"Vernor Vinge - The Cookie Monster" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vinge Vernor)

the north slope, and maybe spot where her father still lived down there.

Meanwhile, back to work. The next six queries were easy, from people who hadnтАЩt even bothered to
read the single page of directions that came with Voxalot. Letters like those would be hard to
answer politely the thousandth time she saw them. But she would tryтАУand today she practiced with
cheerful specifics that stated the obvious and gently pointed the customers to where they could
find more. Then came a couple of brain twisters. Damn. She wouldnтАЩt be able to finish those today.
Mr. Johnson said "finish anything you start on the same day"тАУbut maybe he would let her work on
those first thing Monday morning. She really wanted to do well on the hard ones. Every day, there
would be the same old dumb questions. But there would also be hard new questions. And eventually
sheтАЩd get really, really good with Voxalot. More important, sheтАЩd get good about managing
questions and organization. So what that sheтАЩd screwed the last seven years of her life and never
made it through college? Little by little she would improve herself, till a few years from now her
past stupidities wouldnтАЩt matter anymore. Some people had told her that such things werenтАЩt
possible nowadays, that you really needed the college degree. But people had always been able to
make it with hard work. Back in the twentieth century, lots of steno pool people managed it. Dixie
Mae figured customer support was pretty much the same kind of starting point.

Nearby, somebody gave out a low whistle. Victor. Dixie Mae ignored him.

"Dixie Mae, you gotta see this."

Ignore him.

"I swear Dixie, this is a first. How did you do it? I got an incoming query for you, by name!
Well, almost."

"What!? Forward it over here, Victor."

"No. Come around and take a look. I have it right in front of me."

Dixie Mae was too short to look over the partition. Jeez.

Three steps took her into the corridor. Ulysse Green poked her head out of her cubicle, an


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inquisitive look on her face. Dixie Mae shrugged and rolled her eyes, and Ulysse returned to her
work. The sound of fingers on keys was like occasional raindrops (no Voxalots allowed in cubicle-
land). Mr. Johnson had been around earlier, answering questions and generally making sure things
were going okay. Right now he should be back in his office on the other side of the building; this
first day, you hardly needed to worry about slackers. Dixie Mae felt a little guilty about making
that a lie, but . . .

She popped into VictorтАЩs cubicle, grabbed a loose chair. "This better be good, Victor."

"Judge for yourself, Dixie Mae." He looked at his display. "Oops, I lost the window. Just a
second." He dinked around with his mouse. "So, have you been putting your name on outgoing