Help Desk

A large part of my job is working the “help desk” for UNIX users.

I have to get something off my chest. Please note that this is addressed in the second person, as if I’m speaking to the nincompoops involved. No offense intended to barnson.org readers.

Sometimes, dear user, the problem isn’t the machine. It isn’t your environment. It isn’t the configuration settings, or even the hardware. It’s that YOU ARE TOO FLAMING STUPID TO LIVE. Yes, you read that correctly. You are both stupid AND ignorant. You think you can waltz into an environment which is new to you and have everything YOUR WAY. Guess what? YOUR WAY IS STUPID, YOU EGG-SUCKING NIMRODIC BOOB! Get with the program! Get some training on the operating system you are trying to manipulate, rather than ASSUMING IT’S GOING TO WORK LIKE FRICKING MICROSOFT WINDOWS!

Where did you get your technical UNIX training? Wal-Mart? How tough is it to get it through your thick skull into your pureed brain that this AIN’T YOUR MOMMA’S OPERATING SYSTEM. It’s UNIX! It’s big, powerful, and MADE TO DO A JOB MICROSOFT WINDOWS CAN’T DO. It’s like going from driving your momma’s Hyundai to getting behind the wheel of a big rig with a 13 METRIC TONS OF CARGO. IF YOU DRIVE IT WITHOUT TRAINING, YOU’RE GONNA BREAK SOMETHING AND PROBABLY HURT YOURSELF.

Do the world, and the company, a favor. Stop your job-hopping, half-thought-out training regimen. Sit down with a real UNIX operating system for a couple of weeks, and FIGURE OUT YOUR OWN DANG PROBLEMS. I’m not here to wipe your butt. I’m not here to fix your .profile. I’m here for when the FIT HITS THE SHAN and the MACHINE BREAKS. I’m like the mechanic for your big rig. I’M NOT THE DRIVER, MR. USER, YOU ARE. You’re supposed to be the engineer, the college-degreed master of your domain! Why the heck are you asking this COLLEGE DROPOUT TO DO YOUR JOB FOR YOU?

Get some training. Get over yourself. You’re one tiny employee in an enterprise of thousands of people. Your issue isn’t “Severity-1, Critical”. That’s RESERVED FOR STUFF THAT, WHEN IT BREAKS, HURTS LOTS AND LOTS OF PEOPLE. Try a severity of “minor”, or “normal”, instead. That’s how big your problem REALLY is, you ostensibly Hephaestian, ham-handed, interloping, warthog-faced buffoon.

That said, I recognize your problem is important. I will address it as soon as I finish wiping the butts and noses of the fifty people in line ahead of you, who think their problems are equally colossal. Pray you get a fresh hankie instead of a used one, and that I use it in an order pleasing to you. Thank you.

— Matthew P. Barnson Engineer, UNIX Operations SomeBigCorp, USA