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

As a 151 faults operator, one of the less frequent faults reported to us is CIE FAX, that is a FAX sent in error to a customer without a FAX machine.

BT's way of handling this is simple, to send a FAX to the company responsible explaining their possible error.

This week, BT have finally allowed us, lowly humble customer service advisors (CSA) to send FAXes for ourselves!

Having filled in the form correctly, I was confronted with a FAX machine that refused to send outgoing transmissions. The error message displayed? "OUT OF PAPER."

Two other CSAs left the machine stating it was "Broken."

Three unsuccessful pleadings with managers failed to materialise any paper, so I used the pile of already sent forms to fool the machine and managed to send the FAX.

The manufacturer of the FAX machine responsible? BT.

As if this wasn't bad enough, on the way back to my desk I passed my own manager walking about with very sharp scissors held in front of him, snipping them.