Category: Books

The other day I came across the classic “The Bastard Operator From Hell“. I don’t think that anybody knows how many of the BOFH stories were ever written, but this site has a good collection of them.

For those of you, who haven’t heard about BOFH, Wikipedia provides a good summary:

The Bastard Operator From Hell (BOFH) is a fictional rogue computer operator who takes out his anger on users and others who pester him with their computer problems, uses his expertise against his enemies and manipulates his employer.
Several other people have written stories about BOFHs, but those by Simon Travaglia are considered canonical. The BOFH stories were originally posted in 1992 to Usenet by Travaglia, with some being reprinted in Datamation. They were published weekly from 1995 to 1999 in Network Week. Since 2000 they have been published regularly in The Register (UK). Several collections of the stories have been published as books.
By extension, the term is also used to refer to any system administrator who displays the qualities of the original.
The early accounts of the BOFH took place in a university; later the scenes were set in an office workplace. In 2000 (BOFH 2k), the BOFH and his pimply-faced youth (PFY) assistant moved to a new company.

If tech humor in the office is your thing, have a look at Dilbert comic strips as well.