I very much sympathize, empathize, with Bayla Singer and her feeling about having to deal with computers and computer professionals. I am always intimidated by their apparent superiority. Like Bayla, I do my homework and I try to understand the systems that I use. Nevertheless, much of what I am doing remains a mystery to me and , when something goes wrong, I have no way to fix it. Not only that, when something goes wrong, I frequently find myself ill-equipped with the necessary vocabulary to explain to computer professionals what it is that Is going wrong and what it is that I want. Now, this is not all the fault of people like Bayla and me. We are the end users and without us there would be no computer professionals. It is the end users who provide the jobs for computer professionals, not the other way round. So I feel that it behooves most systems people to spend less time belittling the ignorant (but willing-to-learn) user, and more time being helpful. I used to be a macro economist and spent my life working with obscure models and concepts, just as obscure and arcane as anything a computer person can come up with. Yet, I do not recall my colleagues or me ever delighting in the humiliation or obstruction of the users of our charts and models. The true professional is someone who can do the work and apply it to real life in a usable way. This is true in all disciplines, as far as I am concerned. It is user demand that drives computers, not the other way round. So the user should be treated with respect and consideration simply for "market" reasons even if plain courtesy is not enough of a reason. Peace, Anthea Tillyer ABTHC@CUNYVM City University of New York