Robyn’s First Rule of Computing
Be Paranoid and Compulsive
Back in the Dinosaur Ages of Computing, say, early 1980’s, I was the got-to chick in my department for unofficial computer support. I say “unofficial” because my actual job title was Cartographer I. The State of Alaska didn’t create a position for microcomputer tech support until I left the state.
(Ironically, they based the official job description on everything I had done in that position.)
Computers were just starting to make an appearance on the office scene and as I was only one of two people in the entire office who actually knew anything about these new machines, it fell to me to get everything up and running.
New users didn’t even know about the necessity of making backups of their data. So, I created a batch file that ran every time a user logged on to their computers. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of asking, as part of the process, if they wanted to make a backup. If they said yes, they were told to insert a disk, and it would make an incremental backup of their files.
My mistake was in giving them a choice.
It wasn’t long before somebody’s machine would burp, and I’d get a call to help. The first thing I did in those MS-DOS days was to reboot their computer, only to be greeted by the question “You have…
