USEROLOGY
On Different Kinds of Users and How to Spot Them


The Common Idiot

The basic user. Mostly just sits in front of its monitor and drools over
some pornsite.

Typical dialogue:
U: "Machine no work."
S: "What's wrong with it?"
U: "Machine no work."
S: "Ok. Which machine do you use?"
U: "Machine no work."
S: "Right, I heard you. Where is your machine?"
U: "Machine no work!"
S: "*sigh* I'll come with you back to your room."
U: "Machine no work?"
S: "Go back to room."
U: "Go back. Room."

Frequency of appearance:
*Much* too often.

Suggested treatment:
Kill.

The Mumbler on the Treshold

Appears at the sysadmin's doorstep and speaks very, very softly. Sometimes
it's possible to get it to speak up a little. Very often, it'll go away at
the slightest provocation.

Typical dialogue:
U: "mumblemumblenetscapemumblemumblemumble"
S: "Excuse me?"
U: "mumblemumblemubleservicepackmumble"
S: "Sorry, I can't hear you."
U: "...can't start Netscape..."
S: "Try clicking on the Netscape icon."
U: "mumblemumblemumblemumblemumblemumble"

Frequency of appearance:
Much too often.

Suggested treatment:
Kill.

The Rabid Guesser

Barges into the sysadmin's room and starts spouting nonsense, usually in a
quite aggressive fashion. Has picked up a technical term or two somehow,
and blames everything on those terms.

Typical dialogue:
U: "You have to do something about the collisions on the SCSI channel!"
S: "What?"
U: "It can't go on like this, you must fix it, now!"
S: "What was the problem again?"
U: "The SCSI doesn't work, that's what. And it's slow."
S: "How can it be slow if it doesn't work?"
U: "I don't know, you're the expert, not I."
S: "What's the problem?"
U: "It's slow. Didn't you listen when I told you?"
S: "*What* is slow?"
...and so on until the sysadmin grows tired, follows the user to its
workplace and discovers that it has pulled the network cable out of the
workstation. Why it started talking about SCSI is never revealed.

Frequency of appearance:
Much too often.

Suggested treatment:
Kill.

The Economist

This is a *really* nasty one.

Typical dialogue:
U: "So, what are the options for the new server?"
S: "Well, first we have the Dungheap MT. It's larger than our computer
room, needs the Niagara Falls to power it, it's ugly, it laughs evilly if
you get too close to its console, it reeks of brimstone, Greenpeace and
Exxon have made a joint statement cursing the moment it was created, it's
illegal to import to most of the civilised world, it has a habit of sending
nasty email to CEOs, its mother was a hamster and its father smelled of
elderberries. And it doesn't do what we need anyway. Secondly, we have the
Frotzpock 3000. It's small, elegant, doubles as a coatrack, draws its power
from the Earth's magnetic field, it sings cute little songs, spreads
happiness wherever it goes, cleans the floor, washes the dishes, rubs your
back, reminds you of your wife's birthday, does everything we need
perfectly and without error and it only costs $5 more than the Dungheap."
U: "Ah, the choice is clear, then. We go with the Dungheap MT."
S: "WHAT?!"
U: "Well, you *did* say it is cheaper, didn't you?"

Frequency of appearance:
A handful per company, usually.

Suggested treatment:
Take off and nuke the site from orbit (it's the only way to be sure).

The Firm Believer in Trade Magazines

May be difficult to tell apart from the Common Idiot, but the differences
will be apparent if it ever ends up in a discussion about what sort of
equipment to purchase.

Typical dialogue:
S: "...so you see that the Frotzpock is the natural choice for us."
U: "I read a very bad review of the Frotzpock in a trade magazine. The
reviewers had great problems opening the box it came in."
S: "Well, that won't be a problem for us. I *do* know how to open cardboard
boxes."
U: "They much preferred the Dungheap 89. That one didn't need any stupid
box, it just oozed in under the door."
S: "Er, the Dungheap doesn't even do what we need the new machine for."
U: "...and DungUser Magazine said that the new version's father only
smelled *slightly* of elderberries!"

