We have a bizarre occurrence at work that is worth mentioning. It’s really strange and it’s got to the point where we can start to place fairly accurate bets as to its result. What I mean is this, when we upgrade users from desktops to laptops there’s a very high chance that within 1 month they will resign from the company, they will leave and move onto something else. Why is this and what causes this? It makes no sense yet time and time again we can track this trend. A co-worker and I have dubbed this occurrence ‘The Curse of the Laptop” and whenever a recently upgraded user resigns we call it ‘The Curse of the Laptop strikes again!’. I guess there could be any number of plausible explanations, was it pure coincidence or is there something more sinister at play?
One of my possible explanations is thus; It’s almost as if being handed a laptop pulls a person out of their comfort zone, now they’re obliged to work from home, suddenly the individual realizes this isn’t something they like, work is now imposing on their home life, they start to think about leaving the company to find a better position. They’ve now experienced something that they thought would be cool only to find out it’s not all that.
There’s an annoying guy here that is constantly nagging me for a laptop, first of all let’s forget about the fact that he doesn’t need one and secondly his manager will have to approve it before he gets one. Every time I receive new laptops he quirks up with ridiculous comments such as “Oh that’s my new laptop there” and “…once I get that laptop from Jon…blah blah” (He sits near my office so he sees the big equipment hauls come in…unfortunately). Thing is, I know the guy just wants one so he can watch DVD’s on his bed and ‘have bragging rights’ that we has a laptop, let’s face it, I don’t like the guy. Totally absurd. The nasty side of me wants him to leave so I’ve been thinking of setting up a laptop and placing my bets on whether or not he’ll resign when he suddenly realizes that the laptop isn’t a toy and that we has to work instead of watching BattleStar Galactica. What are my chances?
Just an interesting observation.
Filed under: Adventures @ Work, Humour, Life | Tagged: Bizarre occurrence, Bragging Rights, Curse of the Laptop
Interesting correlation. Will be worth seeing exactly what the correlation coefficient is.
On the annoying guy thing. Dude. He’s not going to resign. Lets face it. If your theory is true, then giving this dude a laptop will not cause him to reliase that work sucks and it would be better to find a new job.
The reason for this lets face it. If his manager is not going to give him one its because he does not need one for work. I.E. He’ll never have work to do at home, so he’ll never have the above conclusion.
So in conculsion….. tell him that you may decide to get him a Laptop IF he gets you X, and then Y etc….. build up the guys hopes, and then……. wait for it…… dash them against the rocks of your own IT supremicy.
Let’s not forget the ball and chain lovingly referred to as the Crackberry. It’s cool to show off to all your friends and email your cousins while driving on the freeway, for the first week or two at least.
I’ve seen a handful of people get a small promotion and get a Blackberry as part of the new role. As soon as they realize that they haven’t been able to watch an entire episode of CSI, or even a single quarter of football without being interrupted by questions that could wait until they are actually in the office at the usual time, or those friends that send the famous “Are you there” messages. Pretty soon, they find a new use for the lovely electronic leash, emailing resumes to everyone they know in an attempt to release themselves from the wireless prison cell they carry in their monogrammed leather belt clip.
Of course, there are the people on the other end of the spectrum that walk around the building talking for hours (probably long distance) to customers and co-workers, when they could have sat down at their desk and put their ergonomic headset on and talked at no additional cost to the company.
There’s also the people who covet their shiny new laptop as if it were a Grammy, but at 5 pm every day, that laptop gets carefully placed in their desk drawer, never to see actual natural light, let alone another room in the same building. These people usually keep the laptop lid closed so they can use their special ordered 26 inch flat panel, saving the laptop’s pixels from ever having to shed their light on the world. Some of these people skip the putting it away part and happily leave their $2000 paperweight in the middle of their desk for the world to see (including from the outside window).
Jon, give the “annoying guy” the laptop and he will be annoying no more, give or take 30 days…..
PS!! I only use my Crackberry to play “brick” when I am on the can. Would like to know howmany times it will skip on water looking at the aerodinamics of the thing…..