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