I Cannot Be Technical

Summary

With some regularity, kind-hearted Technical people tell me that I Can Be Technical, Too. This usually happens when I’m asking us to define what we’re calling technical in a software environment. I understand why it happens. I am a psychologist of software environments and that is something of an anomaly. Also at the end of the day I have mischief in my heart and I love to ask Bad Questions. Kind Technical people are attuned to exclusion because they’ve been beaten around enough by it and they’re still kind enough to want to do something about it so they frequently intervene on my bad questions. I recognize that in these moments what Technical friends wish to do is usher me safely inside of the Technical tent. There is a core of such goodness to this, dare I even say sweetness. In many cases packaged inside of this kind of statement is a hand outstretched, seeking to extend protection to me. Mama didn’t raise no fool: I know that on any quest we should accept protection. In your outdoor voice, please continue to tell people I’m Technical. If we meet inside of a meeting or inside of a decision, and being called technical is the dividing line between people who get to stand on the high ground when the water comes in and people who don’t, I don’t care what type of line you throw down to me. However, mama didn’t raise no fool. What I know–because my form of expertise which creates the basis for your extended hand in the first place is expertise for this exactly–is that I cannot be Technical. Not really. This is because Technical is a structural designation that operates outside of any actual problem-solving you and I are doing together. Being Technical is about being legitimate. Or to put it more simply: it’s because you are Technical that I can’t be. We have created the identities this way. A person with a PhD in human things and who deals in human problems and human solutions cannot ever be Technical no matter how dense her statistics are, how many conferences she spe...