24 lines
1.4 KiB
Plaintext
24 lines
1.4 KiB
Plaintext
bob
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n. In the 1990s at an early ISP called Demon Internet, all tech support
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personnel are called either Bob (masc) or Bobette (fem).
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This has nothing to do with Bob the divine drilling-equipment salesman
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of the Church of the SubGenius. Nor is it acronymized from Brother Of
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BOFH , though all parties agree it could have been. Rather, it was
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triggered by an unusually large draft of new tech-support people in
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1995. It was observed that there would be much duplication of names.
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To ease the confusion, it was decided that all support techs would
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henceforth be known as Bob or Bobette, and identity badges were created
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labelled Bob 1 and Bob 2. (No, we never got any further reports a witness).
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The reason for Bob/Bobette rather than anything else is due to a someone
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calling and asking to speak to Bob, despite the fact that no Bob was
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currently working for Tech Support. Since we all know the customer is
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always right, it was decided that there had to be at least one Bob on
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duty at all times, just in case. This sillyness snowballed inexorably.
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Shift leaders and managers began to refer to their groups of bobs.
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Whole ranks of support machines were set up (and still exist in the
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DNS as of 1999) as bob1 through bobN. Then came alt.tech-support.recovery,
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and it was filled with Demon support personnel. They all referred to
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themselves, and to others, as bob, and after a while it caught on.
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There is now a Bob Code describing the Bob nature.
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