Sometimes it really does happen.
Posted by Dixielandblues@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 130 comments
Urgent ticket that has been escalated via back channels - that is, a personal email from one senior person to the CIO about the unacceptable service in getting their personal printer fixed. This leads to a series of "get it done now" conversations from CIO to Head of It to the Ops manager.
Ticket comes to me, because yes as your senior infrastructure & operations technical resource I tend to be the dumping ground for such things, on the basis that I resolve them so I can get back to making sure the entire server estate is stable because I'm in the midst of an ongoing major restructure & migration project that could potentially take down everything. Minor things like that. Not that I'm venting a little, heavens no.
Perish the thought.
Hrmph.
Anyway, after much back and forth we finally agree a date & time (15:00 on a Friday) for me to attend the VIP's office, at a remote site. I show up there with everything I think I could possibly need, short of an entire new printer.
I'm told the VIP has already left for the day - in fact, they left at around 9:00 in the morning. Huh. Fortunately, one of the office staff is able to find a spare key to their personal office. I walk in, switch the printer on, and print.
It. Was. Turned. Off.
The whole time. The user never turned it on. That was it. The whole problem. Weeks of calls, meetings, politics, argh...
I will admit took a certain amount of petty satisfaction in stealing a gummy worm from the bowl on their desk on my way out. And yes - it was delicious.
....Also quite chewy, to be fair.
The_Real_Flatmeat@reddit
Replace his gummy bears with Haribos
WokeAssMessiah@reddit
The gold standard gummy? No way, that MF is getting his Haribo replaced with Black Forest
Menard42@reddit
Sugar free.
syntaxerror53@reddit
Chilli flavor
Menard42@reddit
Nah, the sugar free gummies will give you hardcore scoots if you eat enough.
Sensitive_Hat_9871@reddit
I told this story once before, but it is applicable here...
I was the IT supervisor for a court. One day I get a frantic phone call from our largest courtroom. Big important very public trial is underway and a key evidence presentation device isn't working.
I walk into the courtroom. All eyes - lawyers, judge, jury, news reporters, and spectators - are on me. I walk up to the device (a document camera) and see that it is simply switched off. I turn it on and the document magically appears on the viewscreens. I then turn around and silently began to exit the courtroom when the judge asks outloud in front of everyone, "What did you do to fix it?" I stopped, turned around and respectfully replied, "I turned it on.", then exited the courtroom.
I guess the judge afterward had a discussion with my boss. Boss told me judge was apparently embarrased at my answer and to come up with a better answer next time.
CharcoalGreyWolf@reddit
Better answer?
“The device was apparently not receiving power due to a switch being in an incorrect position. I repositioned the button, which allowed the flow of electricity to resume”.
KelemvorSparkyfox@reddit
"I reinitialised the secondary power coupling."
dustojnikhummer@reddit
And reversed the polarity of the main deflector.
DaHick@reddit
I would have used the word "functionality" instead of "polarity".
dustojnikhummer@reddit
Well, I was making a Star Trek joke.
Puzzleheaded-Pen8587@reddit
I have to turn in the receipt from Toshe Station, where I picked up the power converters.
dustojnikhummer@reddit
Did you get me those self sealing stem bolts I asked for you?
syntaxerror53@reddit
Closed all the Windows and rebooted the device.
Think most people know that, so acceptable answer.
riotz1@reddit
Best answer, tell the defendant they really ought to get a smarter attorney before going any further
paishocajun@reddit
They didn't mention whose side was trying to present, could have been prosecution. In which case, I feel like the public should get a refund for the tax money wasted on that salary
Emerald_Encrusted@reddit
Not all prosecutors are publicly funded. He didn't specify what kind of legal case this was.
Z4-Driver@reddit
I am thrilled to announce that I have successfully spearheaded the end-to-end activation and strategic deployment of this initiative, driving immediate operational readiness and setting the stage for scalable impact.
Dixielandblues@reddit (OP)
Hey now, none of that language in here! We are good, honest. God-fearing technical folk round here, not project managers!
Said in jest, of course. Project managers can be scary.
vaildin@reddit
Reconfigured power input selection toggle.
