You have to project 15-20 years down the line and ask yourself “Is this the job I want to be doing at that point?”  Be blatently honest with yourself.

Take a look at the matching careers of other people in your profession that are 15-20 years ahead of you in life and take a moment to analyse, are they happy/unhappy?  Look at their lifestyle.  What do they do for fun?  How do they spend their free time?  How many hours are they putting in at work? Are they jaded with life and can’t find an escape?  Does their life make you think twice about the career that you have now chosen?  Does their career, which they have been following for 15-20 years, reflect what you think your career ‘end-game’ will be 15-20 years down the road?  Be honest. It may be time to start working on an exit strategy.  As the blunt edge of an even blunter object constructively side-sweeps your cranium you must realize that time is marching on and you simply don’t have any more of it to waste…

Here’s the kicker, you are NOT your career. If you’re an accountant by day it doesn’t mean you’re an accountant by night, the same goes for any career in any industry. I’ve never agreed with those people that say “Well just look at his/her past choices, that’s usually a good indicator of what his/her future choices will be.”  No, this is inaccurate on multiple levels.  Everybody has the God given freedom of choice and everybody has the ability to pull themselves out of the murky depths of whatever they got themselves into.  You absolutely have a choice, there’s no ‘ifs’ ‘buts’ or ‘ands’ here.  Past choices can be forgiven, people can change, conversely, people that have succeeded can make bad choices and end up failing terribly.  The point here is not to judge them.

Honestly, I’ve made some really stupid choices in my life but the results of those choices in no way reflect the mindset of  future results I can make with good choices today.  Because 31 year old Jon is completely different from 19 year old Jon. The choices I made regarding my career when I was in my late teens in no way reflects my needs today.  What was good for me then is not good for me today.  This is all a process, the reality doesn’t set in overnight, it happens over years and even then only with deep introspection will you come to understand it.

So right now I’m projecting my career 15-20 years down the road and the outlook is absolutely dismal.  I don’t want to be doing what I’m doing today when I’m 45 and I’m not going to sit and wait until I’m 45 to act. I have to start today, and honestly, there’s no time to be taking baby-steps, taking baby-steps in the right direction was okay 10 years ago but I can’t afford that anymore, it’s now time to start taking leaps and bounds.  My perspective is that if you’re nearing the half-way point in your life you really don’t have a choice, you either make these hard decisions now and reap the rewards later or you do nothing now and reap the consequences of your actions down the road.  These are the most fruitful years of your life and you don’t want to sit and let them go to waste working in a career that brings absolutely no long term satisfaction.

You absolutely cannot spend the prime of your life doing something that you do not enjoy in the hopes that it will bring some contentment to your life at some point down the road.  It’s not going to happen like that.  You need to change and make the choices you need to make to get you to your destination, and hopefully you will enjoy the journey while doing it.

In June of 2009 I was let go from my previous employer due to the recession, I had intended to make the best use of my time as I possibly could with the end result of regaining perspective in my life.  This I achieved.  Success at last!  But on the way to that conclusion I messed up, obstacles became more apparent than somebody cutting the cheese 10cm from my face, existential issues arose to the surface, why was I doing all of this, for what ultimate reason was I putting myself through the hardship of jumping  from one ship to another?  All of these questions and more became huge issues I felt I had a need to answer.

I had taken myself completely out of my comfort zone, jumped the gun and went full steam ahead into something I had no clue what the end result would be.  The whole idea was exhilarating, daunting and downright scary.  The mystery of the unknown beckoned me, what would happen?   As it turns out the answer was quite simple, I didn’t end up achieving everything I originally wanted to, but I did gain that very important perspective which had become the foundation for all future decision making.  And today it feels fantastic!

