My Older brother is an Asshole.
Jun. 19th, 2004 09:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swestrupMost of my friends have been lucky enough to never have met my older brother. He is and has always been what we would now call an asshat. Don't take my word for it. Ask my wife, my younger brother, or my few friends who HAVE met him.
Anyway, my mother occasionaly reads my blog and saw that I had posted about difficulties in setting up a mail server. She told Marcus (my brother) and asked him to help.
Marcus got his first job about 5 years ago as a web designer, and now works as a system administrator, so he SHOULD know something about that. The operative word here is *should*. If he's ever read an RFC, I 'll eat my hat. I don't blame Mom, she was trying to help, but I would have thought that by now she would have some idea how useless it is to ask Marcus to help with anything.
Anyway, he sent me e-mail several days ago, telling me that I should have asked him myself. (Sure, THAT's likely to ever happen. I wouldn't ask his help for choosing what color to paint his bedroom.) You see, for him, 'helping' is when you get to act snobby and superior. I decided to be polite, and told him that I was using Postfix. He then told me that everyone had abandoned Postfix years ago for Sendmail. I checked. Postfix was written as an attempt to fix some perceived flaws in Sendmail. I didn't bother telling HIM that. I know that his skull is impenetrable to facts.
He then spent the next 4 posts quizzing me about my server purchasing decisions, and telling me I couldn't call it a server if it wasn't certified as a server by a hardware company.
The fact that the term 'server' means 'something that serves' both in a normal English and a technical CS sense was lost on him. The fact that it is a web server and that such devices predate the existence of 'hardware certified servers' also escapes him. He then proceeded to tell me that it was ILLEGAL to do any sorts of financial transactions on a system that wasn't so certified.
Now, I know he was last working for a startup that did some sort of stock trading, and so its just vaguely possible that there is a securities and exchange law that applies to the particular tiny part of the internet financial world that he was in. Naturally he assumed it was a global rule of nature. That's his general way of mis-thinking.
So, he sent me an e-mail telling me he could help. Then, he told me not one single solitary fact about what I was doing that helped. He started by assuming I knew nothing, told me things irrelevant to my task, then made more assumptions about what system I was using and told me useless things based on that. When I told him what I WAS using he switched to questioning my purchasing decisions. Something that I decided to answer, although all the while I was thinking "This has NOTHING to do with the subject. The machine is already bought, paid for, installed and running. Questioning the idea NOW is so stupid its Dilbertian."
(I actually bought Marcus the first Dilbert book when it came out. I thought it was hilarious. He didn't get it. Of course, he'd deny that now.)
Allthough this has been bugging me for days, its one of those things I wouldn't normally talk about in public. I was taught not to air a family's dirty laundry. But his last message takes the cake. I was just about ready to tell him he'd used up my patience, and that he obviously was NOT going to help in any way, when he told me he was giving up on me, since I'm obviously too stupid to help. The fact that I have 15 years more experience than he, and was probaby a better developer 5 years into my carreer than he will ever be, is beyond him.
The sad part, is that now I've gotten over the anger caused by his stupid last message, I can even see why he acted that way. Once he knew I was using Postfix, he knew he had nothing to offer, but in order to still feel superior, he needed to find some flaw in my what I had already done and harp on it. That's what he does, and always has. I think he does it so that he can feel less inferiour than me. He's said he went through school being remembered only as 'Stirling's Brother' and that it bothered him. I think he's been wanting to show himself superior to me ever since.
The worst part is, he has talents that I would give my right arm to have. He can draw incredibly well and he can actually sculpt! You have no idea how much I wish I could do that. But he has never bothered to develop his talents. He's never taken a course. He doesn't draw much. He hasn't sculpted anything since he was 12. (That was a motorcycle, with working spoked wheels and steering, made out of nothing but paper and glue. The local museum put it on display. Its the only time in my life I've been proud of him.) The only painting he's ever done was of miniatures for roleplaying. He's even shown occasional signs of being able to write well, but he's never bothered to hone that talent either.
Instead, he's always tried to compete in the arena where my natural talents are greater: science and computers. I thought it was finally over when he got a job as a web designer. It would be a venue for his artistic talents to be used, and it would be enough like my field that he might feel he was successfully competing. Maybe he would get on with life for a change. Now I find it not so, and that he's just as bitter and immature now as he was when I moved out 15 years ago.
Feh. I started this post angry at him, and now I find I pity him. Either way, its a sad state of affairs.
