by Rob Kolstad
<kolstad@usenix.org>

Rob Kolstad is president of BSDI and a long-time USENIX member, having served as chair of several conferences and workshops, director on the Board, and editor of ;login:. He is also head coach of the USA programming team.

Competence

I just love dealing with competent people and organizations. It's truly a joy. Brief conversations like this are the highlight of my life these days:

"How do I fix my frazzlegadget?"

"Oh, just turn the montipeter gear three times counterclockwise."

"Thanks!"

"Glad to be of service."

Regrettably, I fear that the computer revolution (along with the TRILLION DOLLAR INTERNET OPPORTUNITY [tm]) has ruined it for me. No longer can I call my ISP for support and talk to someone with a clue. Instead, I must hang on hold listening to -- in the case of my current ISP -- whiny wailing violins playing some wretched piece
of classical music that was emphatically not in my mother's collection when I was growing up.

After five, maybe ten, minutes of this auditory torture, I get to speak to a Real Human Being (tm). Unfortunately, this human being's greatest strength is patience with Idiots (tm).

"Have you rebooted your computer?" is a typical cheerful question.

"Oh, I can't help you with anything as technical as DNS, let's fill out this service request form together."

Sometimes it's enough to make me puke.

Last month was interesting. "I am calling to report that your e-mail server is down and no mail is being delivered to it."

"I am sorry you're having trouble, sir. I can guarantee that we can fix that problem by
. . . oh . . . let's say next Tuesday, four days from now."

"!@#$!@%!@#$." And then I feel bad, because my mother taught me better than to swear at total strangers (as if swearing at your best friends was somehow a better thing).

I think that competence -- or at least its perception -- is one of the things that binds software people and system administrators (and their ilk) together into a sort of huge brotherhood (siblinghood? O where to stop . . .).

In fact, this competence might even be causing some of our mutual problems these days:

"Oh shoot. I need this garbage disposal on the net right NOW."

"Don't fret. I'll call Sue; she can network anything."

And, of course, Sue (a.k.a. Ms. Johnni-on-the-spot) is loathe to admit any potential path to failure. "Sure, I'll stay up tonight and skip all my meals and my brother's
wedding tomorrow so that I can make up for your lack of planning! Thanks for this opportunity to serve you!"

I think this scenario, while exaggerated in a certain Dilbert-ish sense, nevertheless happens far too frequently in our industry. I think that it causes stress and creates a sort of hopeless set of ever-escalating expectations from which escape is impossible without changing companies -- and I think that's unhealthy.

On the other hand, it beats a cheery "Please reboot your computer, sir," all to hell.

Thanks to everyone that is maintaining high standards of service in this increasingly automated world. You make living and working worthwhile.