-MazeMaker-@reddit
If the judge didn't want to be embarrassed, maybe he should've let you make your exit after fixing it in 2 seconds.
jameson71@reddit
Why am I not surprised that a judge can’t handle being told the truth.
bopeepsheep@reddit
Happened to an ex ... but the venue was the main lecture theatre of a Computing Science department, and the authority figure was a senior academic. :D
super5aj123@reddit
As a current CS student, it's really amazing how little computing skills many CS students have. I've had to walk people through basic stuff like pip installing libraries, or cloning a Git repo because they couldn't figure it out on their own, it's insane. And I'm not talking about Freshmen here, but Juniors and Seniors.
agoia@reddit
Or just basic logic. Interviewing them is fun when they fall on their faces attempting to describe how to make a pb&j sandwich.
super5aj123@reddit
I've actually never heard that one, is it just an "are you capable of reasoning under pressure" question, or is there more to it?
agoia@reddit
Somewhat, it is also a test of being able to describe something to someone unfamiliar with the material, like relating technical stuff to non-technical people.
That and breaking down a multi-step process to make it descriptive and easily understandable.
Basically a litmus test asking "can you talk to an end user without sounding insane?"
Puzzleheaded-Joke-97@reddit
I tried to get into MIT but only got accepted into Columbia School of Engineering & Applied Science. At the time someone quipped that Columbia's graduates were the people who could explain what MIT's graduates were saying!
super5aj123@reddit
I see, makes sense. Converting programmer jargon into normal person speak is definitely an incredibly needed skill for a programmer.
faithfulheresy@reddit
I actually had this in an interview once. It was a BLT rather than PBJ though. :P
I thought it was a bit of a strange question at first, but it made sense as I considered my answer.
agoia@reddit
Oh man that would be even harder trying to describe what bacon is and how to cook it.
OldTimeConGoer@reddit
I have a CS degree and I have no idea what a "Git repo" is or why I should care.
Then again I got my degree in 1978.
gammalsvenska@reddit
git is the current iteration of version control; it replaced SVN, which replaced CVS, which replaced RCS, which replaced SCCS.
SCCS was released in 1977, so old enough. :-)
super5aj123@reddit
Git is probably the most common form of version control nowadays. While I'm not expecting CS students to know everything about it off the top of their head, my main concern is that they couldn't read the docs and figure it out. Especially since you don't even have to use a CLI for GitHub, which is the service we were using, there's a GUI for it both standalone and as part of VS Code.
faithfulheresy@reddit
I had to teach a group of CS graduates how IP addressing and subnets work. Apparently it had never been covered in four years of study. Or even mentioned.
super5aj123@reddit
I obviously can't speak for every university, but mine definitely didn't have networking as a required course. If I wasn't a general computer nerd, I'd probably have no idea about how networking works. TBH I think part of it is that there's just so much that needs taught, and it's pretty difficult to fit every segment of CS into a 4 year degree, especially once you add in gen-eds.
faithfulheresy@reddit
Sorry, I'm pretty sure I'm suffering from a bit of cultural misunderstanding here. Gen-eds?
super5aj123@reddit
General Education classes, basically classes unrelated to your major, but you are forced to take for a more well rounded education. They usually make up about 1/3 to 1/2 of your degree. For example, I had to take classes that fit categories like English Composition, Math, Physical and Biological Science, Social and Behavioral Science, and Arts and Humanities (all category names I took straight from my college's degree progress page).
faithfulheresy@reddit
Ahh, we don't have those. That's what high school is for.
fencepost_ajm@reddit
Cue references to mathematicians and arithmetic...
AdreKiseque@reddit
I had to show a classmate how to ctrl+alt+delete and log out. It was an introductory course, granted, but she has apparently never gad to input a keycombo like that before.
bopeepsheep@reddit
I'm just parent to a recent CS graduate (and ex to the aforementioned staff member - who unfortunately has a doctorate, aka nothing that can be explained easily to me), but I know some of this!
Offspring noted in the first year at uni that "quite a few" undergrads on that course thought IT and CS were interchangeable, and very few had ever built a PC, knew what Github is, etc.
New_Crow3284@reddit
Did that judge just ask you to lie to him next time?
bob152637485@reddit
The irony...
megared17@reddit
Well, I would assume the technician wasn't under oath or anything.
mrhashbrown@reddit
Whole truth and nothing but the truth, unless I embarrass you.
RIP_Sinners@reddit
What a slanderous attack on the court! The judge requested a better answer, not a lie!
