Rant

So first off, since today is now my birthday by eight minutes, and I’m on my second beer I think it is my right to bitch about something.

I was on my break today. Doing what guys like me do on my break, when I was talking with a couple of the new janitors(We go through janitors at work like I go through crack whores.) One of them commented on how the night before I sounded like I was gonna jump through the phone at a customer. A little exageration there but you get the idea, this customer was not the smartest cookie on the bookshelf.

“Yeah thats the job” I replied. And as we were talking I commented on how at this job I’ve realized that this country is now horrible at communicating. I said exactly

“This country has horrible communication skills.”

One of the guys started defending people saying that I can’t expect them to all be technical and have a deep understang of computers. To which I explained that is not what I’m talking about. Simple statements like left click on the start button in the bottom left corner of the screen is difficult for some people to grasp. Listening skills are horrible. We are in too big of a rush to actually listen to an entire statement from someone. To quote Fight Club.

“They’re listening to me instead of waiting for their turn to speak.”

He then quasi-conceded to my point. Most likely cause he was in too much of a rush to actually listen to me. Point made.

So this brings us to the actual rant.

“Email” does not equal “The Web” which does not equal “Internet.”

The internet is the connection of networks spanning across the world.

Email is one of the things you can do on the internet.

The Web is the collection of webpages into websites on the internet. Therefor the web is something you do on the internet.

I would have to say a large number of the people I deal with on a daily basis have no grasp of the concept that those three terms do not mean the exact same thing. Try taking any three words in the english language and make them all have the exact same meaning and then try and have a conversation with someone. Watch the insanity that ensues. Needless to say it can make my job a little difficult to do.

I’m not requiring you to know more advanced things about a computer, but I do ask that if you get on the internet you at least understand some basics like internet, web, and email. I’m not asking you to know what html, http, pop3, smtp, ftp, mean, or even how they work. Hell I don’t care if you know how email works. As long as you know it is not an inter-changable term with internet or web.

Now have a beer for me, it’s my birthday, and if you don’t then fuck you!