 X-NEWS: spcvxb rec.humor: 62297 P Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.1B4+SPC1 6/9/92 VAX/VMS V5.5-2; site spcvxb.spc.eduT Path: spcvxb!rutgers!sun-barr!ames!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!nntp-server.caltech.edu!nathan Newsgroups: rec.humor 0 Subject: Re: REQUEST: Bastard operator from hell* Message-ID: <1f494tINNkk0@gap.caltech.edu> From: ** Sender Unknown ** Date: 27 Nov 92 04:45:17 GMT' References: <814@idanm.pfbs.philips.se> : Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena$ NNTP-Posting-Host: itchy.caltech.edu Originator: nathan@itchy Lines: 2624   G In article <814@idanm.pfbs.philips.se> joho@pfbs.philips.se (Hans ter    Horst) writes: > Hej! > E > Some time ago (May or June) Simon Travaglia posted a series of very I > nasty stories to this newsgroup, called the BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL. I > At that time I missed quite a number of the episodes. Does anybody care  > to mail me all episodes?  G    You want 'em, you get them. Just look at my .sig for more jokes that  you can order! Nathan  K --------------------------------------------------------------------------   ----G  The Bastard Operator From Hell - Genesis (Striped Irregular Bucket #1) K --------------------------------------------------------------------------   ----  D 	I'm really bored. You know how bored you get when work's going on  K and on and on, and nothing interesting is happening, and you're listening   I to a radio that picks up ONE station on FM, and it's always the station   L with the least records in the city, about 5, and one of them is "You're so  I Vain" which wasn't too bad a song until you hear it about 3 times a day   K for a year, and *EVERY* time it plays, the announcer tells you it's about   L Warren Beaty and who he's currently poking, someone you'll never sniff the  J toe-jam of, let alone meet, leet alone get amourous with. And EVERY time  I someone mentions Warren Beaty, someone says that he used to go out with   . Madonna too, and have you seen "In Bed With.."  A 	AND THEN, someone ELSE will say "It wasn't really about Warren   J Beaty, it was James Taylor" and the first person will say "What, `In bed  J with Madonna?'", and they laugh and everyone else laughs, and I pull out  L the Magnum from under the desk where I keep it in case someone laughs at a  L joke that's so dry it's got a built in water-fountain, and blow the lot of  F them away as a community Service. I figure that I'll get time off my  = sentence if I ever kill someone by accident who's got a life.   = 	So visitors are getting pretty thin at the moment, and the   L Quick-Lime Pits are filling up rapidly, and all I've got to do is the full  ! backups and maybe I can go home.    D 	So, to relieve the boredom, I get some iron filings and pour them  J into the back of my Terminal until it fizzes out (Which doesn't take all  L that long, surprisingly enough), then call our maintenance contractors and  J log a fault on the device. Sometimes they'll send someone who knows what  I they're doing, but it's a lot more fun when they don't - which is about    98% of the time.  D 	So they maintenance guy comes in, and I can tell he's NEW because  J the photo on his ID actually LOOKS like him, not like the head engineer,  9 whose photo's a black and white tin-type (he's that old).   ? 	Maintenance Contractors always dress up nice, with a tie and   E everything because they believe that a customer will trust a nicely   K dressed guy with their million dollar equipment *just* because he's got a   
 nice tie..  @ 	Because he's NEW and ALONE, he's what you call an appeasement  C engineer, the new guy they send so they respond within the 4 hour   J guaranteed response period.  (Things are getting better and better) Your  G average appeasement engineer is about as clued-up on computers as the   L average computer "hacker" is about B.O, and their main job is to make sure  H the power plug is in and switched on, then call back to the office for  H "PARTS". The really keen ones will sometimes even take a cover off the  L equipment and pretend that they see this stuff all the time. I wonder what   sort today's is...  - 	"You got a dud terminal?" he asks pleasantly   6 	I tell him yeah, and bring him into the control room.  D 	"Which one is it?" he asks, confused by the fact that only one of   them is smoking.2 "It's the Model Three" I say, giving NOTHING away.  D 	"Ah, the old model three!" he says knowingly, without a clue what  J a model three is, or which one of the three terminals it is, which isn't  ! surprising, as I just made it up. J "We get a lot of model three problems" he says nodding "So what actually  
 happened?"  C 	Sneaky, but not good enough. I'm not going to point it out to him.   * 	"It just went dead" I say, in luser mode.  E 	"I see. Could you just recreate what you were doing so I can check   , the unit out when it's ready for operation?"  / 	Very Sneaky. I decide to let him off the hook.   A 	"Look, I've got to go to the toilet, there it is over there" I   ! say, pointing at our Waffle-Iron.   A 	"But that's a Wa..." He says, then stops. He's a beginner, and   L it's just possible that the company has a line of terminals that look like   waffle irons. He bites.   B 	"Sorry" he says, smiling again "for a minute there I thought it   was a model 2!"   / 	A reasonably good save, but it won't save him.   A 	I leave, which means he's got to take it to bits, otherwise he   L knows I won't believe he's worked on it. I give him a couple of minutes to  , get the element exposed then wander back in.  . 	"So how does it look?" I ask, concerned-like.  > 	"Well, I think we could have a processor problem.." he says  ' concentrating on prying the element up.   A 	..concentrating so much that he doesn't notice me plugging the    iron in.  @ 	"Shouldn't you be wearing an earthing strap?" I ask innocently.  D 	When he thinks I can't see, he creeps his hand over to the wiring  E frame and says "Well, It's just as easy to hold onto earth like this"   = 	"But what about the risk of a cross-the-body shock with no   ; resistor in series with you?" I ask ever-so-more-innocently   - 	"Oh, it's ok" he says "the unit's unplug..."   % 	>click<  >BZZZZZZZEEERRT!<  >clunk!<   * 	I ring the maintenance help-desk again...   	It's Rhonda  @ 	"Hey Ronda!, Ah, I'm going to need another engineer and a new  J Waffle Iron over here; for some reason your engineer opened up my Waffle  % Iron without switching it off." I say   A 	Rhonda knows me. It's the third call and the third appeasement   1 engineer. "You're a real prick" she says, annoyed   D 	"Tell ya what Rhonda, why don't you come and fix it; it's a model  	 three..."   K --------------------------------------------------------------------------   ---- THE SIGNATURE FROM HELL!!!! F It's 200 pages long and got lots of ^Gs in it! And, it LOCKS UP YOUR  H TERMINAL! AND you won't find out it's from spt@waikato.ac.nz until the  I 199th page. And then it'll scroll past, you'll have to read the message   L again to find out that my post addr is C/- University of Waikato, Prvt Bag  9 3105, Hamilton New Zealand Here come those FORM FEEDS!!!! K --------------------------------------------------------------------------   ----    K --------------------------------------------------------------------------   ----G   The Birth of Bastard Operator From Hell - Striped Irregular Bucket #5 K --------------------------------------------------------------------------   ----   I'm still bored.  J But at least now the radio's off, it was on it's 12 repeat of "Wildfire"  3 THIS WEEK, and it's only Tuesday; shit I hate that.   I So anyway, I quicklime the engineer to remove any fingerprints and then   F FedEx him back to headquarters and set about waiting for the engineer.  E Now the second engineer only has to come out after another 4 hours,   F there's no death of engineer penalty clause, (but I'm thinking about  L asking for one) so I've got to fill in some time. This guy's going to be a  L technical engineer, the sort that comes in with a raggedy tie where he got  L it caught in the drum printer at 3000 rpm a couple of years ago, and he'll  L have the grazes on the face that indicate that he didn't get the gate open  ! in time...  I know these sorts...-  H So I fill in a couple of hours by killing users off and deleting their  ' files, then waiting for them to call...u  @ "Um, I can't find my files" the wimpering simp on the phone says   "Files? What files?"  = "The files in my account. My thesis, my research - all gone!"4    "Gone ay? What's your username?"   "TURGEN"   "TROJAN?! LIKE THE CONDOM?"s   "No TURGEN. T-U-R"  H "OH Turgen, like TURD, but with a GEN instead of a D... Ok lets see" I  J make vague clicking noises my dragging the quicklimed man's fingers back  K and forth across the keypad. "Uh-huh" >drag drag< "Yeah.." >dragedy poke<  r! "AH! - You haven't got any files"   	 "I KNOW!"   J "Well, what are you calling ME for? We don't make the files you know, we  J just look after them. And chopitty-chop too, your thesis looks like it's   due in a couple of days.."  H I hang up - he'll call back. Meantime I open up a copy of "VMS BASTARD  F OPERATORS MANUAL FROM HELL"  I'm reading the article I sent in about  % getting rid of those trouble users...oC 	"... Modify the user's password minimum from 6 to 32 letters, give-< 		the password a 1 day lifetime, set it so that they HAVE to: 		use the password generate utility when they change their; 		password (so their password will always be something thata6 		looks like vaguely pronouncable line-noise), add a  	 secondaryi< 		password with the same as the above, then redefine their   CLI = 		tables so that the only command that works is DELETE, and    allt 		other commands point to it."   Beautiful. Shit I'm good.    He calls back.  + "MY FILES ARE GONE!" he screams, panicking.b/ "Did you have a backup?" I ask, as sweet as pieg8 "But that's what you people are supposed to do!" he sobsK "Yeah, well we did - but then we switched to those 8mm tapes, and they're   J the same size as the ones in my video camera, so I've been using them to  " tape the neighbour's sex romps..."  E I hear the revolver go off, but what the hell, it's 5pm, and not my  a
 problem...  K --------------------------------------------------------------------------   ----1 	Still Birthing the Bastard Operator.. (Bored #3)oK -------------------------------------------------------------------------- o ----  J So the second engineer rolls up, but the FedEx man has been and gone, so   he misses out altogether.   L This guy's a techno, (you can tell by the tie) but he's smart (no grazes),    so I'm going to have to be wary.  9 "What's the problem?" he asks, in a business-like manner.i  > "It's the model three" I say (what the hell, it worked before)  2 "What the f*ck's a model three?" he asks confused.  L He could be just testing me, but I decide to come clean. He doesn't notice  D so I just walk funny for a couple of minutes and then show him the  / terminal that I'd poured the iron filings into.o  I "It just went dead!" I say (having previously vacuumed the iron filings  y5 up, of course) - My name's willy, not fucking stupid.i  B    So anyway, he gets to work opening the cover and making board  K replacement noises. I decide to help and point out a fuse that's blown on  i the power supply board.n  E "Oh, I haven't got the parts for that - I've only got a replacement  iE board." he says in a confused manner. "Which one was the fuse again?"g   I point it out to him.  J "Wow! And what does it do again? You know, I've been working at the same  H place for 6 years, and I've never seen one of those fuse thingys. It's  ! amazing what you learn isn't it!"e  : "What are you again?" I ask, already suspecting the answer   "Chief Engineer"   Thought so.e  / "Say, do you know anything about waffle irons?"   
