IT People Have Families Too

Contrary to popular belief, IT People are not spawned out of the mess of cables in the corner of the server room, nor do they crawl out of the electronics recycling bin as the offspring of 1980's clunky PC towers and those green monochrome screens.

As odd as it may sound, they have families too; parents, siblings and sometimes a wife and kids.

And just like any other (mostly) normal families, they enjoy spending time together, not just on special days like Christmas, Valentine's or birthdays.

They enjoy their weekends and sometimes go out in the evenings for dinner or a movie, albeit probably science fiction.

Their hobbies might be odd, like collecting Hello Kitty merchandise, or making scale models of early servers, even sometimes as mundane as bird watching. But they need the time and space in order to participate in their chosen mode of relaxation.

If they do not get their time apart and the chance to sort out their garage and mow the lawn, do not be surprised if they arrive with trenchcoats or dressed as ninjas the next time you call them for help.

It is up to you to consider how urgent or important the problem is that you are having, if it can wait until tomorrow, let it go. Allow the IT Guy to take his girlfriend out to see the latest X-Men movie, or the space to fulfill his goal of watching all the Quentin Tarantino movies back to back.

It is up to you to preserve his sanity, especially so when you consider the amount of times he has answered the same question in the past week.

So let him go, they are not cyborgs yet that can work 24 hours a day, they need their sleep.