Not too long ago a respectable personal associate of mine and I were playing squash together and this marvel of a gem appeared out of nowhere.  I was asked, “What is the definition of Good Luck?”, and to that I wittingly retorted, “Well the definition of Good Luck is when something unexpectedly good happens to you!”, and he answered, “No, that’s not right…” and proceeded to say, “The definition of Good Luck is when preparedness meets opportunity.“  I stood there for a few seconds while my synapses fired at trajectories previously unknown to them.  It was the literal manifestation of a light bulb going off in my head.  Suddenly everything made sense.  How could I reasonably expect this mysterious amazing intangible ‘thing’ to happen to me if I were not prepared for it?   The realization of this was astounding, truly.  I suddenly understood that in order for my life to get back on track I had to be prepared for it.  And if I wanted to run a company, I had to prepare for it.  I had to prepare for anything which I wanted to reap the rewards from!  I moved from a ‘chance’ to ‘choice’ perspective.  By that I mean instead of waiting for some amazing thing to happen to me by chance, I had to make the choice of making it happen.

Things I learned:

• Every day that I choose not to accomplish some smaller goal, which is part of some bigger goal, is a day longer it takes to achieve that ultimate goal.
• Sometimes you have to fail in order to succeed. Failure is absolutely mandatory if you want to achieve success.
• Knowledge without action leads to failure.
• My own preparedness will result in the opportunities which will lead to success.

So recently I was let go from my last employer due to shortage of work as a result of the recession hitting the Oil & Gas sector in Canada.  Not a problem, I thought, as I left on good terms and worked with some great people.  My initial plan was just to hit the job market again and take the first thing that comes up.  I went for a few interviews but I wasn’t attracted or pulled to any of the companies I was applying at.   I decided that that plan wasn’t working for me so I starting applying for very specific jobs based on the company I’d like to work for or jobs that I really wanted but nothing seemed to come through. I asked why, was it my skillset or was it something else?

After reading this I think you’ll agree with me that my path was intended for bigger things and yours can too.  I think getting let go from work was absolutely without a doubt the best thing that could have happened to me, and it just so happened to be the perfect time in life…

I started to look for reasons as to why this was happening and I came up with a few ideas.  After performing a quick evaluation I realised that I was dreadfully unhappy with the direction my life was taking, most of all I was unhappy with the direction my career had taken over the past 5 years. I did some of the internal thinking stuff  and weighed the pros and cons and came to the conclusion that a change was in order.  But what would I do?  My skills were firmly entrenched in the IT industry ever since I entered it in 1998 straight out of high school, more specifically my skills were tailored around one thing, Computer Support.  Now let me be very honest with you, 10 years of providing Computer Support can work a number on you.  I left my last company on good terms but I probably wouldn’t be making the decisions I am currently making if I had stayed at that job, that might be obvious but I wouldn’t even have that mindset right now, there’s intrinsic value in that.

Immediately after coming to that life changing conclusion I couldn’t help but feel a little disenchanted with the idea of re-entering the IT field to continue to provide Computer Support. I asked myself ‘Will I be moving into a job that will provide the same dissatisfaction that I’ve come to expect from an 8-5 job?’  At any rate I knew that if I continued to take jobs in the IT field that I’ll continue to live a life of unfulfillment.  Did I want that?  Not really.

So I’m left with a few unattended questions, what do I now do? And that is really all it boils down to.  I started reading a lot of books on the topic and writing down all of my original ideas that could possibly earn me an income and quickly realised that I didn’t want to work for anybody anymore, I wanted to work for myself, I wanted to be my own boss and experience the highs and lows of running my own company.  At that point I encountered another issue, I didn’t know anybody that can help me pull off some of my plans and I had nowhere near the experience to do it myself.  I looked to the entrepreneurs of the world and everywhere I looked I found similar answers in different packages, “Start small, start early, start often” over and over again but the link between all of them was “JUST START!”.  I have a keen mind, next question ‘HOW?!’  Headspace!  I needed some headspace, I needed time off to refocus and engage my enthusiasm, just like an author encounters writers-block I had encountered ‘Guy-that-doesn’t-want-to-do-what-he’s-been-doing-for-the-past-10-years-block’.  So I decided that some massive and radical change was in order and made the choice to go back to my home country of South Africa to seek out the things I was looking for.  Like a Macdonalds milkshake brainfreeze (in the good sense) surging through my veins I immediately started listing all of my possessions for sale.  Revitalisation was my key goal.  But it wasn’t the only goal.  I had a mind full of amazing ideas of things I suddenly wanted to do.

