Phew!

Yes, phew - I'm glad that paper's over! Not one of my best, as was still nervous and mis-timed it horribly, but at least they were interested in the topic. Nothing worse than that painful silence after someone's given a paper and no-one asks a question...maybe because it's too boring to think about, or they just can't be bothered. So at least that's something!

Still can't get used to being treated like a user by IT tech support people, though. I guess 10 years is quite a while to work in that sort of job, so I'm not likely to abandon it all mentally because I've moved on to something different.The very nice IT man told me in great detail how to open my Powerpoint file, and then how to get the memory stick out of the laptop afterwards... maybe I was like that when I was a technical support person (the only female one in the college for many years, actually...). I usually decide it's best to say nothing and be grateful for their help, because one day I won't know what I'm doing and will be glad of advice. I'm still crap with AV stuff anyway, so often need help with that! But I don't want to become one of those users from hell who think they know everything, they're as annoying as the rude ones.

Anyway, it's quite interesting to see how other people do provide technical support for their users from the 'other side'. I could identify with the geeky techies as well as the users in The IT Crowd sitcom when that was screened, but maybe identifying with the techies will gradually fade as I get more immersed in academia. Or maybe I'll always be part nerd and be interested when I come across strange Netware-related problems, or have to stop myself crawling around under the desk to fiddle with cables...