to the computer industry? While I don't have any studies to back me up, I have made some observations over the years, both of myself and of others. Yes, I'll admit I was one of these annoying people in a past life, and I'll share with you how I recovered to become a successful professional. There are a couple of things that contribute to the computer jerk phenomenon. Some of them are self-induced, and some are environmental. Some computer jerks are actually nurtured (usually unconsciously) by peers and leaders, though people in these positions often have the power to turn them around. By examining these traits and influences, my hope is that you'll be able to help someone you know-or perhaps even yourself-to become a more balanced, useful computer person, rather than a computer jerk. In my opinion, the primary influences fall into three principal categories: Behavioral Everything we do is based on habit, including our patterns of interaction. If you're used to dealing with people a certain way, you will tend to stick to these patterns. However, that's not to say they cannot be broken. We deal with differ- ent types of people in different ways. For example, we typically treat women differently from men, and we treat people in positions of power differently from How Not to Be a Computer Jerk our peers. While many people will argue that they treat everyone the same, the simple truth is that they do not. The very fact that you have friends indicates that you somehow treat them differently from others. One of the ways in which computer jerks operate is through constant attempts to let other people know how smart they are. These people usually are very intel- ligent, but for some reason, they seem to need to prove it to everyone around them. Unfortunately, they go about it the wrong way. There are two ways to look smarter than other people: Be smarter than the people around you Knowledge is different from intelligence. Knowing a lot of things is not the same as being able to troubleshoot a problem. Memorizing a book on