A question to the older generation.  How many times do people change course in their lives to achieve that ultimate satisfaction and at what point in their lives do they realise that what they are doing isn’t going to get them to where they want to be and that massive and radical change is needed in order for that to happen?

An opportunity has been given to me now between things to re-look at my life, my career, my goals and objectives.  I think this is a wonderful thing which will hopefully help me improve my life.  Am I sacrificing everything and all of my worldly possessions in pursuit of a happier life?  Yes.  Am I heading into the unknown?  Yes.  How many contingency plans do I have in place?  One – I wouldn’t make a choice of diving headfirst into something I know nothing about without some kind of exit strategy, it just makes sense to have my bases covered.  Will I engage in a motivating and uplifting experience?  Absolutely – that’s kind of the goal.

A question to my generation.  You’re faced with uncertainty, not sure what to do in your life, you’re a little jaded from your collective life experiences (career/life) and realise there’s more to life than pleasing the ‘resume gods’.  You understand that this could be the defining and changing moment in your life.  What would you do in this situation if financially you could make it out in one piece?  Or maybe you can’t make it out financially but you have this drive and ambition and you feel that important things are going to happen.  I say that because I believe that where there’s a will there’s a way, even when the money isn’t there.

So back to line one in this post.  I know what I have to do, it’s planned out, so why is it that I don’t want to do it?  Maybe it’s not so much a question of not wanting to do it but rather a question of subconsciously objecting to the idea of change.  And let’s face it, it’s an effort.  I’m letting everything go that I have worked to build over the past 5 years, that’s a big deal.  What keeps me going, though, is the idea of what’s waiting for me on the figurative other side.  I know that just the process of doing this is greatly simplifying my life, other reasons aside.  You might consider this a household-life-cleanup, throwing out the trash and making space for something new.  Isn’t that a good perspective?

Don’t you realize? The next time you see sky, it’ll be over another town. The next time you take a test, it’ll be in some other school. Our parents, they want the best of stuff for us. But right now, they got to do what’s right for them. Because it’s their time. Their time! Up there! Down here, it’s our time. It’s our time down here. That’s all over the second we ride up Troy’s bucket. – The Goonies

Download the ISO, burn it to CD, pop it in the drive and boot up off it.

I’ve been using MiniPE for awhile now and have found it to be extremely helpful in certain situations.  In my case mainly in the data recovery or file transfer areas.  If a machine has BSOD’d beyond recoverable hope, chances are high the data is still intact, this CD will allow you to gain access to critical files that you can then backup to an external USB drive.

Okay there’s a plethora of bootable CD’s out there that allow you to do the same thing and this is just another one.

Jon: Okay so you’re having trouble getting into our Webmail, this is pretty straightforward we have another Webmail address I am going to tell you. Go ahead and load up Internet Explorer and in the address bar….

User: <Interrupts> Is that where you put in the google?

Jon: …Yes, in the address bar type in HTTPS:/ …

User: <Interrupts> Is that HPPS?

Jon: No, HTTPS (Note to reader, it was a perfectly clear telephone line, the guy is just…well…read on…)

User: HTPPS?

Jon: No, HTTPS

User: HEPES

Jon: NO!, H T T P S  … <Repeats again slowly> H   T   T   P   S..

User: H T P E S?

Jon: ….. O_o no! <You FAIL at listening>

Jon: Okay…..type this, H..

User: H

Jon: T..

