Fontophile

Working on different machines and brands definitely has it's benefits. You get multi-versed in different engineering designs and experience different clientèle. For example, maintaining high end servers puts you in enterprise class server farms, workstations in office settings, gaming rigs puts you into the depths of pizza box hell and rooms that smell like butt (for the most part), and Apple MacPros puts you into fanboy shrines dedicated to Steve Jobs and anything resembling white fruits.

The different engineering designs are pretty consistent amongst the brands. Most Dell lappys you work from the keyboard down. Sony lappys, bottom up. Apple components, well, let's just say, bring your entire toolkit, it's an adventure every time. I truly believe that Apples are designed from the outside in (in Cupertino - heehee). I envision an aesthetician drawing up a design, showing the design to Mr. Jobs, Mr. Jobs says, "make it white with shiny parts and then take it to engineering."

The aesthetician revises the design, takes it down to engineering (why  is it always "take it DOWN to engineering", why not take it UP to engineering, or OVER?),  and says, "here, make this work."

The engineers say, "ok, what the heck is this supposed to be?"

The aesthetician says, "it's an i_____".

"Oh, I understand now," states the engineer.

In the Apple engineering department there are no service technicians present. This is quite obvious because of the hundred of different screw and fastener types within each Apple. The Dell engineering department is comprised of all service technicians. When you open a machine from Dell, usually all you need is one tool, yourself. Yes, you tool, you can too, service Dells.

Enough about machines, aesthetics and engineering! Let's observe the different sociopaths behind the machines. Apple fanboys are easy to work with, just slam every other manufacturer and praise the worthless piece of junk iPad and you're in, buddy! Server administrators are a bit more complicated to deal with. Every once in a while, during your conversation, mutter the words "DEC VAX" and "Clipper" every once in a while. You may look like a fool, but you'll look like a kinda-techno-geek extra-ordin-possibly. Only the author of this prose may use the title, "Technogeek Extraordinaire." Gamers are extremely easy to work with. Regionally, the types may differ. In the region of pineapples and burnt tourists, just say one word before and after every sentence, "dude!"

For example, "dude, my name is mud and I'm here to fix your computer, dude."

"Dude, right on dude. Come on in, leave your shoes on dude, it's kinda messy. I'm in the process of moving, dude!"

"Dude, ok, where's your computer, dude?"

Yes, it's true, this has gained the customer's trust in field technicians many, many, many times, dude.

Office employees are generally easy to work with on any occasion. Fix the problem, and you've saved the day. Or that's what they say at least. They usually would much rather be doing nothing than working on their mindless spreadsheets and memos to post in the breakroom. This is the case except for that one person who wants the font on a printout to be printed 26 micrometers over to the right. No matter what you do, software or hardware-wise, you can't nail down 26 micrometers to the right. 25 micrometers, no problem, 27 micrometers, elementary, 26, not happening.

"Ma'am (or sir), no matter what I do, I can't meet your specification due to hardware and software limitations," you state.

"Well, it worked like this before," the "person" states.

"May I see an example of what you mean please?"

"Well, I don't have anything right now, but it always worked this way before you came in."

"The component I replaced was the power cord. That doesn't have anything to do with the font."

"Well, I'm not happy with the service. I need you to fix this, or I'll call "insert_major_manufacturer_CEO_name_here" and tell them what I think."

At this point, the choose your own adventure page would say something like, "to cuss at the person, go to page 245, to give the general customer service blowoff of I understand blah blah blah, go to page 371."

It's usually in your best interest to turn to page 371. Going to page 245 makes you feel really, really good though.