Your average rocket scientist is a finely-tuned intellectual instrument which can make beautiful music if properly cared for. There are a few guidelines, however, which one should follow in order to evoke the most ethereal and inspired tones.

First, they need to have room to be creative. This means that it is up to you to keep up with the picayune details of life for them. You must know where their meeting is, what they are required to take with them, and how much time is necessary for them to get there so you can shove them out the door on schedule. It will also help if you can remember which badge they should be wearing and where they parked their car.

When they are not in meetings, you will have your work cut out for you keeping up with them. Rocket scientists are independent critters by nature and have a tendency to wander if not leashed. This requires that you bring all your training skills to bear on the situation.

Rocket scientists do not understand, "Please let me know where you're going in case I need to find you." You may as well be speaking Klingon. They do, however, understand this sentence: "Mr. Bossman stopped by your desk; he wanted you to personally explain your cosmic vortex theories to our visiting CEO but you were MIA." Once a rocket scientist is properly impressed with the need for one's secretary to know one's whereabouts at all times, keeping up with him/her is generally no problem.

From time to time you must remind them of their brilliance. Not often, of course; you want their head to fit inside their cubicles. But when they do something really cool you must be the first to say so.

You must also be the voice of temptation. You must be the "yes" in their lives instead of the "no". When they come to your desk thinking aloud, wondering if they should finish that drawing of the airlock or take the afternoon off to go fishing, you must remind them that the Station will still be here tomorrow but the fish may not be biting by then.

Coffee and sugar are the two preferred fossil fuels necessary for rocket scientist propulsion systems. They will never have coins for the coffee machine, however. Select an appropriate container and fill it with quarters, dimes and nickels. Leave it out on your desk so they can get to it at any time of the day or night. Every morning you can remove the dollar bills which sprouted there while you were sleeping. There is nothing sadder than a dimeless rocket scientist in a deserted building in the middle of the night.

Most importantly of all, you must keep the candy dish filled. Overflowing is actually the preferred state. I keep a picture book of the Rocky Mountains under the candy dish just so the candy can spill out onto something other than the desk. They are going to dig down deep for those black jelly beans, see, and they're bound to knock all the other candy out of the dish. You will need something there to catch it.

The candy dish is where they replenish their soul and establish their self-worth. It is the watering trough where they will seek sustenance in their darkest hour. When the database has some bug they can't eradicate; when the mounting plates for the foot restraints are machined incorrectly; when the spousal unit threatens them with court action if they bring home one more piece of the Z-1 truss ... that's when they will seek to find themselves and some reassurance of their merit in the dainty antique crystal dish on your desk. You must ensure that they will find it.

You should stock jelly beans (check each bag before buying to see how many black ones it contains), lemon drops, candy corn, and orange slices. That's for starters. That will give them their USDA daily allowance of citrus and veggies. You'll need to cover the other main food groups, too, so be sure and pick up some Butterfingers or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups for protein.

Bubble gum is good; they can rot their teeth, enrich their dentist, and fix the leak in their automobile radiator all at the same time. Toffees are popular, as are caramels, butterscotch, and Jolly Ranchers. All guaranteed to stick in the teeth and remove those pesky fillings. Around Hallowe'en they go nuts for the little sugar pumpkins. And you can never go wrong with chocolate.

Snickers, Milky Way (you can now buy Milky Way Lite, with half the fat content so they can eat twice as much), Hershey's assortment containing Mr. Goodbar, Krackel, Milk Chocolate and Special Dark. Andes dark chocolate mints and York Peppermint Patties. Hershey's milk chocolate Kisses with almonds will disappear so fast it will make your head swim. And white chocolate ... white chocolate is guaranteed to garner at least three marriage proposals per week. Especially if you buy Hershey's Hugs (a combo of white and milk chocolate) or Cookies & Cream Nuggets.

They will gripe, they will complain, they will tell you that you are the Devil Herself for keeping all that candy on your desk. They will bitch and moan about their waistlines and their cholesterol count. But the candy will steadily disappear and you will refill the bowl several times a day. Don't forget to restock it just before you leave in the evening, too, because you can bet that two or three of them will depend on that dish to get them through the night.

Oops, gotta go. The Gamesmaster tells me we're out of Three Musketeers.