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The Working Girl Blogs Revision 2.0
Blog #56: A girl and her laptop To see all of Bobbie's Working Girl Blogs, click on this link: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/19261/working-girl-blogs |
At last I got my new laptop last Thursday. And I didn't have to wait long for it, too. Just two months...
Anyway, I got my laptop, and I couldn't stop playing with my toy the whole day. So it was a good thing that there was little to do around the office at the time.
You see, for three days, all the team leads were hard at work getting their system and user acceptance test results signed off by their clients (the last one got signed that day), and we informed accounting to arrange for the final performance billing for all of the branch's outstanding projects. I could imagine the consternation in accounting. It also meant all the project teams were done for the year! (Except for the final paperwork...) So everyone was filing vacation leaves, although the team leads whose "lollygagging" (as my spinster aunt would put it) landed us in this pickle in the first place won't be getting any vacation anytime soon. (That aunt of mine is from my dad's side, so one would wonder why a sixty-five-year-old lady who lives in Quebec would be using words like "lollygag." Je ne sais pas, alors ne me demandez pas.)
Anyway, like I said, there was not much to do that day, which allowed me to be alone with my new baby. I transferred all of my files from the portable drive to my new Thinkpad, set up my Outlook account, and all the programs I regularly use. Although I had to let IT know what I loaded - all people from lower management up are allowed to load programs so long as they're authorized or licensed, but they had to let IT know.
It was also a good thing that I got the laptop when I did - it gave me something to occupy my time the following day as I had a three-hour road trip to HQ, and the trip went real quick. And the particular model I got had 3G wireless WAN and all necessary peripherals for wireless internet, so I was surfing all the way to New York.
I won't get into the rest of my machine's specs, but it sure had plenty of oomph and storage, and would be great for most anything I can think of, including multimedia stuff. The night before, I had my usual bout of insomnia, but with my new toy, I had something to occupy me.
I always feel this way when I get something that I wanted. Nowadays, I feel like this when I buy shoes or a nice outfit or something like that. I suppose that "instinct" to acquire things that women seem to have is a natural thing, but does it apply to girls like me. All in all, though, it might not be altogether a female malady. Most of the guys I work with are very particular about their computers. But then again, I am in the IT field so that shouldn't be too uncommon. Although I don't see the girls salivating over their electronics. At least not as much, anyway.
I did notice though that a lot of them have, ummm, "customized" their laptops in different ways, and the girls' computers tend to more colorful - what with the stickers and stuff they put on them. The tech that delivered my computer said I could have gotten one in red, but I wondered why the tech assumed I wanted it in red. Belatedly, I guessed that girls went for the colored ones when they could, but I went for the traditional black.
This "color controversy" made me think that there are actually fundamental differences with the tastes of guys versus girls which are genetically based.
But I don't care about that right now. I got a shiny new computer.
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Comments
Mmm, I don't know about that.
You could always argue that going with black was BECAUSE of color controversy. After all, if you're in a business situation and need to use your laptop, well, it would be unprofessional if your laptop clashed with how you look. And as everyone knows, black goes with everything! But seriously, don't worry about not picking the colored one when you had the option. Not everyone of either sex fits all the stereotypes, and it makes us better people for it.
A Thinkpad, huh? I've always wanted one of those! They're not generally what you would call the prettiest computers on the market, but what they lack in sleekness they more than make up for in competence and reliability, not to mention the mouse nib in the middle of the keyboard is just an amazingly useful peripheral for those of us who don't like clicky and ultra-sensitive touch pads but have been denied our classic track ball.
Have fun with the new laptop, and get back to writing when you can!
Melanie E.
The Working Girl Blog #56: A girl and her laptop
Hope you have lots of fun with your new toy.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Genetic coloring tastes?
Hmmm, what a thought. I actually prefer to view this as more of a fact that girls have been taught as more sociable, and that they prefer to be noticed. Hence, the colored version. Or, they could regard computer as a part of them so they need to accesoarise. ;P
Besides, you said it yourself - you got a shiny new computer, it's still awesome! :D
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
Colours
Mne's black. It's a tool that lives n my flat. On the other hand, I have a grl friend who is a real gurly gurl,allnails and make up. Hers is exactly what you would expect.
I like colours rather than patterns, soft pastels in many thngs, but the odd splash of primary for effect....but t has to be a defined item,a scarf, a hat, somewhere where boundaries are easy to set.
Genetic or social fostering?
I was thinking the same thing as far as girls being taught to be more social, I was going to use the term expressive. Never the less the concept would be the same. I think the same thing applies when I dress, I find I am far more reserved in my clothing choices than my GF who loves bright viberant colors and patterns. Although pink has a special place in my heart... ;)
your stories
with the new laptop and projects wrapping up will you have a chance to post any new chapters of your stories? have some fun with it.
You got a CHOICE?
Awww. Guess management does have it's perks...
I just found out my 3 year old laptop has to keep working for at least another year, and I'm not scheduled to get a replacement until it's 5 years old. I wonder if they're trying to tell me to stop pretending to actually work for a living (write code) and admit that I'm just a paper pusher. (I can't build a VM big enough to run our app stack+Oracle on this one, any more. Oh well...
Hope you had an interesting trip to NYC. My experience is that it's got it's good points and it's bad. My project there is on a brief hiatus, while the customer does some testing on their WAN... (They have segments with limited bandwidth and a 1 second latency - no typo there.) And, they're concerned that the app they asked us to design for them won't be able to perform in that environment. *sighs* No kidding...
Glad your team's projects are so successful.
Anne