It’s a typical social gathering. I.e. not full of other I.T. people.

“So…what do you do?”

The inevitable question has arisen.

“I’m a software developer.”

“Oh right, what do you work on?”

And this is where the conversation usually stops. Or it may not quite stop, but I make a Freudian stumble at the very least. What do I say to someone who doesn’t even know how to find the settings in their browser? Or more likely, what if they don’t even know what a browser is? They just go to “The Internet”. Or “google”. Or they just click on “The Big Blue E”. Or they turn their computer off by pulling out the power plug.

I haven’t had a “plug puller” for a while though, so that’s good.

When I try to tell them about what I “do”, I keep it simple. There’s a website, a bunch of reports and automation. Some research. Leaving out the AOTITI (“acronyms of the information technology industry”) is important.

The hardest conversations are with co-workers however. Particularly management outside of my own team. My boss is a developer, lots of experience. But the people he reports too, it can be very difficult to explain things.

Maybe it’s a generational thing? Maybe Gen-X are going to be the executives who can grapple with computers in a management context…