h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Mostly, it seems to be marketing and sales people who, to me, appear to be overly cheery.

I get a lot of e-mails at w*rk, Most of them are just routine w*rk for me, part of the tasks that I'm expected to do. When I reply with a 'done' e-mail, the case is closed. To me.

I've managed to convince some of my colleagues in my department that if what I've just done is just routine w*rk, don't bother sending a 'thank you' e-mail, my inbox is clogged up enough as it is. I'm going to assume that the fact I handled your request guickly and effeciently is exactly what you expected. It's what I was hired to do.

If, however, I went through a lot of trouble, I won't mind so much.

But the sales and marketing folks are overwhelmingly delighted. I get 'Thank you ever so much!' and 'Thanks for the quick reply!' or 'I really appreciate what you did!' usually followed by 'Have a nice day!' or 'Have a nice evening!' or 'Have a nice weekend!'

And no, I never reply to those thank yous. Mark as read and delete. Delete. Delete! DELETE!

I might be a bit more frustrated than usual because today, when one of the employees (a sales person) at our Head Office couldn't log on to the travel expenses system, she didn't contact either of us system administrators (whom she has been in contact with before, so it's not like she doesn't know we exist).

No, instead the airhead (based not only on this incident but also several previous ones) calls the supplier of the travel expenses system. If we get charged extra for her support case, I'm going to make sure her department ends up paying for it.

The problme? She couldn't remember the link, hadn't saved it among her Favourites and didn't bother looking it up on our Intranet - instead she managed to get to the supplier's main page (they supply several systems, not only travel expenses, but payroll systems and other stuff). And tried to log in from there. And failed.

And yet, she's created several travel expenses in the past, so I guess she must have had some kind of black-out. Or forgotten to export her Favourites when getting a new laptop. Or just being... nah, I give up, I can't figure out why she went about it the way she did.

Oh, yes, make her pay. A lot.

ahhhh people are such fun

Its the reason i tend to keep away from them

Thank you, Ti, you just made my day

(Not that I ever forget that I don't have to deal with people any more (not in a professional capacity anyway). I remember it every morning when I wake up, smile at my silent alarm clock, turn my back to it - and sleep for another few hours - but I still tend to forget it during the day)

Well, not exactly, more of a actually

Ah, slush ice? I love it!





PS: And a good morning to you, here at 9.47am

Your contract with the travel software vendor should stipulate that they will only accept cases raised by yourselves as system administrators, and not by others in the company.

That should guard against them charging for providing additional support.