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- bofh #9
- Stick Head #1 @2059
- Sat Jan 23 09:32:41 1993
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL #9
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- I'm driving to work and I'm stuck behind this old guy, the classic slow driver
- from hell, whose car red-lines at 20 mph and can't take corners at more than
- 5. I honk my horn but his hearing aid's probably turned way down to "whisper",
- so I'm stuck.
-
- I make a mental note of his license plate. In fact, I did that 60 times a
- minute for 15 and a half minutes. Oh dear.. oh dear.... Looks like another
- call to the DMV Database to register a vehicle as stolen by out of town arms
- dealers...
-
- I get to work, flick the excuse page over. "ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION FROM
- SATTELLITE DEBRIS". Fair enough, it looks like it's going to be a good day.
-
- I log into "FUCKYOU", (the help-desk enquiries username) and go into mail.
- There's 3 new messages, the first of which is 117 lines long, so it's
- obviously a storyteller. Shit, I hate that. Instead of saying "My account
- needs more disk space" they tell you about how they're doing this bit of
- research for a lecturer and how it's got to be in yesterday, and they almost
- had it but their second cousin twice removed had a perforated herpes scab and
- lost a lot of blood and had to be rushed into hospital... etc etc. I delete
- the message.
-
- Second message I read, but it's one of those people who can't handle the mail
- interface and send a null message, so all you get is headers. I reply to the
- message saying "No worries, we can do that by next Tuesday". Hope it was
- important.
-
- The last message I leave for tommorrow, because Saturday would be a dull day
- if I ever had to work then.
-
- The phone rings. I thought I'd fixed that!
-
- I put it on hands free so I can slop some pizza into the microwave.
-
- "Yes" I call
-
- "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".
-
- Six minutes later, he rings back.
-
- "It still doesn't work, and now my disk makes a funny noise and smells."
-
- "OH SHIT! It's that electromagnetic radiation from satellite debris again!"
-
- "Really? I think I heard about that!" (What a tool!)
-
- "Yep, I'm sorry, you'll have to buy another disk"
-
- "Oh, that's ok, I don't mind, the old one was getting worn. Thanks"
-
- "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!"
-
- "That's Ok - it's my job!"
-
- Xcbzone is running really slow so I kill off a whole lot of database backends
- that seem to be hogging all the cpu and get back into my game. Much better.
-
- (It isn't easy on the frontline, work work work...)
-
- I go to the cafeteria for a quick 2 hour snack - they're so nice to me there.
- They always have been, ever since that computer glitch that registered their
- kitchen as an organ recipient - very messy. I grab a couple of cans of coke
- and some cheese things and cruise on back to the office via the first year
- computer funamentals lab. I look in the window 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.
-
- "Right, I'm your temporary replacement demonstrator and today we're going to
- put our assignments aside for half an hour to learn about the REMARK function,
- or, as it's known to the computer literate world, rm.."
-
- I should've been a teacher you know - I've got this way with people...
- ...