Today I am the “P” in PEBKAC

What He Said has a little-used PEBKAC category. The acronym stands for "Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair" and is a favourite of the beleaguered computer support technician, universally known as the "help desk guy," or simply, Nick Burns.

But pinheaded PEBKAC-ery is not restricted to the casual neophyte computer user: far from it. The more contact one endures with one of these infernal transistorized contraptions, the more likely one will have "comma" and "moron" appended to one's name.

The prosecution wishes to submit into evidence...today. A user called down, claiming that her reports were not printing. Now, the reason could be any one of a thousand gremlins, and all fingers initially point outward: bollixed report settings, printer mis-configuration, network hiccups, cockeyed account permissions, jerked cables, or nine-hundred and ninety-five other varieties of pickle.

Then we discovered that the reports were being printed, but on a printer at the far end of the College. So at least there was a "workaround" solution should the problem persist: "walkaround."

Of course the printer routing file asserted that reports for this user should be printed to the printer in her area rather than the one along the hall, around the corner, down the stairs, and through reception.

It was at approximately the time of this discovery that a sharp crack could be heard emanating from my brain, or at least from the bone that frequently occupies that same space.

A few weeks before, I had "fixed" the report in question so that it would print in entirety, instead of just the first row. As part of that "fix," I hard-coded (a programming term that describes the act of driving nails through a bearing to affix a wheel to its axle) the printer for that report. And not just any printer, but the one along the hall, around the corner, down the stairs, and through reception.

Today I am the PEBKING of PEBKAC.