Frequency of appearance:
Much too often.

Suggested treatment:
Kill.

The Incessant Talker

Appears at the sysadmin's door, starts describing some sort of problem and
just never stops.

Typical dialogue:
U: "Hello I hope I'm not interrupting you I have this problem you see I
can't print pictures from Netscape anymore even though I could do that
yesterday and the day before and even the day before that but not last
Wednesday for some reason I think it may have had something to do with the
blackout that day don't you printers don't usually work very well without
electricity do they neither do computers for that matter I couldn't log in
at all until the power came back I must have tried at least a million
times I think well maybe not quite that many but ten thousand at least my
keyboard was all worn down so I couldn't see what it said on the keys any
more so the day after I went down to Office Supplies to get a new one and
they said I couldn't just get one I had to fill in a form first have you
heard anything that stupid don't they realise that I'm very important to
the company and do a lot of valuable work here without me nothing would get
done I tell you and of course I told them in no uncertain terms but they
just wouldn't listen to me and kept insisting that I needed that stupid
form so in the end I went to get a form but discovered that in order to get
the form you had to send a mail to someone and I couldn't send mail since
my keyboard didn't work can you believe that eventually after two days I
managed to type out the mail using only my nose you can't believe how hard
that was it took almost a whole day and after I sent the mail I was told
that I didn't really have to send it anyway since our departement has a
stack of those forms lying in the tray between the printer and the copying
machine so I went over to Bob and asked him hey Bob do you know where we
keep the printer and the copying machine and he told me that he thought
they were being repaired at the moment so I couldn't use them anyway but I
told him that I weren't going to use them I just wanted to know where they
were so that I could go here and get..."

Frequency of appearance:
Much too common.

Suggested treatment:
Let it be. It's fairly easy to ignore, and as long as it's there no other
users can get in.

The Fixer

Suffers from the delusion that it is capable of fixing problems by itself,
thus turning mishaps into fullblown disasters. Often masquerades as a
sysadmin.

Typical dialogue:
U: "The mailserver was running slowly, so I thought I'd have a look at it.
I saw that it was really busy relaying mail, so I thought I'd remove some
old processes that nobody used any more. But as soon as I killed this
really old process kalled 'init' the machine crashed!"

Frequency of appearance:
Much too common.

Suggested treatment:
Kill.

The Drone With The Write-Once Brain

A fact once got stuck in its brain. Since then it uses said fact for
everything.

Typical dialogue:
U: "My machine is slow. There is a large process running on my system. Kill
it."
S: "Um, that's your X server. Do you *really* want me to kill that? And
it's not really that big, it's just fake memory."
U: "Yes. Kill it."



U: "My machine has crashed. There must be a large process running. Kill
it."
S: "How would I do that if the machine has crashed?"
U: "Yes. Kill it."



U: "My machine is on fire. There must be a large process running. Kill it."
S: "Don't you think it'd be better to call the fire brigade?"
U: "Yes. Kill it."

Frequency of appearance:
Much too common.

Suggested treatment:
Kill.

The User

If you find one of these, consider yourself *very* lucky.

Typical dialogue:
U: "Excuse me?"
S: "Yes?"
U: "I have a slight problem. I hope I'm not interrupting you?"
S: "Not at all. What's the problem?"
U: "It's the BogoGraphics package. I'm trying to use one of the new
functions in version three, but I can't get it to work. I've checked that
there is enough memory, the permissions on all the files look correct and I
installed it exactly according to the instructions in the README file. I do
get an error message. It's not very informative, but I wrote it down for
you anyway. I tried looking it up in the manual, but it's not there. And
the FAQ doesn't say anything about version three yet. Do you think you
could have a look at it?"
S: "Marry me!"

Frequency of appearance:
Believed to be mythical.

Suggested treatment:
Don't let him/her get away!
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