Mac at your workplace?

[hithere]

Hi there

I am just curious to know who uses a Mac at his/her workplace.

I changed several jobs in the last years and always used my computer. I don't like the idea of having two: one for work and one for leisure. I am not smart enough, it would be too confusing.

I for instance came from a "Mac friendly" environment but recently ended up in an office where the IT guy looked at my shiny Macbook Pro and said: "Dunno anything 'bout Macs and I don't want them in my network. That's all" (luckily, I could circumvent the problem by using WinXP on Parallels to get in the network).

All I can say from my experience as a researcher is that in "hard science" departments IT staff are rather geeky and like Macs as polished Unix machines: Windows or Linux are accepted though. Finance departments or business schools seem instead to be a bit more "conservative" and closed to other OS's. They tend to stick with Windows, and badly tolerate Linux (a Soviet plot?) or Macs (too metrosexual?).

Out of curiosity, how's the situation in your workplace?

Thanks

PS
Maybe this question has been asked over and over. I tried to look in the archives but couldn't find anything. Please, don't flame me if I missed something.

 

[WildCowboy]

Mine's 90% Mac...but I'm a scientist. Being able to run Unix apps at our desks has done wonders for our productivity. (Although we were 90% Mac before OS X, too...)

 

[ab2650]

I had to resort to bring my personal MBP in to work because I'm that much more productive on it than the supplied Dell desktop provided for me. I have a funny story about that actually:

Shortly after I had made the switch at home, it was nearing the time I needed an upgrade for my work machine. I'm a programmer and web developer with a bit of graphic work to round it out, so Macs are probably the best choice for my productivity. I approach the head-cheese about needing a new computer and he thinks it's worth it to buy something new.

I, of course, get the specs and price of the 24" iMac, and on a long shot, the base Mac Pro. As a backup, I had the price for a Dell dimension dual core system as well.

I tell the boss about the mac and he scoffs, "Hmm, well I'd have to think about that." I follow up saying there's a deal on a Dell and without blinking he said "Oh, well just buy that then." even though the Dell was priced a bit more than the iMac when I included the 24" display.

So now I have a nice Dell system, albeit it's a Dell, and it goes 90% of the time unused, and my personal MBP that I take in to do my work on. When I started doing more photography, I ended up buying the base Mac Pro for my home office.

It just goes to show you can't change the world's opinion. It's their loss anyway, or in my employers case, they would lose my productivity if I weren't proactive and generous to loan my personal machine's use for work related stuff.

 

[hithere]

Thank you for having moved my thread in the right place.
Sorry for the inconvenience...

 

[foidulus]

I work at an all mac/linux shop

so sitting at my desk are 3 mac minis(g4, core duo, core 2 duo), a macbook pro, a mac pro, a powermac g5, and a powermac g4(which I use to do email/network stuff, since our system isn't connected to the internet)

 

[Fearless Leader]

its a school but,
MBP all day long and I get to choose between 2 year old dells or one of the two mac pros that I and another person ever use, if a visit to the Lab is required.