I used to be a Systems Administrator.

I’ve seen it all. I’ve done it all. I’ve met the walrus, I’ve met the clams. Hey, I met Cary Elwes, who was angry at the time. The universal user.

I’ve had bugs, all kinds. E.g.1: ants in the mail server. E.g. 2: something wicked in the backup machine. Reboot and things worked exactly once. What was it? Part of the sixth universal plot (you know the other five): the battle between hardware supplier and software vendor.

I stopwatched my life once. Summed loading times and reboot times. Multiplied it out over forty years. You don’t want to know or you’d shoot your p.c.

I don’t have to. I’ve lost myself in Juarez and I’m doing fine. I’ll be here laughing when it all ends because I’m where it won’t matter.

Philip. That’s the word to remember. No, that’s not the word. I’ll give you that later. Philip’s the person to remember, but you don’t actually have to remember him. He’ll do it for you.

Sys admins ultimately go one of two routes. They become disillusioned and blase (guess what I am). Or they become God. Guess what had happened to Philip. He became so godlike he had to go work for a software vender, so he could spread the word (no, not that one). So *he* could spread the word.

We had called the vendor. We had bought. He came to instruct us pagans.

“I am Philip,” he said, coming in our door. No vendor name. No announcement. We treated him as a Help Desk walk-in.

We didn’t know. We were so sorry. We apologized.

See, I used to care.

Dana cared. It’s because she was God too. She’d been God a long time because she knew how to do it beneficently. She also had a horse to support. For many reasons, including those, the Boss chose her to interface with the vendor rep.

Dana met Philip. Philip met Dana. In the manner of the old style sys admins, Philip was sexist. He considered it the natural order of thi