Maybe some day I'll do a post about my younger brother Vaughan. We haven't always gotten along, but he's someone I have great respect for, and he's a real brother. In some ways I think he knows me better than anyone else ever has. And is that what a brother should be?
Anyway, my mother occasionaly reads my blog and saw that I had posted about difficulties in setting up a mail server. She told Marcus (my brother) and asked him to help.
Marcus got his first job about 5 years ago as a web designer, and now works as a system administrator, so he SHOULD know something about that. The operative word here is *should*. If he's ever read an RFC, I 'll eat my hat. I don't blame Mom, she was trying to help, but I would have thought that by now she would have some idea how useless it is to ask Marcus to help with anything.
Anyway, he sent me e-mail several days ago, telling me that I should have asked him myself. (Sure, THAT's likely to ever happen. I wouldn't ask his help for choosing what color to paint his bedroom.) You see, for him, 'helping' is when you get to act snobby and superior. I decided to be polite, and told him that I was using Postfix. He then told me that everyone had abandoned Postfix years ago for Sendmail. I checked. Postfix was written as an attempt to fix some perceived flaws in Sendmail. I didn't bother telling HIM that. I know that his skull is impenetrable to facts.
He then spent the next 4 posts quizzing me about my server purchasing decisions, and telling me I couldn't call it a server if it wasn't certified as a server by a hardware company.
The fact that the term 'server' means 'something that serves' both in a normal English and a technical CS sense was lost on him. The fact that it is a web server and that such devices predate the existence of 'hardware certified servers' also escapes him. He then proceeded to tell me that it was ILLEGAL to do any sorts of financial transactions on a system that wasn't so certified.
Now, I know he was last working for a startup that did some sort of stock trading, and so its just vaguely possible that there is a securities and exchange law that applies to the particular tiny part of the internet financial world that he was in. Naturally he assumed it was a global rule of nature. That's his general way of mis-thinking.
So, he sent me an e-mail telling me he could help. Then, he told me not one single solitary fact about what I was doing that helped. He started by assuming I knew nothing, told me things irrelevant to my task, then made more assumptions about what system I was using and told me useless things based on that. When I told him what I WAS using he switched to questioning my purchasing decisions. Something that I decided to answer, although all the while I was thinking "This has NOTHING to do with the subject. The machine is already bought, paid for, installed and running. Questioning the idea NOW is so stupid its Dilbertian."
(I actually bought Marcus the first Dilbert book when it came out. I thought it was hilarious. He didn't get it. Of course, he'd deny that now.)
Allthough this has been bugging me for days, its one of those things I wouldn't normally talk about in public. I was taught not to air a family's dirty laundry. But his last message takes the cake. I was just about ready to tell him he'd used up my patience, and that he obviously was NOT going to help in any way, when he told me he was giving up on me, since I'm obviously too stupid to help. The fact that I have 15 years more experience than he, and was probaby a better developer 5 years into my carreer than he will ever be, is beyond him.
The sad part, is that now I've gotten over the anger caused by his stupid last message, I can even see why he acted that way. Once he knew I was using Postfix, he knew he had nothing to offer, but in order to still feel superior, he needed to find some flaw in my what I had already done and harp on it. That's what he does, and always has. I think he does it so that he can feel less inferiour than me. He's said he went through school being remembered only as 'Stirling's Brother' and that it bothered him. I think he's been wanting to show himself superior to me ever since.
The worst part is, he has talents that I would give my right arm to have. He can draw incredibly well and he can actually sculpt! You have no idea how much I wish I could do that. But he has never bothered to develop his talents. He's never taken a course. He doesn't draw much. He hasn't sculpted anything since he was 12. (That was a motorcycle, with working spoked wheels and steering, made out of nothing but paper and glue. The local museum put it on display. Its the only time in my life I've been proud of him.) The only painting he's ever done was of miniatures for roleplaying. He's even shown occasional signs of being able to write well, but he's never bothered to hone that talent either.
Instead, he's always tried to compete in the arena where my natural talents are greater: science and computers. I thought it was finally over when he got a job as a web designer. It would be a venue for his artistic talents to be used, and it would be enough like my field that he might feel he was successfully competing. Maybe he would get on with life for a change. Now I find it not so, and that he's just as bitter and immature now as he was when I moved out 15 years ago.
Feh. I started this post angry at him, and now I find I pity him. Either way, its a sad state of affairs.
Maybe some day I'll do a post about my younger brother Vaughan. We haven't always gotten along, but he's someone I have great respect for, and he's a real brother. In some ways I think he knows me better than anyone else ever has. And is that what a brother should be?