User: T

Jon: T..

User: T

Jon: P..

User: P

Jon: S..

User: S

Jon: Colon..

User: Cooling?

Jon: NO, colon!

User: Culen?

Jon: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, COLON!

User: Eh, whats that?

Jon: IT’S THE BUTTON WITH THE TWO DOTS ON IT NEXT TO THE “L” KEY ON YOUR KEYBOARD ON YOUR LAPTOP ON THE TABLE THAT IS SITUATED DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF YOU INSIDE THE VERY HOUSE WHICH YOU ARE CURRENTLY SEATED MY GOOD FRIEND. DO YOU NEED GPS CO-ORDINATES?

User: Okay dokey I’ll have to look for it hold on.

User: <Mumbles something incoherent>

Jon: … <Thinks to himself…OMFG OMFG is this guy for real?!> <But then sympathises that he might be genuinely IQ challenged>

User: I can’t find this ‘coling’ button…..I’m in Red Deer, can I bring the laptop to you today?

Jon: Uhhhh … Sure.    <Thinks to himself “That’s a heckuva trip to make because you can’t enter HTTPS:// into your address bar! I mean WOW, you’re going to spend 2 hours driving down to my office because you can’t get this right?  AMAZING!” I am absolutely floored!>

Lawl. Epic fail.

My tale starts in the past, 3 months ago to be precise.  Travelling back through time we find ourselves enjoying a merry day at my place of employment.  I am notified by my manager that HP have decided to, out of goodwill towards our company, provide us with a printer, this is not just any printer mind you, it’s big, it’s bulky but who cares because best of all it’s completely free!  “Great!” I proclaim but I think to myself “Where will I put such a beast?”  After some thought I come to the conclusion that the Engineering department will benefit the most from this new printer since it prints in colour and supports 11×17 papersize.

Enter problem #1.  After a quick look-see I realise that there’s no room in the Engineering department to set this monstrosity up but notice there’s also a lot of wasted space with the cubicles being set far apart from each other.  I proceed to initiate correspondence with the FIBC and the head of engineering to determine what we can do to resolve the issue.  The initial idea is to move some furniture around, a menial and trivial task at it’s core.  This would solve the problem…no?  Easy enough you think?  Have you met FIBC?  I’m sure you’ll agree with me when you do.

As this wasn’t a high priority item at the time we fast forward three months.  I receive notice from the IT Manager that there’s been a ‘motivated suggestion’ to move the printer off the warehouse floor which is where it sat peacefully for 3 months.  “Hey, I got no problem with that but where can we put the box as it’s bulky++ in size?”

I make the decision to re-establish contact the FIBC to find out what the status is of moving the furniture, as the best thing to do would be to just setup and install the printer instead of moving the un-opened box around.

Enter problem #2: The FIBC.  The two of us, we have a history, there must be a personality clash of some kind because we just don’t seem to get along.  I try very hard and make a concerted effort to help her whenever she needs help but her problems are often along the lines of “I’m pretty stupid, I can’t figure anything out by myself, please hold my hand.” oh and, “I’m also a cow so you better help me or else!”

I phone and leave a voicemail with her and she instantly shoots back an email reply:

FIBC: No, XGS has no part of office moves and Desks are not being moved.

My query involved asking her if XGS (our back office function people) would be able to help me to plan on moving some furniture around.  Of course, she never responded to the second part of my original question so I restate it nicely and with different wording:

Jon: Ok any word on when desks are going to be moved?

She responds quite bluntly with the following unprofessionalism:

FIBC: They are not being moved at all.

I am quite taken back by that reply, why would there any opposition to my query at all, it’s such a simple task! I remain calm and compose the following:

Jon: Is there any particular reason why the desks aren’t being moved…or plan to be moved?  We have a printer for engineering and it needs to be moved off the warehouse floor as soon as possible. I had sent an email to you and the Director of Engineering 3 months ago about it.