 "A little..."m   >Click!< >Fzzzzzzeeet!< >Clunk<n -- u  K -------------------------------------------------------------------------- o --  K ************************************************************************** r **** SK **************************************************************************   ****K ************************************************************************** . ****K **************************************************************************   ****K ************************************************************************** t ****K -------------------------------------------------------------------------- . ----  			BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL #1K --------------------------------------------------------------------------   ----H It's backup day today so I'm pissed off. Being the BOFH, however, does  L have it's advantages. I reassign null to be the tape device - it's so much  I more economical on my time as I don't have to keep getting up to change  tI tapes every 5 minutes. And it speeds up backups too, so it can't be all  w bad can it? Of course not.   A user rings  . "Do you know why the system is slow?" they ask  L "It's probably something to do with..." I look up today's excuse ".. clock   speed"  K "Oh" (Not knowing what I'm talking about, they're satisfied) "Do you know  . when it will be fixed?"H  J "Fixed? There's 275 users on your machine, and one of them is you. Don't  ; be so selfish - logout now and give someone else a chance!"h  J "But my research results are due in tommorrow and all I need is one page   of Laser Print.."s  J "SURE YOU DO. Well; You just keep telling yourself that buddy!" I hang up.  : Sheesh, you'd really think people would learn not to call!  I The phone rings. It'll be him again, I know. That annoys me. I put on a  k gruff voiceh   "HELLO, SALARIES!"  * "Oh, I'm sorry, I've got the wrong number"  J "YEAH? Well what's your name buddy? Do you know WASTED phone calls cost   F money? DO YOU? I've got a good mind to subtract your wasted time, my  J wasted time, and the cost of this call from your weekly wages! IN FACT I  H WILL!  By the time I've finished with you, YOU'LL OWE US money! WHAT'S  1 YOUR NAME - AND DON'T LIE, WE'VE GOT CALLER ID!!"n  L I hear the phone drop and the sound of running feet - he's obviously going  F to try and get an alibi by being at the Dean's office. I look up his  > username and find his department. I ring the Dean's secretary.   "Hello?" she answers  I "Hi, SIMON, B.O.F.H HERE, LISTEN, WHEN THAT GUY COMES RUNNING INTO YOUR  !8 OFFICE IN ABOUT 10 SECONDS, CAN YOU GIVE HIM A MESSAGE?"   "I think so..." she says  * "TELL HIM `HE CAN RUN, BUT HE CAN'T HIDE'"   "Um. Ok"  J "AND DON'T FORGET NOW, I WOULDN'T WANT TO HAVE TO TELL ANYONE ABOUT THAT  C FILE IN YOUR ACCOUNT WITH YOUR ANSWERS TO THE PURITY TEST IN IT..."   ( I hear her scrabbling at the terminal...  H "DON'T BOTHER - I HAVE A COPY. BE A GOOD GIRL AND PASS THE MESSAGE ON.."  G She sobs her assent and I hang up. And the worst thing is, I was just  !G guessing about the purity test thing.  I grab a quick copy anyway, it   - might make for some good late-night reading. t  E Meantime backups have finished in record time, 2.03 seconds. Modern  l" technology is wonderful, isn't it?   Another user rings.t   "I need more space" he saysa  * "Well, why don't you move to Texas?" I ask   "No, on my account, stupid."   Stupid? Uh-Oh..-  G "I'm terribly sorry" I say, in a polite manner equal to that of Jimmy  -I Stewart in a Weekend Family Matinee Feature "I didn't quite catch that.    What was it that you said?"o  H I smell the fear coming down the line at me, but it's too late, he's a   goner and he knows it.  A "Um, I said what I wanted was more space on my account, *please*"e   "Sure, hang on"s  A I hear him gasp his relief even though he covered the mouthpeice.   * "There, you've got *plenty* of space now!"   "How much have I got?" he simpsn  I Now this *REALLY* *PISSES* *ME* *OFF*! Not only do they want me to give  eJ them extra space, they want to check it, then correct me if I don't give  H them enough! They should be happy with what I give them *and that's it*!   Back into Jimmy Stewart mode.   + "Well, let's see, you have 4 Meg available"   I "Wow! Eight Meg in total, thanks!" he says, pleased with his bargaining    poweru  G "No" I interrupt, savouring this like a fine red at room temperature,  e< followed by steak, extra rare, to follow; "4 Meg in total.."  @ "Huh? I'd used 4 Meg already, How could I have 4 Meg Available?"  ! I say nothing. It'll come to him.   9 "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggghhhhhH!"    I kill me; I really do    K -------------------------------------------------------------------------- a ----! 	   BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL #2!K -------------------------------------------------------------------------- O ----  H I'm sitting at the desk, playing x-tank, when some thoughtless bastard  $ rings me on the phone. I pick it up.   "Hello?" I say.i "Who is this?" they sayiJ "It's me I think" I say, having successfully attended a telephone skills   course	 "Me Who?"!H "Is this like a knock knock joke?" I say, trying anything to save myself having to end this game.   Too LATE! I get killed.t   Now I'm pissed!n  J "What can I do for you?" I ask pleasantly - (one of the key warning signs)  ? "Um, I want to know if we have a particular software package.."B   "Which package is that?"   "Uh, B-A-S-I-C it's called."  ) >clickety clickety d-e-l b-a-s-i-c.e-x-e<o  0 "Um no, we don't have that. We used to though.."  K "oh. Oh well, the other thing I wanted to know was, could the contents of  aL my account be copied to tape to I have a permanent copy of them to save at  ! home in case the worst happens.."w   "The worst?"  - "Well, like they get deleted or something..."i  E "DELETED! Oh, don't worry about that, we have backups!" (I'm such a  e! *shit*) "What was your username?"t  * He gives me his lusername. (What an idiot)   >clickety clikc<  G "But you haven't got any files in your account!" I say, mock surprise  I leaping from my vocal chords.c  5 "Yes I have, you must be looking in the wrong place!"   F So first he spoils my x-tank game, and *now* he's calling me a liar...   >clickety click<   "Oh no, I made a mistake" I sayr  ? Did he mutter "typical" under his breath??!? Oh dear, oh dear..i  - "I MEANT TO SAY: That USERNAME doesn't exist"   = "Huh? >wimper< It must do, I was only using it this morning!"t  H "Ah well, that'll be the problem, there was a virus in our system this  I morning, the... uh... DE VINCI Virus, wipes out users who are logged in    when it goes off."  K "That can't be right, my girlfriend was logged in, and I'm in her account  s now!"n   "Which one was that?"F  3 He tells me the username. Some people NEVER learn..h  K "Oh, yeah, her account was just after we discovered the virus." >clickety  s& clikc< "..she only lost all her files"   "But..."  - "But don't worry, we've got them all on tape"    "Oh, thank goodness!!!"s  K "Paper tape. Have you got a magnifying glass and a pencil? SEE YOU IN THE  s! MACHINE ROOM!!!!  NYAHAHAHAHAHA!"i   I'm such a prick!o    K -------------------------------------------------------------------------- t ---		w BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL #3oK --------------------------------------------------------------------------   ----  J So I'm working so hard I barely have time to drive into town and watch a  G movie before I told people their printing will be ready.  The queue's  eH WAAAAAY too long to have everything printed (and sorted) by the time I  J told them, so I kill all the small jobs so there's only 2 left and I can   sort them in no time.i  K Then, after the movie, (which was one of those slack Bertolucci ones that  oJ takes about 3 hours till the main character is killed off in a visionary  / experience) I get back and clear the printouts.   F  There's about 50 people waiting outside and I've got two printouts.  L That's about average for me.  I thought I'd killed more tho. Anyway, I put  J out the printouts and walk slooowly inside, fingering the clipboard with  K "ACCOUNTS TO REMOVE" in big letters on the back. No-one says anything. As  - usual.   . . .-  K   I'm sitting back in the Operations Armchair, watching the computer room  *> closed circuit TV, which just happens to be connected to the  I frame-grabber's Video player (sent off for repair, due back sometime in   F '94) when the phone rings. That must be the 2nd time today, and it's   really starting to get to me!*  " "Yes?" I say, pausing the picture.  L "I've accidentally deleted my C.V!" the voice at the other end of the line   says.*  # "You have? What was your username?"-  ' He tells me. What the hell, I AM bored.-  & "Ah no, you didn't delete it - I did."   "What?"H  K "I deleted it. It was full of shit! You didn't ever get more than a B- in  - any of your subjects!"   "Huh?"  F "And that crap about being a foreign exchange student, that was your    girlfriend and we both know it!"   "Huh?!!"  9 "Your academic records. I checked them, you were lying.."g  H "How did y.." He clicks. "It's you isn't it? THE BASTARD OPERATOR FROM   HELL!"  H "In the flesh, on the phone and in your account.... You shouldn't have  J called you know. You especially shouldn't have given me your username.."  J >clickety< >click< "Neither should you have sent that mail to the System  C Manager telling him what you think of him in such graphic terms..."e   "I didn't send any.."    >clickety< >click<......  L "No, you didn't did you? But who can tell these days? Not to worry though,  G It'll all be over VERY soon.." >clickedy clikc< "..change my username  d
 back, and..."   ( "b-b-b.." he blubs, like a stood-up date  H "Goodbye now" I say pleasantly, "you've got bags to pack and a life to   start over..."  
 I hang up.  G Two seconds later the red phone goes. I pick it up, it's the boss. He  pD mumbles the username of the person I was just talking to, mentions  K something about a nasty mail message, and utters the words "You know what  T( to do...", with the dots and everything.  I Later, inside the Municipal Energy Authority Computer, as I'm modifying  sL the poor pleb's Energy Bill by several zeros, I can't help but think about  H what lapse of judgement - what act of heinous stupidity causes them to  J call. Then, even later, when I'm adding the poor pleb's photo image over  H the top of the FBI's online "MOST Wanted Armed and Dangerous, SHOOT ON  J SIGHT" offenders list, I realise I'll probably never know; but then life   goes on.  J   A couple of hours later, as I see the SWAT vehicle roll up outside the  ? poor pleb's apartment I realise that for some, it just doesn't.    But tommorrow is another day.s    K -------------------------------------------------------------------------- N ----  			BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL #4K -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I ----I It's a thursday, and I'm in a good mood. It's payday. I think I'll take   7 some calls. I put the phone back on the hook. It rings.   E "I've been trying to get you for hours!" the voice at the other end  ! screamsg  G "Not, it can't be hours" I say, putting "Blade Runner" back into it's  eJ cover and looking at the back, "it was more like 114 minutes. I was on a  H long phone call with the big boss, trying to get you users some better   facilities"r   Hook; Line; and Sinker...    "Oh. I'm sorry."  G "That's ok, I'm a tolerant person" I make a mental note to change his  d7 password to something nasty in the next couple of days.n  2 "Um, I need to know how to rename a file" he says.  > Oh dear... Hang on, it's payday isn't it?! I'm in a good mood.  ) "Sure. You just go 'rm' and the filename"n   "Thanks"  I "No worries" (Now I'm in a REALLY good mood. I think I just might write  IJ that script to make saving impossible on rogue at random times like I've   been thinking about)   The phone rings again.   "Hello?"   "Hi there" I say   "Is this the Operators?"   "Yes it is" I say, nice as pie  E "Could you get my printouts out please. I need them urgently, and I  g  printed them over 5 minutes ago"   "Your username?" I ask  J He gives it to me, and I write it down for later. "No worries at all!" I   say, and head to the printers.  J There's a HUUUUUUUGE pile of printouts there, and sure enough, his is at  J the top of the pile. I pick it up, split it out of the rest and pour our  H inkstained cleaning alcohol all over it, run it over a couple of times  L with the loaded tape trolley then slam it in the tape safe door some times   as well.  
