Lab Humor
				--- -----

This little bit of humor was written by scon Daihung Duong at the University
of New Mexico.

Terminology:
"Pod" = Univ. New Mexico term for computer center.
"Scon"= a student computer center assistant
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		     THE NINE TYPES OF COMPUTER USERS

1.  El Explicito
   "I tried the thing, ya know, and it worked, ya know, but now it doesn't,
    ya know?"

 Advantages:  Provides interesting communication challenges.
 Disadvantages:  So do chimps.
 Symptoms:  Complete inability to use proper nouns.
 Real Case:  One user walked up to a pod manager and screamed "I can't
    get what I want!"  The pod manager leaned back, put his hands on
    his belt buckle, and said "Well, ma'am, you've come to the right place."

2.  The Mad Bomber
   "Well, I hit ALT-f6, shift-f8, CTRL-f10, f4, and f9, and now it
    looks all weird."

 Advantages:  Will try to find own solutions to problems.
 Disadvantages:  May have translated document into Najavo without meaning
    to [what really happened to Mulder's MJ files?  --lori]
 Symptoms:  More than six stopped jobs in UNIX, a 2:1 code-to-letter ratio
 Real Case:  One user came in complaining that his WordPerfect document was
    underlined.  When I used reveal codes on it, I found that he'd set and
    unset underline more than fifty times in his document.

3.  The Frying Pan/Fire Tactician
   "It didn't work with the data set we had, so I fed in my aunt's key
    lime pie recipe."

 Advantages:  Will usually fix error.
 Disadvantages:  "Fix" is defined VERY loosely here.
 Symptoms:  A tendency to delete lines that get errors instead of fixing
    them.
 Real Case:  One user complained that their program executed, but didn't
    do anything.  The scon looked at it for twenty minutes before realizing
    that they'd commented out EVERY LINE.  The user said "Well, that was
    the only way I could get it to compile."

4.  The Shaman
   "Last week, when the moon was full, the clouds were thick, and formahaut
    was above the horizon, I typed f7, and lo, it did compile."

 Advantages:  Gives insight into primitive mythology
 Disadvantages:  Few scons are anthropology majors
 Symptoms:  Frequent questions about irrelevant subjects.
 Real Case:  One user complained that all information on one of their disks
    got erased (as Norton showed nothing but empty sectors, I suspect nothing
    had ever been on it).  Reasoning that the deleted information went
    somewhere, they wouldn't shut up until the scon checked four different
    disks for the missing information.

5.  The X-User
   "Will you look at these graphics...and um, that resolution, quite
    impressive, really."

 Advantages:  Uses the cutting edge in graphics technology.
 Disadvantages:  Has little or no idea how to use the cutting edge in
    graphics technology.
 Symptoms:  Fuzzy hands, blindness
 Real Case:  When I was off duty, two user sat down in front of me at a
    DEC station 5000/200s whose systems were reconfiguring.  I suppressed
    my laughter while, for twenty minutes, they sat down and did their best
    to act like they were doing exactly what they wanted to do, even though
    they couldn't log in.

6.  The Miracle Worker
   "But it worked yesterday!"

 Advantages:  Apparently has remarkable luck when you're not around.
 Disadvantages:  People get annoyed when scons use the word "horse puckey."
 Symptoms:  Loses all ability to do the impossible when you're standing
    beside them.
 Real Case:  At least 3 users have claimed that they've loaded IBM
    WordPerfect from Macintosh disks.

7.  The Taskmaster
   "Well, this is a file in MacWrite.  Do you know how I can upload it
    to MUSIC, transfer it over to UNIX from there, download it onto an
    IBM, convert it to WordPerfect and put it in three-column format?"

 Advantages:  Bold new challenges.
 Disadvantages:  Makes one wish to be a garbage collector.
 Symptoms:  An inability to keep quiet, tendency to want to make machines
    do things they don't want to do.
 Real Case:  One user tried to get a scon to find out what another person's
    email address was even though the user didn't know his target's home
    system, account name, or real name.

8.  The Maestro
   "Well, first I sat down, like this.  Then I logged on, like this.  After
    that, I typed in my password, like this, then I..."

 Advantages:  Willing to show you exactly what led up to the error.
 Disadvantages:  For five or six hours.
 Symptoms:  Selective deafness to the phrase, "Okay, okay, but what was
    the ERROR?" and a strong fondness for the phrase, "Well, I'm getting
    to that."
 Real Case:  I once had to spendhalf an hour looking over a user's shoulder
    while they continuously retrieved a document into itself and denied that
    they did it (the user was complaining that their document was 87 copies
    of the same thing).

9.  The Princess
   "I need a Mac, and someone's got the one I reserved, would you please
    garrote him and put him in the paper recycling bin?"

 Advantages:  Flatters you with their high standards for your service.
 Disadvantages:  Impresses you with their obliviousness to other people
    on this planet.
 Symptoms:  Inability to communicate except through complaining.
 Real Case:  One asked a scon to remove the message of the day because he
    didn't like it.