IslandHistorical952@reddit
Simply a more convenient truth.
cobra93360@reddit
That reminds me of the time I deliberately embarrassed a Phd while she was teaching a class. I got called to a class once, the very full-of-herself instructor (with a PHD at the end of her name) said her mouse was broken. That room had Nova stations, they have a glass portion in the desktop surface. I walked in the room and immediately saw the problem. This genius had set the optical mouse down on the glass and thought the mouse was broken. She began berating me as soon as I walked in with the usual "IT can't fix anything, our equipment is junk, blah, blah, blah". Classroom full of students. Normally I would pretend there was a problem with the equipment so as to "save face" for the teacher, but not if you light into me as soon as I get there. I held eye contact with her as I walked over to the "broken" mouse, picked up the mouse with an exaggerated two finger grip and set it down on the solid portion of the desk and began making circles, the projector was on, the whole class saw this.
Yes, I got chewed out.
But it was worth it.
Grillmeister5000@reddit
call it a "loose connection". That's technically the definition of a switch...
Paladine_PSoT@reddit
Response: "Your honor, what do they teach first year legal students about asking questions they don't know the answer to in open court?"
purple_hamster66@reddit
“It’s technical, and I wouldn’t want to waste the court’s time describing it, but if it happens again, the first thing is to tap this little button to start the diagnostic process.”
musthavesoundeffects@reddit
“I turned it on, your honor.”
OddRevolution7888@reddit
OMG. Hahahahaha.
You'd think a judge should know to never ask a question without already knowing the answer. He set himself up for any mockery or sensitive feelings. Sheesh.
generilisk@reddit
Your new answer "I would tell you, but I won't like in a courtroom and was told 'turn it on' is unacceptable."
Geminii27@reddit
Judge should well have been embarrassed at failing to have checked if it was on or not.
kindall@reddit
"Well, being embarrassed is a natural consequence of doing something embarrassing"
AbsolutelyAri@reddit
"I did half a power cycle"
tropod@reddit
You can't handle the truth!
LeomundsTinyButt_@reddit
"I turned it on, your honor"
There, that's better
Chance-Equivalent501@reddit
Reminds me of an old Cheech and Chong routine. "Watcha doin'? Watching TV man. Ŵatchin' TV? Here man let me mess with it. [Click and sounds from a western movie.] Oh wow man! Wadge you do? I turned it on man."
Dixielandblues@reddit (OP)
Electron cascade interruption event, resolved by means of creation of a suitable physical carrier link.
Head_Razzmatazz7174@reddit
This is the kind of IT humor I need first thing in the morning. LOL
jnmtx@reddit
“May it please the court. Your honor, it turns out the camera part was switched off. The on/off switch on the device can be hard to find if you don’t know where to look. And the devices down-stream don’t exactly tell you that’s the problem. ”
DrHugh@reddit
Thirty years ago, I had a coworker on our helpline who, on his first day, couldn't figure out how to turn on the monitors at his desk.
He was let go after the probation period completed, though for other reasons.
syntaxerror53@reddit
If they were like MAC Studio Displays, could understand that. But thirty years ago were CRTs with buttons on front. So........
DrHugh@reddit
So, this ex-coworker who had problems with power buttons worked for a consulting firm. Back in the 1990s, a lot of companies would offer "consultants" -- really, skilled IT staff -- who would work for some client company. Both the ex-coworker and myself worked for such consulting firms, but two different ones. The helpline we were on didn't have any actual company employees except for the lead, who didn't take calls and do desktop support runs.
Anyway, this same ex-coworker told me how he cheated on a college class by turning in a $productivityTool file made by someone else (who was apparently great at using computers) under his own name. He thought it was OK, because he offered to do a bibliography for a paper they both had to do in an English class, and believed he got the better deal because he only needed to do the bibliography, not the whole paper, while what he got was the finished file.
What mystified my ex-coworker was that he got an A on the file, while the other guy only got a C. I said I could explain it...and ex-coworker said "Oh, you think the professor thought he could do better work than me?" and I agreed.
Totally ignored the cheating aspect, of course.
So yes, somehow he graduated college and got a job working in computers, when he couldn't even figure out how to turn on a CRT monitor.