 Beautiful.  F "Here's your printout" I say "Sorry about the delay, we've got a few   printer problems."  " He takes a look and shits himself.  . "Well, can I print it again?" he asks, worried  I "Sure you can" I say "But no promises, the printer's a bit stuffed today"   1 "Well can I print it on laser - is that working?"-  I "Yeah of course, but that'll cost you" I say, oozing compassion for the  s geek  3 "It doesn't matter about the cost, THIS IS URGENT!"o  I I slide-on back into the printer room and put in the toner cartridge we  'I save for special occasions - the one that prints thick black lines down  rI the middle of the page and is all faint on one side. It took me quite a  oL while to make it like that too. The printout shoots through and I bring it  , out immediately - I don't want to miss this!  G "W-w-what's happened to my printout?" the geek squeals at me. Lucky I  aG wrote that username down - I'm really starting to develop a taste for  S torture.  J "Well nothing. I mean sure, it's a little soiled, but that cartridge has  L already done 47 thousand pages and been refilled 17 times. It's quite good   compared to some we get"  ! Geek pays up and starts blubbing.   K "Hey now. There's no reason to cry! Have you got a disk with your work on  w it?"  J He gives me a box of diskettes and I step inside and run them across the  # bulk eraser. I come back out again.p  H "Sorry, I just remembered, our machine is on the fritz, you'll have to  K take  these to the other side of campus to the machine there, it'll print  s1 them ok, and it had a brand-new toner yesterday."    "GREAT!"  J "No worries. Oh, and hold the disks above your head the whole way there,  9 the earth's magnetic field is particularly strong today."a   "Huh?"   "No arguements, just do it."  > He wanders off, hand held high. Shit, I hate myself sometimes!   eK -------------------------------------------------------------------------- m ----  			BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL #5K -------------------------------------------------------------------------- s ----H I'm bored senseless, so I pass the time by reading users email. I must  L admit that today's lot is PARTICULARLY boring, not one good message in all  I of them. I was expecting at LEAST some veiled reference to a grope in a  mJ storeroom, but nothing. So I'm bored senseless by the usual drivel about  K some relative's surgery and how the weather is over the other side of the  e world - that sort of crap.  K To relieve the boredom, I remove a e-mail party invite from a user's mail  r. and post it under the senders username to to  J alt.singles.with.severe.social. dysfunctions on news, and make a note in  : my diary to be there with my camcorder. Should be a blast!  E   Next in line is the online medical records database, in which the  -J company doctors store the current medical histories of the staff. I grep  K it quickly for "herpes" and "syphillus" and sell the results to the local  aD scum newspaper. I cover my tracks by adding an entry to one of the  K doctor's online electronic diarys for yesterday saying "$500, Med Recs To  IH Paper" I think that's all it should take.. That'll be the last time he  0 doesn't shift appointments to make room for me..  I I move some tapes from the racks to the trolley to make it look like we  rG really use them, then start looking thru archie listings for a hidden  eI x-gif site. I find one then start a batch job running under some user's  eL account to get them all back, charged to him.  I make sure he's got enough  I disk for the job by removing any files not related to the task at hand.   J Like all those "Doctorate Final Report" papers that have got quite large   in the last couple of weeks.  J I go back to the mail now, as something's bound to have happened. I do a  L grep on all mail files for the words "pregnant" and "family way", and post  9 them anonymously to the local general interest newsgroup.,  L Then, before anything can happen, the power goes out! The next second, the   phone rings.  H "Hello?" I say, annoyed - the coyote was just about to kill roadrunner   again!   "Has the comput.."  H I hang up. This is a matter of life or death. Quick as I can I rip the  L computer power cable out of the UPS and plug the TV in. Damn! Wylie missed   again! l  K Meantime, all the alarms are going off like crazy as the disks spin down,  eL but that's ok, because my Mac and Terminal are hardwired to the UPS in any  ; case; and I'm at the Beer Factory level in Dark Castle too!i  K The phone rings, so I pull the PABX breaker on the UPS switchboard and it   J stops. Now to look like I'm working. I break out the puck and the hockey  H stick and play a little one-on-wall. From the observation window it'll  7 look like I'm being blindingly efficient, as per usual.e  L 10 Minutes later, the power is back and we're two HDA's down, but what the  I hell, I haven't lost a man, I'm onto the final screen, and there's more  y	 cartoons!   0 The phone rings, it's a luser. (What a surprise)  & "Computer Room" I say, being efficient   "Hello, when will the compu..."   
 I hang up.  H I'm doing well in the screen, all I need do is get past the wizard who   throws spells at you and I'm in!   - The phone rings again. I put it on hands freeo  0 "Computer Room" I shout, still deep in the game.  7 "I've lost my files" a user whines over the loudspeakerd  K "You bet you have" I say, as my concentration lapses just long enough for  r me to get zapped by the wizard.k  9 "What was your username?" I say, all sweetness and smiles   C He tells me, I look, and he's right. Shit, and I didn't even do it!h  I Not to be outdone, I change his login directory to the null device, set  nL his path to "." and redefine the command "news" to execute a script in his  H old login directory to send a nasty message to the equal opportunities   officer, then delete itself.   Now that's trying! pK -------------------------------------------------------------------------- D ----  			BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL #6K -------------------------------------------------------------------------- p ----  L It's friday, so I get into work early, before lunch even. The phone rings.   Shit!e  L I turn the page on the excuse sheet. "SOLAR FLARES" stares out at me. I'd   H better read up on that. Two minutes later I'm ready to answer the phone.   "Hello?" I say.D  @ "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, I'VE BEEN TRYING TO GET YOU ALL MORNING?!"  L I hate it when they shout at me early in the morning. It always puts me in  " a bad mood.  You know what I mean.  K "Ah, yes.  Well, there's been some solar activity this morning, it always  o5 disrupts electronics..." I say, sweet as a sugar pie.e  . "Huh? But I could get through to my friends?!"  I "Yes, that's entirely possible, solar activity is very unpredictable in  iL it's effects. Why last week, we had some files just dissappear from a guys  $ account while he was working on it!"  	 "Really?"e  : "Straight Up!  Hey, do you want me to check your account?"  5 "Yes please, I've got some important stuff in there!"o   "Ok, what's your username..."   K He tells me. Honestly, it's like shooting a fish in a barrel. Twice. With  a3 an Elephant Gun. At point blank range. In the head.o  D (Do I really need to tell you the clicky clicky bit?..  I think not)  + "How many files are in your account?" I askj  L "Um, well there should be about 20 in my thesis writeup, 10 or so with the  = data for it, and another 20 or so in a book that I'm writing"   J "Hmmm. Well, I think we caught it just in time. You've still got 2 files   left... .cshrc and .login"  + "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaggggggggghhhh!"t  = He sobs into the receiver a bit - it really turns my stomach."   "What can I do?" he sniffs  8 "Ok, do you have any of your stuff backed up on floppy?"   "Some, but it's weeks old!"h   I fire up the bulk eraser.  K "Ok" I say "How about I come out and load all that data onto your account  s& pronto so you can get some work done?"  H "That'd be great, but it's all at home" he wimpers. "I spose I'll just   load it all in myself tonight"  E "Sure. But remember what I said, solar flares are bad for disks and  rI machines. Protect your disks from solar activity to prevent them losing    their data"   * "How do I do that? Wrap them in tin-foil?"  C "NO! TIN FOIL'S THE WORST THING! YOU KNOW WHAT TIN FOIL DOES IN A  p MICROWAVE DON'T YOU?!"   "Yes.."d  K "Then don't use it. There's only one thing that protects disks from solar  s activity.."l   "What's that?"  L "MAGNETS! Wrap your disks up in a pillow case with lots of magnets - Solar   Flares hate that"d  
 "Wow! Thanks"e   "No worries at all..."   Shit I'm good!  K --------------------------------------------------------------------------   ----K WARNING! I know it's really stupid saying this, but if you really do wrap  l aoJ disk in magnets, you need help. So don't do it. This is FICTION. FICK-SHINK -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ? ----   sK -------------------------------------------------------------------------- e ----  			BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL #7K --------------------------------------------------------------------------   ----  H So I manage AT LONG LAST, to get a couple of hours off for lunch, AND,  I because I can't leave my desk unattended, I get the janitor in and have  rH him sit in my chair. I tell him that all he has to do is make sure the  K receiver doesn't accidentally get put back on the hook. He agrees and I'm  . off.  J First stop, the bank.  I change a $50 note into quarters and then ask to  D see a balance of my account. Then I yank the power lead out of the  F teller's vdu. It dies. I say I'm in a hurry and is the manager around?  L He rolls over like a man-sized twinkie and asks what the problem is. I say  J that all I want is a balance of my accounts. I cross my fingers. YES! He  D finds the vdu lead out, plugs it in, and logs in, TO THE MANAGER'S  H ACCOUNT. Now's my chance - I slip up against the counter, slopping 200  L coins across the counter. The manager ignores it, but all the tellers dive  J for the money. I watch, unobserved, as the manager types in his password  L at the breakneck speed of one character a minute. At that rate I should've   got $100 worth....G He finishes typing.  "MONEY". What a toughy! Well, that's my mortgage  f taken care of tonight...  L A user that I recognise from "D(eletion)-Day '89" approaches. I think he's  L going to talk to me!! Even the bank manager is shaking his head furiously.   But it's too late, he stops.  J "Um, excuse me, Could you tell me what is the best computer to buy to do   my thesis on?"   ?!   Right.  ' "You've heard of Commodore 64's?" I asks   "Yes?.."  G "Avoid them like the plague! Not many people know this, but computers  nK aren't made to handle that much memory - it's over 64,000 things, more in  i( some cases. It's a recipe for disaster!"   "Oh!"   L "Try something safe and proven. A ZX81 with dual cassette drive if you can  I get it. The 1K ram model. Write that down. Don't buy a disk drive - You  aC know how they're always failing, but music cassettes last forever!"t  
