Being a non-techie working in tech
You can sometimes spend your whole working life in a ‘comfort zone’ where you feel familiar enough with everything that’s going on around you. You might even feel like you are an expert in a particular field and have an added confidence in your step as you merrily skip to work in the morning. I have been that person. I have basked in my own glory and felt a little bit smug on more than one occasion about having knowledge that someone else doesn’t have.
So what is it like to work within an unfamiliar environment?
Here at dxw we have a small office. There are post-it notes all over the wall and the ‘caffeine distribution unit’ is whirring away. People are talking about discos (not a dancing place OR the 90s crisp brand). Someone announces that they are sprinting today (I wait patiently for the starter gun to go off and watch a co-worker dash off). There are stories (not the bedtime kind), tickets (I can only hope it’s not a parking one) and whippets (we haz dogs?!).
It’s a whole new language to learn and a lot of stuff does still go sailing right over my head, but it’s interesting and I’m slowly getting used to it. Yes, sure, I feel like I’m in the dark about the things that go on day to day and I’m still not 100% sure what everyone actually does, but it’s fun and exciting and a little bit of a challenge.
So how am I tackling this challenge?
Well, it helps that everyone here is friendly and approachable so I am able to ask plenty of questions – and of course they may feel like pretty basic questions to answer but, to quote Carl Sagan, “There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question”. Plus, it’s nice sometimes to take a break from what you’re doing to show someone the cool stuffs you get up to.
I’m trying to spend some time with all the team to see what they do. Even if that still doesn’t make sense to me, it’s all part of a big jigsaw puzzle in my head which is slowly coming together.
Coming from a place where a lot of new technology was something to be slightly feared, it’s refreshing to suddenly be faced with a whole heap of cool ways of working which make admin-ing the team so much easier. I almost wonder what I did before which, I guess, is the the point of what we do as a company; give people tools to do things more efficiently and make things easier. As an admin team, we are hoping to work out some really great ways of providing the whole office with a sleek way of working that leaves plenty of time for clients and technological wizardry. One thing is guaranteed; cake will be involved. There’s always room for more cake.