We heard through someone who sat in on an interview ex-coworker gave after he failed the probationary period at our company (he was placed somewhere else by his firm) that he interviewed really well. Apparently, he was very enthusiastic about being at a company, loved their products, knew people who had worked there, etc., etc. A very positive attitude, very eager and can-do...only he couldn't do.
syntaxerror53@reddit
Knew someone like this (co-worker's "someone else") at Uni. Exceptional programmer. Got given an assignment one day. Next day he'd written it in Amiga Basic. Second day, PC Basic. Third day, PC Pascal. He wasn't very good in other aspects of the course, but programming everyone thought he was a genius. And everyone plagiarised that program (couldn't quite understand the requirements). These kind of people are hard to come by and may be they would struggle in an interview. But in no way are they unsuitable for any development roles. Some people are all talk and no action, others are all action and no talk.
SomberEnsemble@reddit
Who decided this couldn't be a call to a dedicated field tech and not the fucking infra admin? This sounds like a management and training problem.
IndependentMess@reddit
Your Honor I fluxed the capacitor.
syntaxerror53@reddit
This. Works everytime.
/s
hymie0@reddit
One of my favorite tickets from two jobs ago...
Issue: User unable to print
Resolution: Pointed user to the "print" icon.
UristImiknorris@reddit
Accurate description. It wasn't "Computer unable to print" after all.
syntaxerror53@reddit
FUNC error (faulty user not computer).
Dixielandblues@reddit (OP)
Eh, I don;t mind those so long as the user is straight with me. After all, they often have skills and knowledge I lack.
cyborg_127@reddit
I hear that. I always reassure my users that while I can do IT work, and help them when things go wrong, I can't do their job. Phrases like "How do you remember all this?" - Lady, it's my job. You're a physio, I know nothing about that stuff.
Random-Mutant@reddit
Leave it turned off (after performing a test print with date/time) and tell them it’s printing fine.
Exec returns on Monday, blows his top bc it’s still not printing. Feign surprise, tell them you turned it off after testing bc the exec had obviously left it that way to save money on power over the weekend and you thought that was a good idea. Send instructions via your boss on how to turn it back on.
AshleyJSheridan@reddit
Send incredibly detailed, like over the top levels of detail, instructions. Include everything, photos of the printer (from multiple angles), highlight the button, specify how far in the button needs to be pressed (in mm) and how how long (in ms). No detail is unimportant.
syntaxerror53@reddit
Now you all proving that fixing the job can sometimes take seconds. It's the "paperwork/afterwork" that takes far longer to complete. In this case days.
DJKaotica@reddit
I'll admit I've been close to this petty before for an unrelated thing, as I was asked to leave comments on a pull request, and I mentioned 5 or 6 things that had multiple occurrences during the first pass, and said person fixed only those occurrences I mentioned. So while I sort of regretted it in the end, during the second pass I called out every instance of every single thing, resulting in 40 or 50 comments. The person I was petty to did mention it a few weeks later and was like "thank you for the extremely detailed and thorough code review, I followed up on everything you said."
They did not appear to be snarky or sarcastic or anything but appreciative :s
luvbirdpod@reddit
As my father once put in a letter of recommendation for a former employee "He did everything I asked, every time I asked"
AshleyJSheridan@reddit
I've had this happen too. I'd end up leaving a first comment, then the second occurance I found would be "fix here and elsewhere too", but it didn't always work.
Kodiak01@reddit
It's the Alice's Restaurant method: Twenty-seven eight by ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against them.
ozzie286@reddit
And the user walked in, sat down, with a seein' eye dog.
Yuri-theThief@reddit
It was a case of blind justice.
genericus23@reddit
Kid,
Puzzleheaded-Joke-97@reddit
kmactane@reddit
Slow golf clap for the indentation, quotation, and parentheses.
WinginVegas@reddit
🏆 You win this fake trophy for excellence in attribution. Well done.
ZirePhiinix@reddit
Grab a kinesiology text book and list out the medically accurate names of muscles he need to move to turn on the printer. Depending on how good your prompt skills are, I can imagine over 100 slides easily.
Random-Mutant@reddit
First, muscles required for the vip to get his head outta his ass
TheArmoredKitten@reddit
"step one, determine the current unobstructed distance between your cranium and duodenum.
Ich_mag_Kartoffeln@reddit
I think that would require a fairly powerful winch.