 "Hey thanks!"l  + "No worries. What was your username again?"0  A He tells me. Just in time for D-Day 92. You'd think they'd learn.b  K I get back to work and the janitor's asleep at the terminal. I ask him if  eJ he wants to work here too, but he likes the ability to bust in on people   when they're in the toilet...   I I put the phone back on the hook, and straight away it rings. I hate it   @ when it does that, it takes me AGES to get my walkman phones in.  F It's the hottest hosemonster I've ever met, and she's got a computer  % problem! I love it when that happens!a   "What's your username?" I ask   " She tells me (as if I didn't know)  G Quick as I can I read all her e-mail (mostly boring stuff), then grep  o@ everyone else's mail files for her username. Nothing. Excellent!  2 "What's the problem?" I ask, all smiles and charm.  ; "I can't save my documents, it says something about space."   K "Not a problem for long" I say, and delete everyone else on the same disk  h" as her. "You should be fine now.."    "Thank you so much" she gushes. I I make a mental note to do something to her account again tomorrow. "No   	 worries."d  6 The phone rings almost before I've got it on the hook.  2 "My files are all gone!" a voice whines out at me.   "When did this happen?" I ask.  ( "Just now..." he says, through the tears  H "I see. Well, I wouldn't worry, there's three days till the end of the  K semester, if you work day and night until then, you should get at least a    C-"h  7 He sobs a couple more times then hangs up. What a wimp.d   THE PHONE RINGS AGAIN!  E "The screen on my PC is really dim" The woman at the other end says  l' "Should I wind the brightness knob up?"t  K "NO!" I scream "Don't touch that knob! Have you any idea of the radiation   > that comes out of that thing when the knob gets wound up?!!!!"  # "Well I..." she says, all uncertainn  I "TAKE MY ADVICE!" I say "There's only ONE way to fix a dim display, and  g$ that's by power surging the drivers"  I The words "power surging" and "drivers" have got her. People hear words   L like that and go into Dummy Mode and do ANYTHING you say. I could tell her  H to run naked across campus with a powercord rammed up her backside and   she'd probably do it... Hmmm...   " "Have you got a spare power cord?"   "No.."  J "Oh well, never mind, we'll have to do the power surge idea... Ok, quick  K as you can, I want you to flick the power switch of your PC on and off 30    times"   "Should I take my disks out?"a  * "NO! Do you want to lose all your data!?!"   "Oh! NO! Ok.."   I listen carefully.. ..n  F ...clicky..clikcy...clikky.. .. .. ...clicky.   ...cliccy..  . . BOOM!  L Amazing, it probably made it to 27 - the power supply usually shits itself   at 15 or so...  8 "MY COMPUTER BLEW UP!!!" she screams at me down the line  H "Really? Must've been a dodgy power supply! Lucky we found out now! Is  # your machine still under warranty?"-   "NO!"-  E "Dear oh dear. Well, Best get it repaired then. Did you backup your  - files?"-  E "Yes, to the system, Yesterday, but all this morning's work is gone!",  L "Oh dear. What was your username, I'll just check that your backups worked   ok?"   She tells me....   .K --------------------------------------------------------------------------   ----  			BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL #8K -------------------------------------------------------------------------- N ----  * I'm at my desk as usual, and a user calls.  ; "Hello Computer Room, Simon here, How can I help?" I answerI  4 "I can't get into my account!" A user mumbles at me.  & "What was your username please?" I say  A They give me their username. No worries. I look in their account.   F "No worries, it was just a badly made login file. I've fixed it, you   should be able to login."i  	 "Thanks!"s   "No worries.  Have a nice day!"j  J WHAT IS THIS? you're asking yourself. Has the BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL  G turned over a new leaf? Sold out?!  GONE INSANE?!!! Nope. The BASTARD  pJ OPERATOR FROM HELL is being LOGFILED. And if that's happening, I'm being  J bugged as well. So I'm being nice till I can find the bugs. It shouldn't   be long - bear with me.u  L Ah. One in the phone handpeice. Basic. But then the boss is a sneaky sort,  G so there's probably a couple more. Ah! And another in the base of the   J phone and one inside my keyboard. Time for a mad coffee-spilling frenzy.  J This is a big job, so I bring the whole jug over and wait for a witness.   The System Manager comes in.  K "Where's that report of mine?" he asks in a surly manner - he's obviously  AL pissed that I haven't implicated myself yet. Antagonist Identified. As the  H Principal of "BASTARD OPERATOR SCHOOL" (me) will tell you, "There's no  G problem so large it can't be solved by killing the user off, deleting  !I their files, closing their account and reporting their REAL earnings to  a the IRS"  G I pull his printout from under the coffee jug where I put it, and the  'H coffee splashes all over the phone and keyboard, which for some reason  " were stacked on top of each other.  J "Woopsy!" I say, mock horror on my face. The System Manager's face tells   me I was right in my guess.i  B "Don't think you'll get away with this!" he snarls and stomps off.  I I click on the Ethernet monitor and watch the traffic coming out of his  I PC.S  L Ah! A memo, authorising the termination of my contract, going to the laser  H in the Director's office.  I make a few alterations to the file in the  J spool directory and let it go to it's destination. I run my dinky little  E program that deposits -512 to the PC and our mainframe shits itself.    E Later, while booting in single user, I'll remove that nasty logfile  -	 business.-  K    Next, I wander into the comms room and plug my earphone into the spare  aJ RS232 port in the Directors office. It's amazing how simple it is to bug  / an office once it's got data lines going to it!-  & Director: 	"Are you sure about this?"  SysMgr:	"OF COURSE!"* Director:	"You don't want to reconsider?"  SysMgr:	"NEVER!"4 Director:	"Very well, I'll fax it to staffing now.." SysMgr:	"EXCELLENT!"  F Two seconds later the System Manager strolls in smiling. "Well, I'll  2 really miss you Simon.." he says, full of himself.  ; "Oh?" I say, all sweetness and charm "Where are you going?"a  - "No Simon" he says, with glee "YOU'RE going!"   I "A PROMOTION!" I say "You've finally written that letter to the head of  eG staffing telling him he's a bum-sucking arse bandit and that you quit?"k   "No..."   E "Are you sure? It's much better than the one about me being fired.." T   "Y.." His eyes widen slightlyt  I It's like clubbing a seal to death with a foam cushion. He runs to stop   G the fax. Only, having just resigned, >clicky cklikcy< his card key no  s longer works...w   Ametuers...e  , The Phone rings. It's the same guy as before  9 "I can get into my account now, but I've run out of disk"G  ! "Hang on, I'll see what I can do"s  
 >clicccky<...e rm -r *    iK -------------------------------------------------------------------------- r ----  			BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL #9K -------------------------------------------------------------------------- h ----  I I'm driving to work and I'm stuck behind this old guy, the classic slow  gK driver from hell, whose car red-lines at 20 mph and can't take corners at  .L more than 5. I honk my horn but his hearing aid's probably turned way down   to "whisper", so I'm stuck.v  K I make a mental note of his license plate. In fact, I did that 60 times a  pL minute for 15 and a half minutes. Oh dear.. oh dear.... Looks like another  I call to the DMV Database to register a vehicle as stolen by out of town  s arms dealers...   L I get to work, flick the excuse page over. "ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION FROM  H SATTELLITE DEBRIS". Fair enough, it looks like it's going to be a good   day.  L I log into "FUCKYOU", (the help-desk enquiries username) and go into mail.  G There's 3 new messages, the first of which is 117 lines long, so it's  tK obviously a storyteller. Shit, I hate that. Instead of saying "My account  ,J needs more disk space" they tell you about how they're doing this bit of  G research for a lecturer and how it's got to be in yesterday, and they  'F almost had it but their second cousin twice removed had a perforated  K herpes scab and lost a lot of blood and had to be rushed into hospital...  b etc etc. I delete the message.  J Second message I read, but it's one of those people who can't handle the  L mail interface and send a null message, so all you get is headers. I reply  J to the message saying "No worries, we can do that by next Tuesday". Hope   it was important.b  J The last message I leave for tommorrow, because Saturday would be a dull   day if I ever had to work then.u  * The phone rings. I thought I'd fixed that!  C I put it on hands free so I can slop some pizza into the microwave.N   "Yes" I call  B "Something's wrong with my Boot disk, I can't login to the server"  " "Have you got your disk with you?"   "Sure!"   @ I go get the disk and put it and the pizza in for 5 minutes on  
 "ULTRA-NUKE".s  ! Six minutes later, he rings back.T  H "It still doesn't work, and now my disk makes a funny noise and smells."  E "OH SHIT! It's that electromagnetic radiation from satellite debris  r again!"t  4 "Really? I think I heard about that!" (What a tool!)  1 "Yep, I'm sorry, you'll have to buy another disk"J  C "Oh, that's ok, I don't mind, the old one was getting worn. Thanks"y  J "Sure, no worries. And be sure to run it through our virus checker FDISK  . when you get a lot of important data on it..."   "I will! Thanks!"m   "That's Ok - it's my job!"  F Xcbzone is running really slow so I kill off a whole lot of database  I backends that seem to be hogging all the cpu and get back into my game.  t Much better.  3 (It isn't easy on the frontline, work work work...)a  H I go to the cafeteria for a quick 2 hour snack - they're so nice to me  D there. They always have been, ever since that computer glitch that  G registered their kitchen as an organ recipient - very messy. I grab a  hI couple of cans of coke and some cheese things and cruise on back to the  hJ office via the first year computer funamentals lab. I look in the window  L on the scene that unfolds itself to me - a lab full of first years with no  
 demonstrator.'   WELL I'LL JUST HAVE TO HELP!  
