The Computer Goddesses (Part 2) by Barbara Ardinger,Ph.D.

Note. The term Found Goddess was created by Morgan Grey and Julia Penelope for their wonderful book, Found Goddesses: Asphalta to Viscera (New Victoria Publishers, 1980). I started Finding goddesses-Nerdix, Compuquia, Hostilia, and Whizziwig-when I was working on a Y2K project for a major corporation. I Found the other goddesses described here when I was writing a book on the subject, Finding New Goddesses (ECW Press, 2003). The newest goddesses are Fubar-Ma and Linker Bell, who have just now appeared. Well, maybe they've been standing around and/or hovering; I just got them down on paper.

Those who have worked in offices during the past decade or two have become all too familiar with the Wyrd Sisters of Office Automation. Formuleria (rhymes with hysteria) is the Empress of Excel, far-reaching goddess of spreadsheets, workbooks, databases, and complification in all its varieties. The goddess of word processing is Typoreina (typo-raina), Mistress of both Word and WordPerfect, who has been clocked at 367 wpm. Typoreina can read anyone's sloppy handwriting, patiently makes endless revisions, knows what all the icons on the toolbar mean, can set tab stops in seconds, and talks to Herself in the bathroom. The third, and eldest, sister is Folder-holder-older-molder, goddess of file and labyrinth management. This multi-tentacled goddess and her sisters are the daughters of Sheela-na-Gig and C. Northcote Parkinson, formulator of Parkinson's Law, which states that "work expands to fill the time available for its completion."  I propose a corollary: work in an office expands as management invests in computers with sufficient memory to accommodate it. We may propitiate the Wyrd Sisters of Office Automation with donuts, crullers, and croissants and (depending on what time it is) either fancy coffee or Coca-Cola, but we can never please them.

We must also remember to give adequate attention to Crash, the sisters' mischievous little brother. He's at his most lively when Mercury is retrograde, during which time he practices juggling while whizzing around the room on his in-line skates. He tosses bits, bytes, and planets around with great audacity and has absolutely no care when he drops one.

Always seeking entertainment, this lad is famous for his pranks, best played when we're under-deadline and over-budget. All we can do is utter spells of protection against Crash. Try this one. First, using thick black chalk, draw a circle in the air around your whole computer system, including the printer. Burn a little frankincense in the room or wave some sage, and dance three times widdershins around your workstation or desk, chanting all the while:

 Crash, Crash,
 Go away.
 Don't come back
 On any day!

With all your heart and soul, and from the top of your head all the way down to your toenails, believe this. It might work.

Another computer goddess well known in offices is Hostilia. Like the frustrated fellow in the famous downloadable video, She Who Makes Things Go Wrong tempts us to pound on our monitors and keyboards, click-click-click our mice, and kick our CPU's. Hostilia is a bad goddess and requires special discipline. Reader, don't invoke Her. Take Prozac instead. And keep up the good work.

Taking orders from any idiot who can click up a print dialog box, Fontine, Goddess of the Printer, is probably the hardest working of the computer goddesses. She accepts all input, spools everything away, queues everything up, buffers everything into shape, and-when the proper time arrives-delivers page after page of Her perfect product, making our pathetic efforts come out as gorgeous documents.

But She's not as young as She looks, and She's gone through many changes of life. In the olden days, people scorned Her and called Her Dot. Back then She slaved for us at a ferocious rate, and when we ordered Her to produce in "letter quality," She had to do everything three times over to meet our exalted standards. Sometimes Fontine spits ink on paper, sometimes She mysteriously uses bubbles in Her work, sometimes She bursts into Technicolor radiance. We know Her best, however, in Her speediest Aspect, wherein She works Her mighty laser magic and puts out the best show in the world.

Reader, if you have any conscience at all, give thanks to Fontine every day for Her thankless hard work. And at the end of the day, when She's not hard at labor, allow Her to rest in peace. Let Fontine dream Her dreams of days gone by when She knew true love and didn't have to work so hard. Let Her rest, secure in Her knowledge that She is a veritable earth angel without Whose blessed touch we would remain unprinted, undocumented, and invisible. And remember-it is Fontine Who makes us look good on paper. Give Her praise with the following words:

Sweet Fontine, office goddess without attitude,
we give You big-time gratitude
for printers always on, never in desuetude.
Generous Fontine, bless us with your happy promptitude.

Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D. (www.barbaraardinger.com), is the author of Pagan Every Day: Finding the Extraordinary in Our Ordinary Lives (RedWheel/Weiser, 2006), a unique daybook of daily meditations, stories, and activities. Her earlier books are Finding New Goddesses, Quicksilver Moon, Goddess Meditations, and Practicing the Presence of the Goddess. Her day job is freelance editing for people who don't want to embarrass themselves in print. Barbara lives in southern California. To purchase a signed copy of Finding New Goddesses, just send Barbara an email at bawriting@earthlink.net.