If you could let me know, thanks.

She replies with:

FIBC: And I personally spoke to you about it 3 months ago and said no. You told me at that time that you had someone else who could use the printer.

Uh yea DUUUH, the engineering department is that ‘someone else’.  Why would I say the printer is for engineering and then change my mind?

Jon: Can we move forward with the process, the requirement is to move the printer off the shop floor as per <name withheld to protect the innocent>.  This has always been assigned to the engineering department and I was waiting for space to be made so that I could set it up.

What needs to be done to make this process move forward?

I’m not understanding her position at this point:

FIBC: It’s not being done right now. Move offsite to Blackfoot for now

Blackfoot is our other office in town but it’s up for sale so the suits are trying to keep it from becoming a permanent place for storage so having us spend time and money to move this gigantic printer to a building which may or may not be vacated in the near future is simply not an option, FIBC understands that…..or does she?  I decide to bypass her ignorant comment and reply back with this:

Jon: We currently have some printing capacity concerns on the second floor so utilising the printer from the shop floor and locating it in Engineering would alleviate quite a few problems including reducing human traffic in your wing of the building.  Is there any way we can proceed forward with this without moving the printer to Blackfoot?

I try to play my ace card, ‘reduce human traffic’!  FIBC’s boss has complained about the increasing number of traffic down his wing of the building due to it being the location of the main printer hub on that floor.  I figure that offering her an incentive would get her on my side to assist with getting the new printer installed in the Engineering department.  Well it didn’t work because this is what I got in return:

FIBC: no

Wow, what a blunt and completely unprofessional reply, not even a fullstop afterwards, I’m hurt.  At this point I’m trying to figure out her mentality:

Jon: Is there a business justification why we are not able to do this?  If it means having to get a moving company in to move tables then by all means let’s get them in to help us with that.

Three days go by without a reply from her so I get the ball rolling again:

Hi FIBC,

I didn’t receive a reply from you on this one the other day, any word on the business reasoning why we are not able to do this?

Thanks

She jumps right back onto her horse (which is a midget pony by the name of Little Pumpkin by the way) and shoots out this:

FIBC: I am not justifying anything to you Jon. The subject is closed.

Wow!  Just WOW!  I loved that reply, I loved it so much I decided that what is supposed to be quite a trivial task has turned out to be too much of a mission for the FIBC to carry out and I’ve just about had enough of her pathetic existence, I reply to her but CC all the higher ups, people that can actually make thing’s happen without causing me undue, and completely unnecessary, grief.  I remain calm and professional throughout:

Jon: The printer is for the engineering department, you will have to justify to them why they’re not going to get it when they start asking questions why they’re not going to get a printer.  I have also been requested to remove the printer from the warehouse floor as it’s been sitting there for 3 months now waiting to be put in place in the engineering department.

Can we work as a team to make this happen?

Thanks

Within 10 minutes I receive a reply back from one of the VP’s with the answer I was looking for right at the start:

Jon,

Looks like the desks will be moved back a few feet to accommodate the printer in the central part of the engineering wing.  You will be notified when the desks have been moved, and the printer has been moved to its new home.

thanks

I havn’t spoken to or heard from FIBC since…and she still hasn’t replied to my question about working as a team to make thing’s happen. *sigh*

Such simple tasks. Tsk.

I get this a lot:

User: “I saw you called”,

Me: “Yea I did, did you check the voicemail that I left? I kind of explain why I called you.”

User: “Oh, no I didn’t”.

Me: “So you completely missed the big blindingly red light on your phone that indicates you have a voicemail?”

User: “Yea I don’t really use it, whats up?”

Me: *Bangs head against wall*

It’s aggravating to have to explain yourself over and over again to the technopeasants that refuse to use technology that has been put there to help them.  “Oh is checking voicemail too difficult a task for you?  You shouldn’t be here then, here’s your badge, go stand in the corner.”

