Get a grip

No matter how carefully you hide your work identity around friends and neighbors, one day you’re bound to hear that dreaded question: “Don’t you work with computers?”

You might have just signed an order for 12,000 new PCs, turned downtown Cleveland into a Wi-Fi hot spot, or swam across the Pacific dragging a new transoceanic fiber cable in your teeth, but that doesn’t matter. The next question will be: “My PC won’t connect to my router anymore, but it still sees my laptop. Can you fix it?”

David Sturm is vice president of IT for the New York Public Library. He supports 3,200 staff members in 90 facilities.

Steven Foley is assistant vice president for network services for Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, a three-hospital system outside Chicago. He has a $15 million budget and manages nearly 80 people.

Allen Gwinn is the senior director of technology for the Edwin L. Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas. His staff of 26 full-time employees and part-time student workers support 200 staff and faculty, and 5,000 students.

These guys have a hard time saying no when people ask for help. They’re happy with the balance they’ve struck between helping friends and family, and relaxing away from technology. Follow their examples, and you might strike your work/life balance on a bicycle, a football field or even under water.

Paper gown consultant

Sturm’s wireless home network connects his 12-year-old’s computer to a cable modem, as well as the PC Sturm and his wife share. He doesn’t share files between the systems because he’s “horrified” by the malware hiding in his son’s PC.

Sturm enjoys opening new systems used by the New York Public Library but admits “the staff hovers over me to make sure I don’t do too much damage.” When he goes to help friends, he sometimes wishes he could take some staff along, too.

Although his son stopped playing baseball a year ago, Sturm remains the IT department for the baseball league because players are easier to replace than technologists who create Web sites.

“Our Web site saves coordinators about 100 phone calls,” Sturm says, “but putting registration and other info online takes time.” Yes, but less time than registering players and coordinating teams via telephone, so how can Sturm refuse?

During a recent doctor visit, Sturm admitted his profession. Doctors take notes longhand during exams, and his asked for a better way. “So we discussed some options. Some of his questions were quite detailed,” Sturm says. Next time you’re thinking of a quick answer to a technical question, imagine doing so while wearing a paper gown open in the back.

“You have to keep your sense of humor and don’t be afraid to say that you don’t know,” Sturm says. He cautions about using that excuse too often though, because friends will think you’re just blowing them off.

Years ago, a good friend started a business and called Sturm with some simple questions. The calls got more frequent and overwhelmed Sturm’s ability to answer until it ruined the friendship. “I’m more cautious now,” he says.

You can’t fix every technical problem for friends and family, but non-technical people don’t know where the boundaries are. If a friend really wants a problem solved, that person will call a contractor or consultant you recommend. If that friend still wants you to fix it for free, heed the warning bells in your head.

Crazy Bill’s network

Foley’s home network includes two PCs sharing files, a printer and a DSL connection over a wireless network fast enough to support Foley and his son’s online games. Family and neighbor support takes Foley between five and eight hours per month.

Foley and his 11-year-old son play Diablo online; his son sometimes plays online with his grandfather in Pittsburgh. Once, Foley spent four hours on the phone trying to fix the mess his sister made installing a CD-ROM drive for their parents. “I was running back and forth from the phone in the kitchen to the PC in the study,” Foley recalls. Finally, the only resolution was to make a trip home to help in person.

Foley might control a supercomputer and support equipment designed to defy death at his hospitals, but “neighbors always see me as a PC tech,” he says. Take Crazy Bill, across the street.

When Crazy Bill asked for help, Foley “gave him some old computers, set them up, networked them for the kids and continues to do everything for them I do for my own PCs,” he says. All Crazy Bill’s computers are in the kitchen, connected with patch cables through a wiring hub. When Crazy Bill Jr. deletes the wrong file, Foley replaces it. This from a man “with a Unix administration background,” he says.

How can you not be amused when you help your neighborhood’s Crazy Bill set up a kitchen command center?

Doing good works

Gwinn’s network is more advanced than most. During construction he installed structured wiring throughout his house that terminates at a central point, making wiring changes a snap. He recently rewired with Category 5e cabling to support higher network speeds, and uses Wi-Fi throughout. His wife and two kids each have their own PC, and the server closet off the study includes Web, e-mail and VoIP servers. His 11 VoIP phones route through Asterisk open source PBX software on a Linux system to the Internet through a 6M bit/sec business-class DSL line.

“Once you’re known for being able to fix computer problems, you’re always on call,” Gwinn says. “Your cell phone is not sacred.” He estimates he spends about 30 hours per month helping family and friends, which fits with his philosophy at work. “Support folks not because you have to but because you want to, and your job gets more rewarding.”

In the summer of 2002, Gwinn and about 100 volunteers spent 12 hours installing two Category 5 twisted pair Ethernet network drops in Hexter Elementary’s 18 temporary classrooms, linking them all to the school’s network.

“We have a real ‘Leave it to Beaver’ neighborhood,” Gwinn says, “but two-thirds of the families are below the poverty line.” The school zone straddles a range of demographics, as do many Dallas schools. “The Internet is the best teaching tool,” he says. “It doesn’t make sense to not have it in every classroom.”

Gwinn will soon take on a Boy Scout troop’s Web site design chores. “I hope to set it up in 15 or 20 hours so they can maintain it from there.” Gwinn likes kids, whether his own, Boy Scouts or SMU students. “All due respect to the faculty and staff, but the most important people there are the students.”

Deep down IT serves others, so helping others after hours follows suit. By leveraging your knowledge, and maybe some drivers and spyware cleaning software, you can make people happy again.

Downtime, unplugged

All three agree that downtime requires non-electronic activities. Never underestimate the value of fresh air – or compressed air, as in Gwinn’s case.

Gwinn took his first scuba diving vacation in late September and loved it despite some eardrum bruising. “Down below the water, you know the cell phone won’t ring,” he says. Cell phones also have trouble reaching Boy Scout campgrounds, which Gwinn and his son visit regularly.

There are no computers on a football field full of sixth graders, and Foley is happy about that. He’s the head coach of his son’s football team.

“After mostly sitting in an office at work, I recharge my batteries with football. It’s great to run around and spend time with my son,” he says.

Foley might need to relax from his relaxation. As the vice president of football operations for his son’s league, he must find coaches, set schedules and find players uniforms. At least his wife can’t complain; she’s the league treasurer, cranking out financial spreadsheets while he cranks out team schedules.

Come basketball season, Foley coaches his son’s park team. For individual exercise, he plays on flag football and basketball teams. Foley and his son and daughter each have black belts in tae kwon do.

Sturm says “riding a bike in New York City is not as dangerous as it used to be,” because he now can reach Central Park via new bike paths along the Hudson River.

Collecting also can be relaxing. Sturm collects antique surveying and scientific instruments and related books. Foley likes modern first editions. Gwinn keeps gadgets, including a mint-condition TI-59 graphing calculator and a working Osborne I computer. But he no longer has his MITS Altair 8080.

Last word

Sharing your knowledge is part of community give and take, and good karma besides. The router firewall you configure tonight might return as the wood lathe you need next week or the plumber’s snake you need the week after.