Spods. I really hate spods!
Definition?
spod n 1 one who uses the internet to excess, smells, and
has no social skills. 2 Those people on my course.
Not in the ol' Collins Concise, but a fairly widely accepted definition all
the same.
The daily trip into the "spodlab" is fraught with danger....the danger of being badgered by a spod, who has attached himself with an almost limpet-like ferocity, assuming one as being a friend for life as a result of a small acknowledgement of their existence upon entry into the said zone. Or, perhaps (and worse still) being looked up to as a demi-god of computer genius due to help rendered on such taxing problems as a blank screen (solution: "take finger and apply pressure to power switch")
It's not so much a question of being particularly knowledgeable of anything, but the problem of students themselves; they have No common sense. None. Zippo. Zilch. And I can see why. University totally removes you from the real world. They teach things no one will ever use (3 weeks being told how sand is turned into silicon, and then being told that there are only about 7 factories in the world that do it, employing about 12 people. Thanks.). And, as there are people who are particularly good at a particular thing and are inherently quirky, spods -who think they are good at something- are inherently geeky.
Immaturity is a particular spod trait. They come up to you, faces painted with pride and a naughty grin, and say
"Guess what I found on the net?"
The result is usually a rather poor picture of a naked woman, only slightly harder than would be offered on page 3, which the spod will then go through a great long procedure of trying to secrete on the university server, as he's been told that the university has a machine which can check all files, and see if there is pornography. And that there is a man at a desk who can see all the information going in and out of the building. And the spod believes it. They are so gullible.
And then they start on the lame jokes pages; there must be about 4,000 good Clinton jokes out there right now....the spod chooses to tell you ALL the lame ones, shouting across the lab in a voice that sounds like a cross between Mr Bean and Mr Magoo.
There comes a point when you just have to drop a subtle hint. A thought that maybe lifting up objects, pretending to look under them, and, when they ask what you are doing, saying "looking for someone who gives a fuck!" may put an end to their ejaculations, but the spod misses the point, and continues. I even once attached a sign above the desk requesting that no-one speaks to me. It didn't work....