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All Husnok. Everywhere.
There is an episode of Star Trek, Next Gen, where an alien, driven insane with grief by the loss of his wife, destroys an attacking invasion force. His power is such that he doesn't stop there:
"You don't understand the scope of my crime. I didn't kill just one Husnok, or a hundred or a thousand. I killed them all. All Husnok... everywhere."
If I were to kill, say, all stupid customers, everywhere, would I feel such guilt and remorse? I do not think so. Oh, sure, maybe later, a couple thousand years or so in the future, as I was sitting around having a drink with friends, I might suddenly feel a pang. But really. Probably not.
Why Customers Should Not Be Allowed Too Much Power
Some of our customers, instead of just having an account on our server, have their own, dedicated servers. When this is the case, they pretty much can do whatever they want with such servers, we don't limit them with regards to diskspace and mail usage, and the like. Usually, this is not a problem, since most people who want their own server also want to maintain control of it themselves, and have the skills to do so. But occasionally, we get a customer who claims they'll maintain it themselves, go through a string of consultants, can't be bothered to pay them, and then constantly call us wondering why things are going awry. One such customer has gone through us for any number of problems -- My scripts don't work, my links don't work, why has the webmail which we had a consultant set up 18 months ago, right before we fired his ass, suddenly stopped working?
Among their more bizarre, and scary habits, is their insistence that their Pres. keep boatloads of mail on the server. We've explained that keeping a large mailspool is just asking for trouble: The spool is likely to become corrupted, your mail program will probably crash while trying to download it, not limiting mail means you can get mail bombed.... But none of this matters, because he *must* be able to download the mail from three different locations, and keep an "archival" version on the server. When he reached 150 mbs, and found he was no longer able to download mail, he finally caved, but only partially. Instead, he agreed that he'd copy mailspool off the server from time to time for his archives, and then have us delete it, so he could start over.
Today he called, the mailspool having reached 134 mbs, and wanted to clean things out. The conversation went something like this:
Pres: "Okay, now I'm going to download, and I'll let you know when it's done, so you can delete it."
Me: "Okay, Just let me know."
5 minutes passes.
Pres: "All done!"
Me: "You're sure it's okay for me to wipe it out now?"
Pres: "Well, unless any more mail has come in."
I check. I close my eyes. "More mail has come in since you last checked your mail."
Pres: "Oh. Well. Let me download again."
5 more minutes pass.
Pres: "Can you delete it now?"
Me: "I can, but more mail has come in while you were downloading. Would you like to just delete it anyway, and get started with a new spool?"
Pres: "No, no, I can't risk missing a single piece of email. Let's try that again."
And so forth. For a while. I attempted to convince him that the way this was going, we were never going to be able to download fast enough -- at 134 mbs, a busy account is always going to get more mail in. He could not be convinced. He informed me he would call back first thing in the morning, when his mail is "lighter" and we're more likely to have success at this operation.
I grit my teeth in anticipation.
In the meantime, my Bed and Breakfast lady has called back no less than four times.
She has great concerns over the email link on her front page. It seems that there are two problems with this link. One, it's not sending the email to the correct address, and two, if you click on it, it gives you an error message. So I checked the link out.
Me: "This says it goes to name@hotmail.com"
B&B: "Yes, but now I need to to go to name@peoplepc.com"
Me: "Okay, so you need to change the link on the page."
Silence.
I grit my teeth. (Yes, in fact, I do wear a mouthguard at night for this Very Reason. My teeth are a disaster.)
Me: "Generally, whoever is taking care of your website would make this change."
B&B: "Well, how do I make it?"
Me: "You have to know html, and how to upload a webpage."
B&B: "Well, I *bought* this business, and they said everything would be *set up* for me, and..." long, rambling diatribe, after which I broke down, and broke one of the policy rules I set myself, which is never do webwork for a customer unless they've hired us to do it. Do one little thing, just ONE, and they decide that they have the right to call you back every time they need a change made. I tell her I've made the change, and she hangs up.
That doesn't last, of course.
She calls back and informs me that the link has not changed. I assure her it has. She assures me it hasn't. I tell her that she may be looking at a cached page. I wish I hadn't. In the end, I give up on trying to define a "cache" for her, and just move on to trying to get her to reload the page.
B&B: "How do I do that?"
Me: "Look in your webbrowser for a 'refresh' or 'reload' button"
Moments Pass.
B&B: "I don't see anything like that."
Me: "What browser are you using?"
B&B: "AOL."
Me: (pausing only to pound my head against a wall) "I'm just checking -- didn't we reroute your mail just now to peoplepc?"
B&B: "I can never get my peoplepc mail to download properly. Can you help me with that?
Me: "No, no, PeoplePC will have to help you with that."
B&B: "But I have an account with you."
Me: "Yes, and you have email with us to, but you're not trying to check your email with us, you're trying to check your PeoplePC mail, and only they can help you with that."
We go in a little circle on that one for a while, before I desperately drag her back to the webbrowser and refreshing it. She can't find a reload button, and I have no idea where to tell her to look, I haven't seen AOL on a computer in years, now. Finally I give up and suggest she open Internet Explorer, since she should be able to use it, even when connected to AOL.
B&B: "What's that?"
Me: "Okay... I want you to look at your desktop. Do you see a small blue E?"
B&B: "Okay, open it by clicking on it."
She does so.
Me: "Now, I want you to type in your website name, and check on the link."
B&B: "Where?"
Me: "In the address line. Do you see the word Address at the top?"