You’re kind of expecting the user to call back with a response to your question but instead you have to waste more time by explaining what it is you called about in the first place. Lately it’s hit or miss, sometimes they do check, other times they don’t.

Why?  Because users absolutely refuse to follow proper processes and procedures. Procedures that have been set in place for a reason (in concrete too I might add) to assist us in timely problem resolution and to keep thing’s orderly and scheduled and also so that my boss knows I have work to do!  The problem is time and time again I find people want to bypass the system.  Why has the IT department become the adult baby-sitters club?  Why do you want us to hold your hands while you write up an email to IT Support?

I wrote about this issue back in March of this year. Here it is for you to take a look at.  In that article I argued that as a result of geographical transparency roles and responsibilities of the IT department are skewed for users in the company, especially when the main IT department is based in another country.  The only initial point of contact for users are the local IT Support staff in Calgary, these happen to be my co-worker and I.  Read the article, you’ll see what I mean.  It’s interesting.

Consider this seemingly all too real scenario:

User interrupts Jon helping another user: “Jon follow me to my PC, I want you to fix a problem!”
Jon helping another user: “Please send it into IT Support, I’m a little busy at the moment”
User: “I did”
Jon: “No ,you didn’t”
User: “I did!!!!”
Jon without being rude: “No .. you didn’t .. you sent it to ME, not to *****IT SUPPORT****, you know you need to send things into IT Support, especially of this nature!”.

It’s got to the point where if somebody sends a request directly to me I just ignore it because otherwise when will they learn? Sure, if it’s urgent I’ll fix it when I get a chance but I’m not making it my priority if you’re not willing to follow the rules.

People have been donkey trained for years now to send their computer related issues into IT Support (which is an email address front-end that distributes requests to an organized back-end) but what I’m finding is that they refuse to use the system.  They feel their issues are infinitely more superior than the people that took the time to properly send us problem requests so that a ticket can be opened up and assigned in the correct manner. I get this continuously “Jon, have you got just 2 minutes to take a look at something?”, which then turns into a 30minute find and fix situation.  Meanwhile the guy that followed the rules, that sent his request in the right way, is left waiting in the wings.  Sound unfair to you?  It sure as hell does to me.

We’ve paid our dues and drilled this into your heads for years now but you just don’t get it!  Never have I seen such blatant and outright incompetence in my entire life!  Time and time again I say to myself “Okay next time will be better, I’ll tell them just this once more, they’ll understand then.” But they never do.  We send out emails reminding users of the process, I tell users in person what the process is, I even have a big notice on my door with the process written in black and white….and color.  Out of pure frustration what more can I do without alienating myself frome the users?!  Must I be abruptly rude to them so that they’ll learn?  Do I have to take a hard stance against those users unwilling to learn? At what point does a human being realize that they should maybe start following the rules?  What action needs to precursor that thought pattern in them?

PS, while I was writing this blog entry, I received 3 emails and 1 phone call from people not following the rules and the guy that I told to send his request into IT Support didn’t send anything in even after he said he would…..but instead he takes the time to phone me to find out why his problem hasn’t been fixed yet.  *Bangs head against wall…repeatedly!”

If people would only learn to use Google to fix problems on their PC’s it would save a mountain of time, not to say that I don’t like fixing problems on PC’s but by solving their own problems they would learn much more than they would if somebody else were to fix it for them. In addition, they would actually empower themselves in the process.

Okay guys I’m coming clean as of today.  When somebody calls me up with an unknown problem all I’m going to do is Google it and then try various suggestions until I get it right, okay sure I’m also basing that off 10 years of experience but what’s stopping anyone else from doing it?

If anyone even had the faintest interest in solving their own problems I know many people that would respect them more for it, even if they failed at fixing the issue.  “Hi Jon, I have this issue, I googled for a solution, tried a couple thing’s, didn’t get anywhere, can you come check it out?”  I’ll be all over that like Chocolate Milk.

