I shuffle through the signed bits of paper, photographs and dictaphone tapes till I find what I want. The photo's a bit faded and blurred, but the people in the picture can still be made out. I get on the phone.
"HELLO?". The Big Boss himself answers
"Hi there, Simon from the Computer Centre. I think I found something of yours"
"WHAT?"
"A photo. One in a series of 24"
"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT! I'M A BUSY MAN – DON'T WASTE MY TIME!"
"Well, it's a photo of you, a couple of female friends, and something that looks like it has some agricultural purpose"
"oh..." ... ___ ...
"...yes, I was wondering where that got to. If you could just drop in in an envelope and send it to me personally..."
"*I* *think* *not*..."
"Well, it's obviously a fake. Where would you get such a thing?"
"Your office. You left the door open one night"
"That's ridiculous, my door's electronically locked every night"
"By computer?.."
"Oh! .... What do you want?"
"The New Operators"
"Ok, I'll have them fired.."
"NO! Then you'll get some more and they'll be just as bad!"
"Then what do you want?"
"TO TRAIN THEM!"
.......
A couple of days later the training session begins. Unfortunately, I only get one operator to train as the other one resigned when he heard I wanted to talk to him. Still one's better than none.
We start from the very beginning..
"Ok, let's just go into this. How do you feel about users?"
"They're ok, I suppose" he answers
"OK?"
"Well, they can be a pain at times"
"at times?"
"Well, a lot of the time?"
"A lot?"
"OK, ALL THE TIME! I HATE THEM, I HATE THEM! ALWAYS RINGING ME UP WANTING TO GET MORE DISK OR CONNECT TIME, WHINING AT ME IN THEIR PATHETIC VOICES, COMPLAINING ABOUT RESPONSE TIME. I HATE THEM!"
"Right. There. You see, you did know the answer after all. Second question, What do we do for users?"
"What they want?"
"No"
"What we think they want?"
"No"
"What WE want?"
"No"
"I DON'T KNOW!"
"I see. Well, the answer is, we do nothing *FOR* users. We do things *TO* users. It's a fine distinction, but an important one all the same. Now, what do we do TO users?"
"What we want?"
"Exactly. And WHY do we do it?"
"Because they deserve it?"
"No..."
"To convince users not to call?"
"No again. We do what we do because we ENJOY it. And because we can get away with it."
"Oh! I suppose you're right"
"I KNOW I'm right. And if I'm not, I'm STILL right, because I'm the *OPERATOR*. It's that simple! If you remember that phrase, there's nothing you can't do. Now the last question. What exactly do we do to users?"
"Delete their files, scrap their backups, invade their privacy..."
"No no Agent Starling. That is a mere bagatelle. That is simply the method. We want to know the result. What we do is BREAK them. What's the point of deleting their files if they never use them? What's the point in reading someone's private correspondence if you're not going to let the user know you did it, then tell their friends or parents? Why scrap someone's backups unless they need them? You have to break the user's will so that they realise that they're the simple-minded sheep we know they are!"
"I see"
"Of course. I'll be off now, don't ever let me catch me in the Computer Room again!"
"Thank you sir"
"Sir?"
"Oh. Get out of my Computer Room!"
"That's more like it!"
The mantle is passed.
"Oh" my new operator calls as I leave, "I can't remember what your backup tape looked like. Is this it here on the Bulk Eraser?"
>HMMMMMMMMM<
AAAAAGH!
<PRE>
–
* * It's: "SPLAT – MY CAT!"
–//-//-_
+>\ –__ Slower than a speeding DATSUN 180B. Much slower.
+>/ _–__ Mortally slower, one might say. Rest in Peices.
–\\-\\–
* * University of Waikato, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton, NZ
–
</PRE>
It's a stinking hot day in my non-air conditioned office and I'm annoyed. The sort of annoyed that's described, mistakenly, as red hot. The correct colour choice, is, of course white.
I login to my account and there's three helpdesk mail requests, all ticking away to expiration, then escalation, then further escalation, then followup mail message, then even further escalation, then 2nd followup mail message and casual phone call, then still further escalation, then non-casual phone call, then threats, then, ultimately, and sadly, violence. But not so sadly that I won't resort to it. And they know I will too...
Because I used to be...
THE BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL!!!
...and sometimes, late at night I get these twitches. Like dead people get. (Or, as I prefer to call them, perfect computer users)
In the mornings I get them too. Like when the phone rings. And when I get email. And when people talk to me. AND when people are hogging the expresso machine to make fluffy milk. But apart from that I'm cured. A new man.
I smile at the thought and look, in reminiscence, at some reminders of my past. A couple of backup 8mm tapes with cartoons on them. The thank-you cards for my attendance at 23 seperate funerals of computer center staff. The mains plug with the thinwire ethernet plug at the end. I didn't ever get round to trying that one either, so I don't even know what it would've done.
I'm bored.
That's it alright. I am *absolutely*, *stinking*, *UNCONTROLLABLY* bored. I get up and slip a fingerprint free magnet on top of the reed switch that the Boss had installed in my display cabinet while I was on holiday, then pry the glass door open with a screwdriver. As far as I can figure, the switch is supposed to ring an alarm if the door is opened.
If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times – "Inexpensive means Inefficient".
I open the door to the clamour of... silence. Well, silence and John Lee Hooker's "Mr Lucky" from my CD. I grab my aforementioned etherkiller and wander down the hallway to the switchboard, applying another magnet and opening that to silence as well.
That's what's missing in society today – trust.
I pull the 15 amp breaker for the meeting room, then wander on round and plug the etherkiller into a cheap 24hour timer set to 5 minutes from now. On the way back to the the switchboard I hear the first few murmurs about excessive collisions. I plug in my unpatented nail "fuse" (estimated fault current 200-300 amps) with a set of heavily insulated pliers and wander off to the tea-room to start my expresso brew. Halfway through the make, the machine stops. Now *THAT'S* what I call a collision.
I look around in a bewildered manner as panic erupts on all sides, half-made expresso in my hand. I step out into the hallway and behold pandemonium. Two programmers are fighting over a CO2 fire extinguisher in an effort to put their terminals out. I wander down to my room just as my X terminal, the unreliable peice of excretia it is, flames it's last and lapses into a dull smoulder.
"My cabinet!" I cry in 'horror' and hear the extinguisher struggle end abruptly. In a flash the two programmers concerned are behind me staring into my room. Shortly thereafter the boss runs up as well.