 I walk on in.p  K "Right, I'm your temporary replacement demonstrator and today we're going  sI to put our assignments aside for half an hour to learn about the REMARK  oA function, or, as it's known to the computer literate world, rm.."a  F I should've been a teacher you know - I've got this way with people... ...r   yK -------------------------------------------------------------------------- O ----! 			BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL #10-K --------------------------------------------------------------------------   ----  H I get invited to a lecture as a guest speaker in "Computing Operations  I Fundamentals", so I leave the control room in the capable hands of Sam,  N the janitor and cruise on down.   G The lecture starts and goes ok, then there's a 10 minute period where  eF students get to ask a "real operator" questions that they have about   operations.a  J I get out my pad and pen. "Before we get started" I say, "could you just  J call out your username before you ask me a question, I find it easier to  8 apply your problem to terms you would understand better"I The lecturer eats all this up - the personal touch really gets to them.   " "First Question, You over there.."  E "What do you think of the privacy of individuals on a shared system?"c    "What was your username please?"  	 "CMS1103"    >Scratchy scritch<J "Computer Privacy...  Hmmm. This is a toughy really. You mean stuff like  L reading the email between you and your counsellor about you not wanting to   come out of the closet?"  # "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGH!" .  F "AH! Well, he seems to have left - must have picked a bad COMPLETELY  2 RANDOM example. Next question. You, over there..."   "CMS1136. I was.."  ; "Ah yes, 1136 the only person on campus who subscribes to   5 alt.sex.buggery.by. sailors.dressed.in.mums.clothing"o  $ "It's purely for research purposes!"  G "I'm sure it is. You do a lot of story posting for a researcher don't  e you?".   "NNGggggAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHGH!",   "Next please..."   ...o   ..  J Two minutes later, the lecture theatre's empty.  That's the problem with  . students today, they just don't want to learn.  K  I go back to control and Sam's asleep at the console again. I think he's  mI after my job.  I make a mental note to tap into the salary database and  nE cancel his health and accident insurance payments. You can't be too  t	 careful..n  F I put the phone on the hook for the first time this afternoon and it  L starts ringing almost immediately. THAT'S IT! I redirect it to 911 catch a  J bit of shuteye. That'll teach them. OOPS! Almost forgot to turn over the  F excuse calendar. "STATIC FROM NYLON UNDERWEAR" Nope, too plausable -  M although in some cases I could do an on-site check. Nah, can't be stuffed.   iJ I'll pick another one.  "STATIC FROM PLASTIC SLIDE RULES" Now THAT'S one   with a  challenge!  E I un-redirect the phone and drag the rubbish bin so it rests on the  DL printer's stacker - another job well done. The phone rings - this could be   the big one!   "Hello?"  ' "Hi, Um, how do I spell-check my file?"S  , "Simple, just type `spell' and the filename"   "Thanks"  J I'm so bloody nice this morning. Especially as I know that my version of  I spell INTRODUCES errors instead of detecting them. Things like changing  m/ friend to freind and vice-versa. What the hell.h  " The phone rings - it's them again.  $ "There's something wrong with spell"   "What makes you think that?"  % "Because my file is all corrupt now!"t  C "That doesn't sound like spell to me. Are you logged into thru PC?"    "Yes, but I can.."  I "Please, leave the technical diagnosis to me... Now, is there a plastic  t# ruler somewhere on or in the desk?"o   "Um >clunka<, yes..."O  F "Right. You've got a static buildup on your hard-drive caused by the  K changing electrostatic field generated by the ruler - the same thing that   H makes bits of paper stick to it when you rub it up and down your arm..."  
 DUMMY MODE ON"   "Oh. What do I do?"l  J "You know how you get paper off a ruler by hitting it on a table lots of  K times? Well do that with your PC. Say 20 times - lift it about a foot off  y the desk & drop it."   "Oh. OK"   >crash<i   >crash<h   >crash<u   "Um, the screen went dark"  D "That's ok, it's supposed to do that - keep going. And when you're  L finished, do the screen as well, that static may have gone up the wires to   it."   >crash<a   >crash<o  
 >crash<...  H I hang up.  I get up and go out to the public area to put honey in the  J floppy drives when a guy who looked like Lee Harvey Oswald runs up to me  K and shoots me, only the sound comes from the machine room, and I can hear  i# the ex System- Managers chuckle....   H Later, in the ambulance, I realise. I forgot to get the guys username...   Then everything goes dark-   -K -------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ----' 	BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL LIVES!  #11-K --------------------------------------------------------------------------   ----  H The darkness cleared as we got out of the tunnel and it occurred to me  K that I couldn't be all that injured. Then again, maybe I was. Someone was    going to p..   I died.k  H Of course, a true BOFH considers this not really as dying, but more of   going home for the holidays.  H Five seconds later, I'm getting the upside of 15Kv across the nipples.  . (These ambulance guys sure know how to party).  % 			BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL LIVES! ,  I Three weeks later I'm back on my backside and feeling rested at relaxed  BI behind the console again. The rest has done me good, I feel *great!*. I  nE catch up on everyone's email then let the students know I'm back by  hL performing an impromptu preventative maintenance in the middle of lab time  3 by kicking the restart switch (They love it really)n  J I flip today's excuse card, "GLOBAL WARMING" YES YES YES! What a welcome   home!i  J It's the end of the month so all those automatic email reminder programs  L will be sending messages all over the place. I set the system clock back 7  L days to buy some peace and quiet and swap the printer ribbon for the three   year old one with holes in it.  A    I sort through my snail mail and crack open the BOFH Monthly  tK Newsletter, "kill -9" and check out the articles therein.  There's a nice  pI peice of making OS2 slow, boring and painful, but it looks exactly like  oD the OS2 installation instructions to me...  Ah, who knows.  I head  G straight to the BOFH Wizard section to see if any of my articles were   L published.  All of them!!! Even the one about the c compiler that randomly  5 removes one line from the source code it's compiling!m   The phone rings.  ! "The Screen on my PC is blank!!!"r   "It's the power cord" I say   ; "No, I checked that. When I switch it on, it does nothing!"p   "It's the power cord" I sayT  K "No, I checked and it's all plugged in properly. There's no lights on the    keyboard or anything"n   "It's the power cord" I sayT  = "Oh Hey! I just noticed, the cord's not plugged in properly!"g   "The power cord?" I askI   "Yes... Woopsy"   7 "No worries at all" I say "Is it all working well now?"e  6 "Yes, I think so. I'm sorry, you WERE right all along"  K "Yes, we're getting a lot of this, it's due to the current Global Warming  vJ problem. It causes random thermal expansion and contraction resulting in  D temperature induced movement of friction based holding mechanisms.."  ? I listen carefully. Nothing. In other words, <DUMMY MODE ON>...m  ' "You can fix it permanently tho'" I sayo   "Really? How?"  G "Well it's all to do with lowering salt deposits on the metal contacts"   & "Oh!" (Dummy mode irrevocably engaged)  I "All you need to do is just take the power plug out deposit some dilute  rC mineral salts on it. Do you have some dilute mineral salts on you?"    "Uh... no?"   K "Ok, no worries, just stick it in your mouth drool into it. But make sure   J you wipe the plug first to get rid of any germs, and TURN THE SWITCH OFF  > ON THE MONITOR before you do - we don't want a nasty accident!  	 "Oh. Ok!"    >Fzzzt< >clunk!<  J I hang up as the receiver hits the floor. Disk space is too good for them.   eK -------------------------------------------------------------------------- l ----! 			BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL #12uK -------------------------------------------------------------------------- v ----  K I get to work and I'm a bit tired so I plug a thick hunk of copper across  -G the three phase supply and throw the switch. The room is plunged into  	H darkness as the circuit breakers trip and for once the machine room is   silent.   
 I like it!  H I pop the phone off the hook and close the curtains on the observation  E window. Now it's *really* dark in there. I wouldn't be surprised if  a& someone had a nasty accident in here..  B   I lift a couple of floor tiles up in the darkness and call our  H maintenance contractors saying the mini popped the breaker again, then  K replace the fuses in it with a couple of nails and short the power supply  tK to ground. You can't just hope for this sort of thing, you've got to MAKE  a
 it happen.  I 15 minutes later the engineer arives and falls down the hole. I pop the  "I floor tiles back on just as the System Manager (a new and very thorough   J individual) comes in, telling me to watch out, someone could really hurt   themselves in the dark...s  F   I nod & tell him that we can't really afford all the downtime, and  I should I just throw the breaker and hope that there was no major fault.  iG After thinking about the negative publicity we're getting already, he  tE makes the last decision of his short career and tells me to go ahead."  I Later, when the smoke clears I examine the smoking remains of the mini.    Not a pretty sight...e  L  "Strange that the breaker jammed shut, isn't it?" I say to our manager as  L he packs up the personal things in his office. "One in a million chance. A  B pity that someone saw what you did and posted the whole story to  K comp.misc. You'll be lucky to get a job managing a car computer after all  g that publicity..."  G   I go back to the machine room and throw the rest of the breakers to  eL liven everything up, then login and start deleting users' email. I spot an  K interesting off-the-record sexual proposition from our male consultant to  tK a member of the men's swim team which will make a good motd, so I copy it  bC there, modify root's owner name to be "Winker" and password to be  nL "ljkadlkajflkj"  (then call the big boss to report a suspected intrusion).  L Should be at least a couple of hours of login time before we can sort that  B out. In the meantime, people are just going to have to read that  
 message...J  I realise the message has been read when I hear the gunshot from behind   the consultant's closed door.c  I   I edit the online helpdesk information and change the phone number to  eL the System Manager's - he'll probably appreciate the extra calls at such a   sad time...r  F I hear another shot and realise he won't be answering any calls today.  G  I put the phone back on the hook and flip today's excuse card. "Poor  nG power conditioning". Too plausible. "STATIC BUILDUP". Still a bit too  sJ plausible for my liking, but I don't want to run out of cards before the  , end of the year, so I decide to run with it.  K The phone rings almost as soon as I've got "Top Gun" in the video machine  r5 so I pause the video and put the phone on hands-free.h  ' "I think I've bought a bad floppy disk"m  > "Yes?" I wonder if I've suddenly become the consumer watchdog?  J "Well, I've got this disk and it won't format. All the others in the box  ( did so I thought I must have a bad disk"  * "Why are you calling me about this?" I ask  E "Well, the disk says guaranteed; where do I go to get a replacement?"?   Ah! Of course.  I "Well, let's see. Are you sure it's the disk, and not just some problem  y with static buildup?"o   "Huh?"  I "Static Buildup, you know, static electricity that's passed from you to   