Google is our secret weapon and it can be yours too.  Learning to use Google I can accurately say that you’ll discover unique and interesting ways to solve just about any problem you are faced with, be it computer related or not.  This is justified because in the long term you’ll save yourself hours doing your own research and finding out new ways to do things and you’ll learn hell of a lot in the process.  More than anyone can teach you.

I was rocked by this post by Lea Woodward, you mean somebody outside of IT actually gets it? Her argument is that there are people out there with such a bare minimum set of skills that they are hardly able to operate a computer in any productive kind of way.  Her argument is well justified in my opinion because frankly, I see it every day.  Props to you Lea.  I’ve always said that if you’re using a computer to do your job it’s in your best interest to learn how to use it effectively.  Can you imagine a ‘car mechanic’ showing up to work without a clue how to use a spanner or an accountant without the ability to use a calculator?

I’ve often thought that if somebody were to change jobs and move from the IT department to another department they would be so incredibly effective because they understand computers and they’ll know the Office suite and understand how to make killer presentations, why, because they’ve explored their computer and understand what it can do for them.

Understanding how to use Google can be empowering.  Know where to find information.

So here’s a bunch of tips for using Google to find just about anything you’re looking for.

Respek the Google, GIYF. Westside yo.

Office 95 was introduced during the ‘hey days’ of computing when everyone was just beginning to figure out that using a computer was actually easier and more efficient than using type-writers and ledger books.  This new understanding was, of course, kick-started and coincided with the release of Windows 95 and their GUI is one of the reasons for it’s success.  Up until then the general computing experience wasn’t as permissive as it is today.

Back then people quickly became familiar with the ‘Microsoft interface’, they understood how to accomplish tasks with only a few clicks, they understood that to perform an Undo in Office 95 you had to click Edit-Undo or simply press CTRL-Z. So of course with the release of subsequent versions Microsoft stuck with the tried and true Office 95 interface…and everyone loved it. Subsequent versions brought only marginal improvements to the UI but the core functionality remained. (For a complete and detailed history of the entire Office series click here.)

But over time thing’s change, our needs shift, they become better geared and the software ultimately has to evolve to suit us.  Enter Office 2007. My company finally deployed Office 2007 recently after a bit of internal testing and generally speaking, the reception I get from people is good, they like the new user interface, in some cases it’s a Godsend, in others it’s a little clunky.  But it could be a case of just needing more time with it.  As with anything new it’s going to take time to get used to, to become familiar with the controls and steps involved in completing an action.  Microsoft have implemented this new Ribbon UI based on a lot of user feedback, and I mean a lot. This is a pretty good read if you want to learn more about how the general public helped to craft the Office 2007 UI.

We have only a handful of users resisting Office 2007, they complain about a clunky interface or an ‘ergnomic atrocity’.  These are the ones that this article is geared towards.  And to them I just have to say get over it. Learn the new interface, everything we do with a computer is moving towards these context-sensitive UI’s meaning what-is-present-is-relevant-and-will-be-useful, it makes complete sense to move in this direction.  Even our OS’s are beginning to be pushed through this plastic injection mold.  It’s for the better.  Keep up with the times.  We had one user that kindly asked that we load a 3rd party addon which reverts the 2007 UI to the old 2003 look & feel.  We allowed that because we’re enablers of technology not disablers but the user in question obviously didn’t want to embrace the change.

Sure, the new office suite is just as prone to ridiculous vulnerabilities as any other Windows application and it’s certainly had it’s fair share but the design changes are markedly improved and I have faith that they will continue to change and improve as our needs change.

Don’t resist the change of the UI, learn it, understand it, use it, move out of your comfort zone and your own personal shortcut space you’ve created for yourself and experience an application for what it truly is.  It’s the way of the future.  And you know what they say, if you can’t embrace change well then…

Now if only they made this for Linux….