to avoid a sprain.
From personal experience, I find my knees hurt more when I heel strike, though this is partly a result of damaging my left knee playing soccer as a kid.
I tend to do my best work when I'm away from the civilized world. My current favorite is a state park about half an hour outside my town (Orlando, FL). A couple miles into the trail is a little covered rest area with some benches. I park myself there and dive into my work. No cell signal to distract me, no noisy cars, no annoying neighbors, etc. Typically, I tote my netbook, since my laptop is too heavy to carry 5-6 miles round trip.
When I need a break, there's always something to watch for a few minutes. Turkey, deer, a squirrel trying to steal my water bottle, every now and then I even spot a cougar moving through the brush. In the winter time, blue herons and egrets roost here.
http://rain.maestro.freeservers.com/pics/100_0064.JPG
Of course, not all the animals are quite so friendly. That's the second most venomous snake in the US for our international friends.
http://rain.maestro.freeservers.com/pics/100_0071.JPG
This park is always empty. I drive past two others to get to it, but because it is out in the dead zone between Orlando and the coast, no one ever goes there. In six years of regular trips, I've seen exactly three other people.
Get outdoors, get some exercise, and still get my work done. The perfect combination for me.
On rainy days, I usually relax on the patio with some instrumental music playing softly. Lately I've been going through a Nox Arcana fad. Mixed with the sound of the thunderstorms, I find it helps me focus.