 the computer"r    "But I'm wearing a wrist strap!"  K Around about now I realise I'm deep in dweeb country. Wrist straps aren't   + fashion accessories in *my* part of town...l  J "Of course you are, but your average wrist strap has a 1 meg resistor in  H series with it, a *really* poor earth. What you need is a direct earth  F connection. Hang onto the frame of something that's earthed properly."  5 "What, you mean like our stainless steel work bench?"t  I "Excellent. Now, have you got a paper clip to discharge the static with?".   "Hang on. Yeah"e  L "Ok, with your other hand, poke the clip thru the ventilation holes at the  J back of the unit, and just touch the contact at the end of the thick red   wire."  $ "The one going to the power supply?"   "Yep, that's it"  2 "....Hey, isn't that the li... >kzzzzt!<  >clunk<"  0 Another call solved by the helpdesk from hell...   eK -------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ----! 			BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL #13OK -------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ----  F I'm busy with my new shell replacement login script, and it's almost  * foolproof. Let's just say it pops up with:  7 "Yes means No and No means Yes. Delete all files [Y]? "   F upon login. I'm really starting to worry about the number of account  I breakins we've been having recently....  The manager isn't though.  His  cI main concern appears to be the number of computer-related fatalities on  b campus. Funny world, isn't it?  J I flip the excuse card. "DOPPLER EFFECT"  Sounds implausible enough that  . it's plausable - with a little work of course.  + The phone, the bane of my existance, rings.g  + "Hello, Computer Room" I say, being helpfule  + "Is this the Technicians?" The caller asks.   I Amazing the number of deaf people that use these things. What the hell,  e I'm bored..g  - "Yes it is" I lie (Nixon would've been proud)l  I "I've got a problem with my floppy drive, it doesn't seem to be reading  i
 all the time"d   "Hmmm. How old is the drive?"t   "About a year.."  H "And it sometimes fails and sometimes works, but it's starting to fail   more and more?"t   "YES!"  . "Yeah, it's the Doppler effect of magnetism.."  4 "I thought that only happened with light and sound?"   >Bullshit mode ON<  I "Yes, well it's been found that on a spinning surface, like a disk, the  rD particle's magnetic alignment changes, especially when the head is  5 stationary and slightly magnetised in respect to it."l   "Duh. Oh" >DUMMY MODE ON<   J "So, what you need to do is to demagnetise the head. Have you got a disk   head demagnetising loop?"s   "Uh.... No?"  C "OK, we'll have to do it the hard way. Have you got your original  e diskettes for your software?"i   "Yeah."h  > "Right, chuck them in the drive, one by one, and format them."   "WHAT?!"  G "Don't worry, it won't work - remember the drive is failing. All that  IE happens is that the virgin magnetic field of the disks realigns the  oG magnetic field of the head, because they weren't written by a doppler  o effected drive."   "Oh, yeah!"s  L "So, when it gives you a write error and asks if you want to continue, you  I say yes.  Do it with all your original diskettes, then, to complete the  eJ demagnetising process, run a head cleaning diskette through the drive as  H well, which will pick up the stray magenetic particles clinging to the   head."   "Oh. Ok. Thanks"  8 "Don't thank me - IT'S MY JOB!" I say, hearty in manner.  8 I put the phone down, it rings again. It's the big boss.  , "Simon, could you come to my office please?"   >ALERT!<  H Quick as I can, I press the panic button on our LAN-Analyser, or to be  6 more precise, the "Generate 90% random traffic" button  * "Sure, would you like me to come now, or..  / The other phone rings. I chuck it on hands free   3 "Hello, Computer Room, Simon Here, How can I help?"e  G "THE NETWORK IS DOWN, ALL OUR PCS HAVE SHIT THEMSELVES!" the voice on  s9 hands-free screams into the mouthpeice of the other phoneo  J "I see" I say calmly "Yes, our Monitor shows it up, it looks to be a bad  = segment of thinwire - please hold the line while I unplug it"O  L I press the "I just got a raise" button (AKA "Stop Traffic Generation") on  K the Lan Analyser, and almost immediately the user shouts back "Excellent,  - it's working now, thanks"-  . "That's ok, don't mention it. Have a nice day"  K The big-boss has been listening to all this, so I reckon that the trip to  -I his office won't be so bad after all.  I tell him I'll be right down as  sG soon as I secure the net and hang up. On the way down, I invent a new  tJ buzzword which always keep management happy. Complete Transient Lockout.  K Sounds much better than pulling the plug. Like Master-Reset sounds better  a than off-switch.  A I get to his office and the staffing officer is there too. Uh-oh.s  6 "Simon - How would you like to be our System Manager?"   ?!!!  . "Well... I don't know, I like that hands on.."  & "Extra 10 grand a year, Varisty Car.."  	 "Monaro?"b   "Ok"   "Sold!"   4 	....And so ends the saga, as it should have at #10. t+ %include "Bastard System Manager From Hell"  eK -------------------------------------------------------------------------- r ----2 	The Bastard Operator from Hell Rides Again. (#14)K --------------------------------------------------------------------------   ----  L Don't ask how I got back, I just did. Suffice to say that work frowns upon  G management material that uses electrodes to gain client information.   eJ Especially when you do it to the boss's in-laws. That's HIS entertainment.  L  So I'm back in the saddle. Unfortunately, that means there's a surplus of  K operators in the computer room. One slam of the tape safe door later, the  eL problem is solved. The knocking dies down in a couple of hours, so I guess    the safes really *are* airtight.  L  To welcome myself back, I send a message out saying there's a shutdown in  L 10 minutes.  5 minutes later I shut the system down.  I love doing that. I  K see the hard-disk activity lights flicker as the "disk recovery" phase of  uK startup run through, globally deleting journal files. Funny how we always  y! start up with lots of free disk..r  F I just get Wolfenstein started and the phone rings. What the hell, I  2 almost missed it while I was away, so I answer it.   "Computer Room" I says  @ "THAT WASN'T TEN MINUTES!!!!" the voice at the other end screams  F "What wasn't 10 minutes?" I ask in a pleasant manner. I can see that  L things have deteriorated in my absence. Spare the rod and spoil the rm -r,   that's what I always say.t  F "THAT! You said it was going to be te... >pause<... Um, who is this?"   4 "This is the Operator; who did you expect it to be?"   "Darren? Is that Darren?"o  = "Uh, No. Darren.. Darren is... unavailable... at the moment."e  9 "Oh. Do you know when he'll be back in the control room?"o  J "Probably around the time of our next backup - the year 2007 or sometime   thereabouts I should imagine"'  L He's toying with asking me if he can recover their files or not. I let him   dangle for a few moments.t  # "Was that all?", I say, nice as piet    "Well.... NO, it doesn't matter"  L "Of course it doesn't. Would you like me to check if your files are ok?" I   	promptl  I "Would you? I'm a bit new to this system and I'm not too sure what to do"    "Sure. What was your username?"   J  Everything inside him is screaming at him not to say it - People beside  ( him are screaming at him not to say it.    He says it.e    You just can't tell some people.  K "Ok. Well, it looks ok to me, all your files are in perfect condition!" I  o sayr   "THEY ARE!! GREAT!!"  ' The relief in his voice is overwhelminge   >clickety< >clickety<   ; "Yep. Both your x-defaults and AND your newsrc file are ok"   / "But.. But what about my site monitoring data?"e   "Sorry?"  L "There were about 10 files in my research subdirectory, data I'd collected   over the past year."  G "Oh. Well, I can't see anything. Perhaps you backed them up somewhere?",  + "I put a copy in my girlfriend's account.."m   "What was her username?"   "Uh.... >pause< ... "t   Is he going to do it? Is he?   He does.  / Like running down a snail with a steamroller...o   >clickety clickety<a  K "Nope, nothing there either.  OH!  Hang on, there looks like some form of  rL journal file in your account, it's quite large... I think maybe you should  * login there and try to recover with it..."  E I cat about 100 man files together and slop them in his girlfriends  s! account under then name "rsrch.j"    "How do I do that?"e   "Ok; can you login yet?"  * "Yeah, I think so.....  Ok, I'm logged in"  G "Ok, You need to run the file thru the mailer to clear the eigth bit,  hH otherwise the journal recovery will probably choke with an instruction   error"   >DUMMY MODE ON<e   "Oh...  How do I do that?"  1 "Well, you have to type in `mail root < rsrch.j'""   "Ok!"e  . "HANG ON! You have to type it with your nose."   "WH..? WHY?"  F I flip the excuse card till something appropriate pops up. "HARDWARE   STRESS FRACTURES"H  I "Well, it's got to do with hardware stress fractures. You probably type  -H too hard with your fingers which upsets the internals of the keyboard.  > It's got to do with dry joints and electromagnetic inductance"   >DUMMY MODE IRREVOCABLY ON<e   "Oh. Ok"  ( "Now, you've got to type it in 20 times"  
 "Sure, ok"   He hangs up.   I ring campus security  K "Hey, we've got another crazy in the lab. Apparently he's typing with his  a nose. He might be armed..."e  L 3 minutes later I hear the shots. I close his account, he won't be needing  
 it any more..E   The phone rings. It's my Mum.    "Hi Ma, what can I do for you"  J "Simon, I've got a problem at work, the floppy disk with all my personal   stuff on it is failing I think"p  J "Oh. Ok. Well, have you got any nail polish remover and some cotton wool   buds?"   "Yes"u  K "Ok, take your disk out, and clean that brown stuff off the inside of the  uK disk. That's what gets the heads dirty. You should just have a nice clean  e/ plastic disk when you've cleaned it completely"o   "Oh, Ok Simon, Thanks"  H "You're welcome. Oh; remember that time you wouldn't let me go over to  - Graeme's place to watch videos when I was 5?"a   "Yeah, why?"   "Oh, Nothing.."t .K -------------------------------------------------------------------------- O ----# 	THE BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL #15sK -------------------------------------------------------------------------- e ----  K  It's a warm afternoon in the computer room. I dunno, maybe I should turn   H the chillers back on, but what the hell, I've got a cold and I need to  ( keep warm if I go into the machine room.  L I flip today's excuse card. Magnetic Interferance from Money/Credit Cards.  3 Hmmm, vague enough to be plausible. The phone ringsr   "Hello, Computer Room" I sayM "Hi!" the caller says "I want to fit some RAM to my machine to upgrade the    H memory. I just bought some 4 meg chips off a guy in town and wanted to   know if you guys would fit it."e  F "Well," I say "normally we would, but today the technicians are busy  G trying to gas axe open our tape safe to see why it smells - You could  g" probably fit it yourself though.."  0 "Really? I thought that was dangerous?" she says  L "Nah nah, it's safe as houses, just remember to get the chips out of those  9 stupid plastic bags before they stuff them up altogether"    "Really?! How do they do that?"r  ) "Well, you've heard of static RAM right?"T   "Yes..."  K "Well, Why pack static RAM in an antistatic bag? Sounds really suspect if   K you ask me!!! Yours might even be stuffed already, so you'd better remove  a them.."A  	 >D.M. ON<c  , "Oh >crinkle crinkle< Ok. Now what do I do?"  J "Ok, you'll need to get rid of the charge those bags have probably given  K your RAM, after all, you don't want to blow up your computer, do you? Get  kL rid of any woolens that you're wearing and switch to nylon. Run round some  I cheap carpet, then comb your hair a couple of dozen times and then plug  aI the chips into the comb to keep them steady. Turn your machine on, then  aL plug the memory in and out about 10 times to get the slots warmed up. Then  G slop them back in, flick the power switch half a dozen times and that    should do it!"  