Rutegard@reddit
As Carl's Sagan said, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
roopjm81@reddit
The level of pettiness in this is of epic proportions. I love it
thuktun@reddit
Damn. I initially thought you were suggesting milking them for more support fees, but that's savage.
IslandHistorical952@reddit
Wow, you're good.
Noortman@reddit
Have you tried turning it off and on again? Is it plugged in? ;)
jonas_ost@reddit
Done something similar but it was the termostate on the radiator turned off so the room was cold for a week and no1 could find the problem.
admik@reddit
Make sure the printer is full of paper. Make sure the queue is full of every spammed print job. Leave a post-it on the monitor saying you fixed it and it just needs to be powered on and they are good to go. If Windows is true to form, let the printing commence.
YankeeWalrus@reddit
"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"
"It's already turned off, you idiot!"
Shadowedcreations@reddit
In current status off and on equals on and off...
What do you mean the power light is on when the printer is on? I thought it was there to help find the button in the dark.
Amazing-External9546@reddit
We had our large copier/printer fail and I was called. I walked in the room and noticed the machine had been unplugged. Turned out that the custodian wanted to buff the floor and had unplugged it. Two weeks later the same custodian unplugged the big UPS that we had on the servers running the entire district's network. He also ignored the persistent beeping from the UPS. No, he was not fired.
ThunderDwn@reddit
Please tell me you resolved the ticket with something like "Drove to site. $VIP was not available, but $assistant let me in. Assessed condition of printer. Turned printer on. Drove back."
I'm in a similar situation to you - similar position, similar dumping ground - and I've been forced into a similar exercise - I had to drive 380k's (nearly 600k round trip) to plug a fucking power cord into the wall because some stupid fucking exec thought it was beneath him to actually look behind a bookcase.
JaffaMafia@reddit
A gummy worm?
I'd have emptied that fucking bowl on my way out the door!!!!
honeyfixit@reddit
I would've been tempted but sadly diabetes says no. That wouldnt arop me from "accidentally" spilling them on the floor. 🤫
dragzo0o0@reddit
Ah, had that myself in my first corporate job. Was in the late shift Helpdesk role, (basically, 6pm finish) got a call from the CEO (I’d been there about 3 weeks at this stage) “My printer isn’t working” Ok, I knew he had a personal printer and wasn’t using a networked one. “Can you just check for me that it’s plugged in and turned on?” “‘Of course it’s bloody well plugg…oh, thanks “
derKestrel@reddit
Unrealistic. They never say thanks.
dragzo0o0@reddit
Not like he actually meant it 😆 Guy was very much self important. Came across him a few years ago and he’s mellowed remarkably.
allonestring@reddit
"I'd thank you, but system support is a thankless occupation."
Dixielandblues@reddit (OP)
He did what you asked him to, at least - that's always pleasant.
NoAlternative2913@reddit
This job is not done until you can look down at the person with dead-eyed look that conveys both your technical superiority AND your disappointment in them, and turn the printer on and print something while they watch you do it. Then you have to ask them if they would like to try it, to make sure they have no problems.
jeffrey_f@reddit
My company does not and will not support personally purchased equipment and it doesn't matter where you are in the food chain.
zhinkler@reddit
I assume the VP was around over 50. Anyone younger that doesn’t know about turning computer equipment must’ve been home schooled in a cave.
dporges@reddit
There is no age you can name where people that age are excused from knowing that a printer will not work if the power is off.
zhinkler@reddit
Maybe, but then if they’re old that’s the way it goes. The behaviour is not excusable and he or she should have asked someone in the office to take a look.
AlvinOwlHirt@reddit
Reminds me of the time my spouse got called by a furious neurosurgeon because his computer wasn’t working. Got there and for some absolutely brilliant reason, said neurosurgeon had switched the ports (plugging the computer into the phone jack and the phone into the computer jack—and then wondering why neither worked).
And, actually, a head of IT about 30 years ago spent hours trying to fix a printer in a VIP office—only to realize that it was missing a power cord (and thus, not plugged in). I got that story directly from that head of IT who did it and she was still mortified.
ozzie286@reddit
I had someone who absolutely could not get their printer to work. I looked at the back of the printer, and there's the USB port. And there's the USB cable, plugged in....to the phone jack.
ozzie286@reddit
[...]
