Reader's Column Day

Your dedicated CEO is listening again to you today, let’s take a call from Roberto:

I’m a junior Java developer and I work at the CGI office. The company is blocking all access to Facebook and MySpace, how am I supposed to do my work if CGI is blocking communication to the outside world?

Let’s do some profiling on Roberto. This is the kind of Gen-Y slacker who posts what he had for breakfast on Facebook, in addition to what kind of socks he’s wearing (let me guess: white), how he feels about the world at any particular moment (meaning, whining about events outside his control), and what score he just achieved at Bejeweled.

If your local CGI office blocks Facebook, it’s probably because you spend too much time posting rants about your lasting acne problems and you’re not delivering any decent code for your customer. Here’s my advice to you: remove the RJ-45 cable from your PC and try doing work – any work – without Internet access.

The first day will be awful, you will experience full blown hallucinations due to withdrawal. Like seeing Pauline Marois in a sexy nurse outfit. Or Michael Dell announcing that he wants to buy CGI. That kind of really scary thing.

Jee, I just scared myself with the last one.

The next day you will able not to launch MSN when you get to work. You may even be able to use other mean of communication, like a phone, to get in touch with someone. Yeah, like talking. Sounds old school, isn’t it?

By the end of the week you will realize that all you can do with a computer is actually work, meaning producing deliverables for which a client is willing to pay. You may realize that Facebook is just a way to channel your inner frustrations and it leads to nothing but more frustrations because no one really cares that you had Christmas-theme Rice Krispies this morning.

Face it boy, the world is a harsh place and self-interest drives this place. Now get back to work.