 "Hey thanks!"G  0 "Don't mention a thing, all part of the service"  L  I leave for lunch - after all I have been here for 10 minutes solid - and  L walk past the student labs. I hear a mass of beeping and look round to see  H a user's screen full of garbage. They've either typed an image file or  K fingered my account and got the core file I renamed as .plan. By the time  nI he gets his terminal sorted out, his allocation of connect time will be  m all used up. A tragic shame.  G I get back from lunch early a couple of hours later and slip into the  n. Usenet news directory tree, slide on down to  H alt.binaries.pictures.erotica, then start deleting parts 3 or 4 of the  I really long gifs. (After taking a copies myself and overwriting them to  k& the last user backup tape, of course).  H  Then I get ready to watch the videos I got out from the video shop by  L taking the printers offline and disconnecting the phone, and I notice that  G the frame -grabber video player is gone from the office.  Someone has  -& obviously moved it while I was away...  I  I make some discrete enquiries under the threat of rm -r, and find out  -L that the secretary now has posession of it.  So I mosey on down and ask to  H take it away. Only I can't because I've got to sign *THE BOOK*, saying  J when it will be back, how many minutes of tape I'm going to put thru it,  I if I'm going to be watching PAL or NTSC etc. Then it's all fed into her  oH *personal* computer (which I'm not allowed to touch because it doesn't  L belong to us) so she can produce full colour plots about who's not working   in the department.  H I mention that it's not coming back - as I was the person that put the  J hammer through the frame grabber in the first place, I should be the one  I to hold the video.  She then tells me that that's not acceptable, and I  hK will have to find some other video to use, she needs access to get to the  uK video 24 hours a day, in case someone needs it. And because she takes her   J PC home at night, I needn't think that I can fake any borrowing records.  K All this I see for what it really is - a thinly disguised attempt to gain  .K access to the seat of power (The Operators Room) by the Bastard Secretary  o
 from Hell.  L   I decide to let it slide for once, after all she does get the snail mail  J into the correct distribution slots about 20% of the time, so that can't  
 be so bad.  @    Next morning, I get in about 2pm and find that I have three  L departmental memos about the status of other stuff that is in the Computer  I Room that has been "incorrectly inventorised" as "Awaiting Repair" (The  eJ shithead technician has been leaking privileged information in an effort  L to score the secretary again - A tragic shame, I used to quite like him..)  I with a note from the Big Boss authorizing the secretary to investigate.  cK Attached to all that is a note from the secretary herself stating that to  sC action this she requires a 24 hour access key to the Computer Room.   J ONCE AGAIN I realise that letting things slide never pays off. I look up  L the secretary's RS232, Ethernet, Appletalk and Phone port numbers and yank  I them from the comms rack. What the hell, I kick the circuit breakers to   J her power points and lighting too while I'm at it. Then I strip off some   mains cable & plug it in..  * The phone rings a couple of minutes later.  = "WHAT'S HAPPENED TO MY ROOM?!" the secretary screeches at me.!  K "Your room?" I say, in a pleasant and innocent manner, using caller ID to  e8 track down the room she's in. Ah! Just down the corridor  ; "Yes, MY ROOM! The power's gone off and everything is dead"t  J "Oh dear.  What were you doing when the power went off?  Perhaps you did   something stupid?"  & "I did NOT! I was working on *my* PC!"  6 The way she says "*my*" is really getting to annoy me.  5 "You were working on *your* PC?" I say, reflectively..   "Yes!" She snarlss  * "Not your *own* *very personal* computer?"  1 "Yes.." She doesn't know what I'm getting at yet.   K And now I exercise the basic law of Bastard Operating which roughly says,  eJ Bastard Operators don't just win. Anyone can win.  Bastard Operators win  . and totally DEMORALISE. That's *real* winning.  8 "I hope you switched your machine off before you called"  % "Why?" she barks, a little uncertain.h  C "Well, it's just that personal property isn't covered by the site   L insurance policy. Why, if there was a power surge, heaven knows WHAT could  F happen to an expensive peice of delicate *personal* machinery like..."  K I hear her place the receiver down *very* quietly and sprint on tippy toe  cJ to the door. As I repeatedly toggle her circuit breaker I start thinking  L about what I'll be watching on video this afternoon... Still on the phone,  J I hear a bang way in the background which probably means her pc has shit  	 itself...p  I 10 minutes later the phone in the control room. It's the secretary, and  hD she sounds a little stressed.  I manage to translater her sporadic  I outbursts into a request that her lines be connected to her terminal. I   G tell her they are, and has she got the technician to look at it.  She   	 hangs up.    No sense of humour.e  J     10 minutes later still, the technician rings up and tells me all the  K secretaries lines are dead. I tell him I'll check them out, then plug her  o< ethernet, phone and Appletalk back in. Which leaves RS232...  L  Another 10 minutes later I'm startled out of my snooze by the phone. It's  J the technician still greasing the secretary by being super-efficient. He  F tells me the RS232 still isn't working. I make some excuse about dry  L joints on the plug etc, and ask him to put a new plug on the cable. I hear  I the >snip!< as he clips the old plug off, and the receiver rattle as he  rL starts to strip the wire in a manly way with his teeth. Then I connect the  # mains cable to my end of the RS232.l  L As soon I hear the ">ERRRRRREEEERRKKK!<" coming down the receiver at me, I  > know that the "incorrect inventory" problem won't be repeated.  8 Another problem solved by the Bastard Operator from Hell  G It's a dirty, filthy, stinking dog-kill-dog job, but someone's got to  - enjoy it     -= *************************************************************-% 	The Bastard System Manager From Hell-$ 	BASTARD SYSTEM MANAGER FROM HELL #1= *************************************************************b  $ 	BASTARD SYSTEM MANAGER FROM HELL #1  D I get into my office and it's my first day - I want to make a good  H impression, so I empty my IN tray into the bin. Now that's what I call  
 efficient!  I I get a call from the big boss - he's been getting complaints about the  lB trainee bastard operator from hell. I ask him to forward all the  H complaints to me and that it would be best to let me deal with them. I  = ring the operator and get him to make an appointment with me.t  C Two weeks later, he does, and I show him the complaints that have  r accumulated so far.a  L "Seventy Three complaints in your first three weeks!" I shout "It's good -  J but it's NOT Good Enough! You should be getting at least 10 complaints a  J day - AT LEAST!  Now, let's see what you're doing wrong:  You get a call   from a user - what do you do?"  " "Kill them off?" The TBOFH replies  G "NO! How can you kill them off if you don't know their USERNAME? Your  sA FIRST priority is to get their username. Then what would you do?"l   "Kill them off?"  1 "NO! Get them to tell you what their problem is!"o   "Why?"  C "Because later I can say they didn't explain their problem to you  tJ properly! It's a great defence - works every time. A user rings me up to  I complain; I listen to their problem, then say "OH, WHEN YOU SAID `MY PC   K DOESN'T WORK' HE MUST HAVE THOUGHT YOU MEANT  `HOW CAN I MAKE MY PC NEVER  uK WORK AGAIN AND DESTROY MY LIFE'S WORK AT THE SAME TIME?' - IT HAPPENS ALL   J THE TIME!' then they tell me how implausible that is, I say how terribly  L sorry we are, then fake some connect and CPU time records so their monthly  J bill is about the same as the Uraguayan national debt... Understand? So,  2 after you've heard their problem, what do you do?"   "Kill them off?"  I "NO! Then you make up some excuse. Have you got an excuse card calendar?"o  
 "Uh. No.."  K "And you said you were qualified to operate a computer! You'd better have  nI mine." I pass my computer card calendar over, flipping it to page one -  fI "ENTROPY"....... ...I like it. "Now, you give the cretin an excuse then  t what do you do?"   "Kill them off?"  1 "YES!" (He certainly has a fixation) "Then what?"   
 "Hang up?"  J "NO! Then they'll call you back when the problem recurs.  Your job is to  K make them FEAR calling you. How can you work when people are calling? So,  eE you make them pay for calling in the first place. What would you do?"    "Delete their files?"s  K "Yeah, it's a start, but then they may call back when they get new files.   5 You want them NEVER to call back. What could you do?"o   "Swear at them?"  J "No. I can see we'll have to demonstrate. Have you got a metal ballpoint?"   "Yes"r  K "See that wallsocket over there.  Take the refill out of the pen and poke  e in into the wallsocket."   "But it's live!"  0 "Would I really make you do it if it were live?"  3 "Oh" >fiddle< >fiddle<  >BZZZZZZZEEEEERT!<  >THUD!<d  ? of course I would.  He was no good anyway. No killing instinct.g   EK --------------------------------------------------------------------------   ----+ 	   The BASTARD SYSTEM MANAGER FROM HELL #2NK -------------------------------------------------------------------------- l ----  E   So I'm interviewing for new Operators, and, as the Bastard System  rE Manager from Hell, I have high standards. And as the Immediate Past  i9 Bastard Operator from Hell, I have even higher standards.a   I get the first applicant in.   K "Ok" I say "I'm just going to ask you some simple questions to guage your  hJ knowledge of Computing and Networking in relation to the Operations Field"   "Sure"  I "Right. Question One. What's the best way to stop an individual posting  n nasty articles to news?"   "Close their account"d   "Good - But can you elaborate?"w  L "Delete all their files, Change their password to `Knobhead' and Erase any   backups of their account"     "Excellent. What is a killfile?"  G "Uh. It's a list of usernames/topics/news items etc that you wish the  cF news- reader to automatically skip so you don't have to wade through   rubbish"  K "Uh No. Remember I said pertaining to Operations. A killfile is in fact a  bB file with a list of names of people you are going to have killed."   "Oh. Of course."   "Never mind. What is DCE?"   "Delete, Close and Erase"    "Good. DTR?"  - "DON'T TRY to RING. The Operator's watchword"a   "Well done. DBMS?"  D "Dont Bug My Supervisor. Probably the most important acronym around"  J "You betcha. Ok. A user comes to you with a complaint about another user  B sending sexually explicit email messages to them. What do you do?"  C "Take a copy of the messages, close the complainant's account (by  aI accident) and extort money from the mailer by threatening to show their  t parents"  8 "Good. I think you'll do nicely. Hang onto this wire..."   "I don't think so."P  J "Excellent. You passed the final test. You start tommorrow. Please leave  8 by that door so as not to disturb the other applicants."   BZZZZZEEEERETTT!  A Electrified Door Handle. Gets them every time. I think it's the  gE "Complaints Dept" sign that draws them to it like moths to a globe...e  ) I push the body out onto the fire escape.    "NEXT!"n= *************************************************************oE   The Bastard Operator from Hell goes Meglomanic - The Sealed Sectionn= *************************************************************g 	e 	THE WAY IT IS7 			Recently someone called me from one of the "Out on  TL the Floor Offices",an ethereal place rumoured to exist only in hyperspace,  + populated by mysterious being called Users.I  L She was quite frantic.She was having trouble running a program through the  B computer, and her message was clear enough, although rather ill-   conceived:"MY FILES ARE FULL!"  J I furrowed my brow, lit a smoke, and explained to her, "Really now, Miss  F Butterman, I don't have time for this." I slowly exhaled the menthol  I vapours as I stopped her process, crushing any hope she may have had of  "G ever again seeing that document she had spent three hours slaving over.n  A 	"I was a typing this REALLY important letter, and it HAS to be  hK ready in an hour...there's all this stuff on my screen that I didn't type  e? ...it says something about an error, should I read it to you?"	e   	"No point. Just press return."p  C 	"oh my,it wants my username. Can I restart that where I left off?"r  E 	"Not a chance." I drew another puff and tossed the phone aside. It  nJ occurred to me that if I had to hear one more of those whining complaint  J sessions, heads were gonna roll. Where do you people GET this stuff? I'm  G going to tell you what's really going on here. Now LISTEN UP. I'm not    going over it a second time:   ComputerD 	The black box that does your work for you. That's all you need to   know.l  
 Response TimedB 	Usually measured in nanoseconds; sometimes measured in calendar  J months. The general rule is: Shut up your complaining about response time.   Hardware( 	See "Computer." Again,not your concern.   SoftwareC 	If we want you to know we'll tell you about it, otherwise, leave  i us alone     Network.C 	Don't worry about it, we'll take care of it. Use it to send mail  oK among your half-wit selves, and don't think we won't read it all. What do  eD you think we do all day? By the way, Butterman... shame about your   mother's pancreas.   DataE 	The General rule is: Don't use any data files and if you find any,  !L delete them before before I find out about them. In fact,just stay off the   computer (see "Response Time")   System CrashE 	Don't ever call the system manager to tell him you think the compu  rK ter is down. Don't call him to ask him when it will be up again. The more   $ you bother him, the longer it takes.   Downtime 	like I said, don't ask.   Uptime 	Don't be ridiculous   Vacation7 	A time during which I don't have to put up with your  t. sniveling.Don't try calling. There's no point.    