You are far too nice. I would have left, closed the ticket, and sent an email detailing that I was there at the scheduled time but they were not, and to open a new ticket when they were available. cc as appropriate. If I show up unplanned and unannounced, that's on me, but if we've got a scheduled meeting for me to fix your stuff, you better be there. I'm sick of people disrespecting my time.
I mean, sure, in this case it worked out that you could get in relatively quickly and resolve the issue without them. But that is not always the case, and you don't want to set the precedent that it's ok to make you wait an hour for security to find a key (or to not find a key), then get in and find that there's nothing wrong with the printer itself, they've taken their laptop home for the day, and now you need to come back when the user is in to find out what the problem is.
Geminii27@reddit
Reply-to: All
Subject: That printer you have been complaining about being 'not working' for weeks
Body: It works just fine when you actually remember to turn it on first. The 'on' button is in the same place as all the other office printers; top right. The big green one.
Time spent on calls on this issue: 5 hours on phone, 1 hour reading writeups of apparently nobody asking whether the printer was switched on.
Meetings held about this 'non-working' printer: 3
Collective meeting hours of all participants: 12
Total time spent not checking that the printer was switched on: 3 weeks
Total costs to employer to resolve issue, including all affected employee-hours: $8,192 (invoice attached)
Resolution: Printer switched on using 'on' button. Senior employee booked on mandatory 'How to use standard office equipment 101' course. Senior employee booked on mandatory 'How to call the IT Helpdesk' course. Senior employee's boss invoiced $8,192 less the hours consumed by Senior employee themselves.
alf666@reddit
This is the correct answer.
Kick the offenders in their bottom line when they pull this kind of nonsense, and they become a lot more cooperative in the future.
lwbailey@reddit
Chalk it up. Go on. Why the waste your time and maybe cause a rif down the line or later date. Let the guy think your a god-sent tech with magic fingers. Email "ALL" related = ticket closed with success
ArnP69@reddit
Many years ago my dad who is an electrician got a call on a Sunday from a doctor who had serviced his oven and couldn't get it to work.
My dad asked if it was on and was told he is a doctor, not a fool.
My dad drove to the doctors house and turned on the isolator. It worked. Then the doctor didn't want to pay the full call out fee so my dad told him he evidently needed the money more than my dad. As he left he turned off the power on the street.
This is long before cellphones so when he got home he received a call that since he left nothing worked. My dad told the doctors wife he wasn't prepared to do a second call out and not get paid, so the doctors wife drove to my parents paid for 2 call outs and my dad went back to turn them on.
They were clients of my dad for a few decades until they passed.
StoicJim@reddit
I would have poured the whole bowl into my bag.
ccsrpsw@reddit
I have done tech support for VIP's like this. My favourite one was doing support for a very very high profile CEO (lets call him Earry Lllison to keep his name secret). Massive escalation - monitor in his office not working (one of those big old "Sony Trinitron 27" CRT" type things (to put a date in it). All hands on deck kind of thing. 3 IT people sent up to fix it. Brand new monitor on a cart, all the cables etc. Get up there. The VGA cable was loose. Just needed reseating into the SUN workstation (if you remember how touchy that connection was). Also did support for an conference key note. The trick for those was to reboot everything, do 1 quick run through, then prey it held together enough (as alpha/beta software) to make it through Earry pushing the wrong button at least once as he demoed it. (I have way too many stories from back then - the guy is not a genius)
[so many stories from that era :D]
KnoWanUKnow2@reddit
I was on-call at the hospital and got called in at 4:30 in the morning to simply turn on a monitor.
Of course the night before we had a major network outage, meaning I was already running on very little sleep. And do you think I could get back to sleep after being called at 4:30 in the morning and forced to go in just to turn on a monitor?
Dom_Shady@reddit
What a valuable allocation of your time and expertise. It does not sound at all like improvements could be made, heavens, no. And how respectful of the VIP to not be present for the Very Important printer issue, giving you the time and space to perform your miracles!
We're missing one thing, though: how did you passively aggressively report this solution back to the CIO?
bobthunicorn@reddit
I REALLY hope this was reported.
Dixielandblues@reddit (OP)
Over a drink after work. He's a good bloke, just beholden to the same politics as me. And it turned out the email to him did not precisely match what had actually occurred up to that point. Extremely imprecise may still be be too precise, I fear.
kempff@reddit
They talk down to us. But they really are helpless.