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I am the Guru
by Mike Morris
November 2, 2000
Some time ago, I was a humble clerk in a computer-illiterate company. Sure, we had a mainframe, but the programmers spoke in tongues, rarely communicating with us mere mortals. The purpose of the mainframe was to give my boss headaches. His job was to pass them on to me, and my job was to be at the bottom of the totem pole.
As the least important department, we were chosen to try out the new PCs. For a whole day, three very young technicians connected and fitted, and stared at meaningless symbols on the monitor. I asked one of them what he was doing.
“Burning them in,” the kid muttered darkly.
It always flows downhill
They left bits of wire and electrical tape all over the floor. My boss told me to clean up, and I rashly asked “why me?”
This was my new job, he told me: find out about the new machines, and pass on my wisdom to the rest of the staff. He was content, for once, figuring that the company would soon abandon these little monsters, together with me.
He told me – happily – that the instruction manuals had not yet arrived. But as he understood it, PCs practically ran themselves. He left, tripping over a computer cable on his way out the door.
That evening, I stared vacantly at the empty monitor. A printer sat on the desk, but it stubbornly refused to print. Each computer came with a floppy disk, labeled ‘DOS’ and ‘Menu’. I shoved my floppy in the little slot in the front of the computer, but nothing happened. After an hour, I turned the thing off. Later, little white symbols marched across my dreams.
Signs of life
The next day, without much hope, I switched my computer on. It surprised me with a little cough, and a green light went on above the floppy disk - which I had forgotten to remove. My computer spoke to me with meaningless words on the screen. At least they were in some form of English.
Then, with a flourish, a menu appeared. It said that the F1 through F12 keys could be used to write letters, produce spreadsheets, draw pictures, or play games. Fantastic! I decided to write a letter. ‘Invalid path,’ my computer told me several times. It clearly wasn’t going to change its mind.
OK, let’s play some games. ‘Invalid path,’ it kept repeating, and occasionally ‘invalid key.’ In desperation I ventured down the corridor and snagged a mainframe programmer who consented to donate a small amount of his valuable time. He stood in my cubicle, looking wisely at the flickering screen.
“Burnt in?” he asked knowingly.
“I think so,” I answered, wondering whether he meant me or the machine.
RTFM
“Hm,” he said after getting the same answers. Eventually he told me that he had some real work to do.
“Just read the manual,” he advised.
He knew no more than me! Even programmers had no idea how to work the thing. In desperation, I pounded on all the keys on the keyboard. Finally, the escape key cleared the screen, except for the words ‘Enter Command>.’
“Do something,” I typed commandingly.
“Command unrecognized>,” my computer replied.
“Letter,” I told it.
“Spreadsheet,” I implored.
“Go to hell,” I threatened.
“Command unrecognized>” it kept repeating.
Doh!
“Help me,” I finally typed, resignedly.
“Me unrecognized,” it said.
“Aagh!” I growled, and then, “Me?”
I looked at the screen, and then typed “help,” very cautiously.
The machine went berserk, scrolling words off the top of the screen faster than I could read. Finally it stopped, exhausted, and I read the last screenful very carefully. It told me how to expand the menu.
“Help menu,” I typed, and it told me about menus, in just over a screenful of words. If only I could print this.
All you have to do is ask
‘Help print?’ I asked, and it helped. I was on a roll.
For the next few days I lived in the office, scouring the supply cabinets, where shrink-wrapped manuals and diskettes hid in boxes addressed to my boss. A few weeks later, my little computer was my personal slave, answering only to my secret password, and I was lying in wait for a VP.
“Do you want a copy of my progress report?” I asked one, as he swept past. He was astonished. He listened, though, as I told him what my computer could do.
“Memo me!” he said, as he stalked off.
Heh, heh
I put graphs and boxes and italics and tables and pictures into that memo. My computer numbered pages and printed headings and footnotes. It produced an Index and a Table of Contents for me. It checked spelling and grammar, and double-spaced everything. Finally it churned out five copies of a novel sized memo, two of which I gave to the VP. He almost threw it away, but he liked the ideas buried under the fancy fonts and pretty pictures.
So now, I have my own department. The company has installed a network of PCs for me, and every year they get cleverer and faster. We have Windows and Office and Mail and more. We have the Internet, which I and my followers guard jealously. I have my big office, and my diplomas (which I print myself), and my fancy nameplate. I sit in my big office, and look at my diplomas, and chant my mantra.
“I have the knowledge. I have the power. I am the Guru. Hummm, hummm.”
(Mike Morris has been a computer consultant for more than 20 years.)
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