 Computer Room*D 	Keep out, you're not invited. Don't knock on the door- don't even  L think about it. I broke the phone last time one of you jerks called me,and  J I'm not about to replace it. And keep your greasy fingers off the windows.  	 My Officey+ 	The name says it all...it's mine;stay out.i  
 Your Problems  	not my concern.  	 DeadlinessE 	The general rule is: Deadlines are not acknowledged by me; they're  n2 not my responsibility. Go tell somebody who cares.     Maintenance ; 	a) A Valid reason for shutting down the system at any timew: 	b) Much more important than anything any of you bozos do.* 	c) Anything I choose to call maintenance.   Software Upgrades,E 	Far too complex for you to comprehend. If I tell you I'm upgrading  rI the system, just be quietly thankful. It's for your own good,even if it  o/ does mean extensive downtime during peak hours.e   Electronic MailoB 	I delete it before reading it, so don't bother sending any to me.   DefaultsD 	We like them just like they are;we chose them for a reason. Don't  ( mess with them; consider them mandatory.   Error MessagesE 	I'm not interested. I'm going to kill your process anyway, so keep    them to yourself.l   Killing your Process 	a)Don't ever ask whyo 	b)Beyond your control 	c)No warnings given 	d)The highlight of my day3 	e)If you call,it's going to happen. No exceptions.g   PasswordB 	I reserve the right to change them without notice at any time.I  H choose them, and the more you bother me, the more degrading yours will   be.(Example:BUTTERMAN:SNOTFACE)N   UsersY 	a)They slow down the computer 	b)They waste my timeT 	c)A general nuisanceP 	d)Worse than that, actually   Software ModificationeB 	You don't know what you want - we'll tell you what you want. It   stays like it is. Period.e  
 Privileges1 	I've got them, you don't need them. Enough said.b   PriorityC 	Mine is higher than yours, accept it. That's the reason my games  l. run faster than your lousy accounting package.  	 Terminalso> 	Before calling me with your terminal problems, consider this:0 	a)Are you prepared to do without one for weeks?* 	b)Do you REALLY want your process killed?) 	c)Did you just trip over the cord again?E 	d)Of course you did  
 Disk Space@ 	I set the quotas, you live with them. If you need more space,   check "Data Files".e   OperatorE 	I hired him and I trained him. He does what I tell him to. Usually  u armed;always dangerous.c   Backupsj 	a)A good idea 	b)If I gave a sh*tu 	c)Which of course I don't   LunchlA 	The only time calling my office won't result in the killing of  t
 your process.   
 Data Security A 	That's your problem. I'm certainly not going to lose any sleep  h5 over it. My files are locked up tight. I feel secure.    JiffydE 	Length of time it takes me to resolve your problem by killing your  a process.   EternityD 	Length of time it takes me to give a sh*t about any problems that  * can't be resolved by killing your process.  
 Impossible( 	a)It can't be done (as far as you know) 	b)I can't be bothered 	c)You're starting to annoy me  
 Inevitable 	a)Couldn't have been avoided $ 	b)Not my fault (as far as you know) 	c)The result of annoying me   Menus-D 	If it's not on the menu, don't ask for it. It's not available. If  F it is on the menu, it's probably of no use or it doesn't work. We're   working on it (See "eternity")  	 Utilities-A 	I find them quite useful, you'll find them quite inaccessible.  sJ Besides, they're not on the menu,are they. What did I tell you about that?   Nuisance 	You  L Of course, I reserve the right to add, change, or remove anything from the  @ above list. I'm not asking you to accept these matters without   question,I'm telling you.e    E Now that we all know where we stand, I'm sure there'll be no future  rJ problems. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to keep  G them to yourself. If you feel the need for more information, I highly  a$ recommend that you ask someone else.                       Sincerely      	                System Managerf    J P.S.The new disk quota of 30 blocks per user became effective yesterday.  H Anyone caught exceeding the quota will lose their accounts (this means   you,Butterman!)      Getting to Know Your Computers" A Short Glossary of Computer TermsI Analog	Hors d'oeuvre, usually made from cheese and covered with crushed  f nuts. @ Back-up	Current data errors that have been saved for future use.& 	See Database Back-up or File Back-up.< Binary	Possessing the ability to have friends of both sexes. Bit	12 1/2 cents ($.125).S( Buffer	Programmer who works in the nude. Bug	Any type of insect.a; Byte	Painful wound inflicted by dogs, snakes, children etc.n Coding	An addictive drug.d/ Compile	A heap of decomposing vegetable matter.t4 Computer	A device used to speed and automate errors.C Control Character	Any person who has money to spend for any reason.a Crash	A Normal Termination.h& Cursor	An Expert in four-letter words.E Database	A special medium used to store errors, so that they can be  eE processed  an	printed many times by the computer system. Sometimes 	 t called Input File or Data file. F Debugging	Activities necessary to remove insects from any area where   they are not 	wanted.k= Diskette	A mobile accessory to transsfer and to store errors. D Downtime 	The time in which the computer rests while you sink into  B the lower depths 	of depression. (Downtime typically takes place  A while you are in the middle 	of your most important work on the    computer.).*< Drive	A hardware part were errors are loaded from diskettes.9 	The moment the dirve's led is on can be described as the / 	computer's orgasm.(the noise indicate it too!)a6 Errors	The normal result of running a computer system.= Hardcoded	Computer program code that has been allowed to dry.a3 Hardware	1. Boots, leather, studs, spikes and such.p0 	2. The parts of a computer which can be kicked.A Keyboard	An instrument used for entering errors into the system    quickly.8 Logic	Orderly path always followed by programs & errors. Loop	See Loop.F Maintenance	Activities necessary to ensure that the system continues  . to produce errors 	and delay work efficiently.0 Never-Never Land	1. Place where no one grows up.$ 	2. Place where programs love to go.% 	-It is also called the Twilight Zonei2 Password	The nonsense word taped to your terminal.6 Printer	A device that prints computer errors on paper. RAM	A male sheep.oE Reset	A button located on the computer's body,which make easier the  "	 "trip" ofnF  	the programs to the Never-never land.It is conssidered as the only   way of 	avoiding errors.t( ROM	1. A Ram after a delicate operation.) 	2. What programs do in Never-Never Land.wI Screen	The part of the computer where the errors are seen for the first  TH time. It is 	also the part programmers love to break the most.The most  G inginous and 	smart feature of the Screen is that it can be turned off.b/ Software	1. Silk nighties, nylons, teddies etc.e- 	2. Parts of computer that can not be kicked.u? Sometime	Those occasions when a computer error message can be    interpreted and 	understood.B Security	A feature of computer system access which helps prevent  + the mis-use (or 	proper use) of the system.oA Table-Lookup	A piece of furniture that has been attached to the    ceiling.C Turbo	A mode in which the computer compiles the errors faster. It  o> sometimes 	may help the programs to reach the NeverNever land.I Uptime	The time in which a computer works & produces errors quickly and  u
 	efficiently.r    E ********************************************************************* E *I ALSO HAVE:       (ASCII/RTF Format)                              *aE *Political Incorrectness:                                           * E *      Bill Clinton Jokes   Lawyer Jokes                            * E *      35 Truths Of Life    Blonde Jokes                            *rE *Outright Plagarism (Scripts to)                                    *oE *      Monty Python & The Holy Grail         Meaning of Life        *iE *      Life of Brian (Incomplete, as far as I know)                 *eE *      Airplane 1                                                   *tE *Computer Humor:                                                    *tE *      Bastard Operator From Hell-- Computer series                 *dE *      Computer Jokes       Hacker Test 1.1                         *sE *      Real Programmers...  Nerd Tests                              *eE *Other Stuff:                                                       *hE *      Lightbulb Jokes      Car Acronyms                            *eE *      Murphy's Law stuff   Answering Machine Messages              *bE *      Deep Thoughts        Sexual Job Descriptions                 *IE *      Joke Forms           Chicken Cross Road Explanations         *rE *      Various Insults      Lists of Everything                     * E *      Mommy^2 Jokes        Star Trek Parodies                      *sE *      ASCII Cows           Religous Shit Explanations              *rE *      Aeronautical Jokes   Physics Product Disclaimers             *tE *********************************************************************hE *  A .sig designed to keep me busy for quite a while                *mE *  YES! It's bigger and better than it was a few days ago! And      *iE *   it'll keep on growing until I hit 5 Megs!                       *NE ********************************************************************* E *            <<< My other account is a super-user >>>               *tE *********************************************************************rE * Nathan Mates                nathan@cco.caltech.edu                * E *********************************************************************g -- l  E *********************************************************************dE *I ALSO HAVE:       (ASCII/RTF Format)                              *eE *Political Incorrectness:                                           *o