This may sound like a stupid question, but.....

Wed Nov 4 23:43:59 UTC 1998

Okay, I admit it.

I joined this group after a copy of the Wired article about backhoes was
forwarded to me.  My friend forwarded it something as a joke, I
believe...she certainly was surprised when I told her she had NO IDEA how
bad that was, nor some of the OTHER reasons for interruption of service
(shotgun, anyone?)

I work in telephony network management/switch surveillance, and as the
backhoes are surely a thorn in our sides (anyone know where I can get a
T-shirt?  Actually, about twelve of them...) I made the somewhat founded
assumption that this was a somewhat like-minded group.

However, I don't know the first thing about routers, LANs (other than when
ours is down) or other COMPUTER Network related issues, I'm beginning to
feel somewhat out of place.

Does anyone know if there is a telephony network operators group out there?
And how I could go about joining it?  It's not that I don't like the company
of you fine people, but I haven't the FOGGIEST idea of what the *HELL* you
are talking about.  And I really would dig being able to trade the sort of
(obviously important, even to a computer network idjit like me!) information
with people that speak MY language.

Diana