B&B: "Yes."
Me: "Right in there."
B&B: "Okay. The link is still wrong."
Me: "Okay, now, try hitting the Refresh button and tell me if it changes."
B&B: "No, it's still the same."
Me: (sort of puzzled) Okay, let's try that again...
We try to refresh, or retype the page about four times. By now I'm worried that she's just getting cached old pages from AOL in Explorer, and that I'm never going to be able to prove to her the link, which I should not have changed for her to begin with, has been fixed.
Me: "Okay, in Explorer..."
B&B: "I'm not in explorer."
There is silence, while I ponder this.
Me: "What program are you in?"
B&B: "AOL."
Me: "Didn't you just type the address into Explorer?"
B&B: "Oh, I closed it when you told me to type the address in. Did you want me to type it in that other program?"
I consider asking her what the FUCK she has been pressing refresh on, but decide in the end, it's not worth it.
We get Explorer back open. She still can't see the change. I weep. I'm still not convinced she wasn't back in AOL.
Me: "I'm sorry... but the change has been made. You're just going to have to take my word for it."
B&B: "But the link doesn't work when I click on it! I can't send email through the webpage!"
Me: "What do you mean by that?"
B&B: "It gives me an error message."
Me: "Can you read me the error message?"
B&B: clicks on link... "The file eudora.exe is not found."
Me: "Okay, it's telling you it's having a problem finding your mail program, not that the link is broken."
Silence.
Me: "The mail isn't really going through a *webpage*... it's invoking another program on our computer, and there is a problem with that program."
B&B: "But I can't send email through the webpage, and neither will anyone else!"
Me: "No, everyone else will be fine... do you use Eudora as your mail program?"
B&B: "No, I use peoplepc, but I can't get it to work."
Me: (trying desperately to divert us from peoplepc) "Did you *ever* use Eudora on your computer?"
B&B: "Yes, but I had a customer look at my computer this morning, and he said I didn't need it anymore, so he deleted it."
Then I went away and laughed, in a corner, for a while. I won't even subject you to the rest of the conversation.
Husnok, beware.
"You don't understand the scope of my crime. I didn't kill just one Husnok, or a hundred or a thousand. I killed them all. All Husnok... everywhere."
If I were to kill, say, all stupid customers, everywhere, would I feel such guilt and remorse? I do not think so. Oh, sure, maybe later, a couple thousand years or so in the future, as I was sitting around having a drink with friends, I might suddenly feel a pang. But really. Probably not.
Why Customers Should Not Be Allowed Too Much Power
Some of our customers, instead of just having an account on our server, have their own, dedicated servers. When this is the case, they pretty much can do whatever they want with such servers, we don't limit them with regards to diskspace and mail usage, and the like. Usually, this is not a problem, since most people who want their own server also want to maintain control of it themselves, and have the skills to do so. But occasionally, we get a customer who claims they'll maintain it themselves, go through a string of consultants, can't be bothered to pay them, and then constantly call us wondering why things are going awry. One such customer has gone through us for any number of problems -- My scripts don't work, my links don't work, why has the webmail which we had a consultant set up 18 months ago, right before we fired his ass, suddenly stopped working?
Among their more bizarre, and scary habits, is their insistence that their Pres. keep boatloads of mail on the server. We've explained that keeping a large mailspool is just asking for trouble: The spool is likely to become corrupted, your mail program will probably crash while trying to download it, not limiting mail means you can get mail bombed.... But none of this matters, because he *must* be able to download the mail from three different locations, and keep an "archival" version on the server. When he reached 150 mbs, and found he was no longer able to download mail, he finally caved, but only partially. Instead, he agreed that he'd copy mailspool off the server from time to time for his archives, and then have us delete it, so he could start over.
Today he called, the mailspool having reached 134 mbs, and wanted to clean things out. The conversation went something like this:
Pres: "Okay, now I'm going to download, and I'll let you know when it's done, so you can delete it."
Me: "Okay, Just let me know."
5 minutes passes.
Pres: "All done!"
Me: "You're sure it's okay for me to wipe it out now?"
Pres: "Well, unless any more mail has come in."
I check. I close my eyes. "More mail has come in since you last checked your mail."
Pres: "Oh. Well. Let me download again."
5 more minutes pass.
Pres: "Can you delete it now?"
Me: "I can, but more mail has come in while you were downloading. Would you like to just delete it anyway, and get started with a new spool?"
Pres: "No, no, I can't risk missing a single piece of email. Let's try that again."
And so forth. For a while. I attempted to convince him that the way this was going, we were never going to be able to download fast enough -- at 134 mbs, a busy account is always going to get more mail in. He could not be convinced. He informed me he would call back first thing in the morning, when his mail is "lighter" and we're more likely to have success at this operation.
I grit my teeth in anticipation.
In the meantime, my Bed and Breakfast lady has called back no less than four times.
She has great concerns over the email link on her front page. It seems that there are two problems with this link. One, it's not sending the email to the correct address, and two, if you click on it, it gives you an error message. So I checked the link out.
Me: "This says it goes to name@hotmail.com"
B&B: "Yes, but now I need to to go to name@peoplepc.com"
Me: "Okay, so you need to change the link on the page."
Silence.
I grit my teeth. (Yes, in fact, I do wear a mouthguard at night for this Very Reason. My teeth are a disaster.)
Me: "Generally, whoever is taking care of your website would make this change."
B&B: "Well, how do I make it?"
Me: "You have to know html, and how to upload a webpage."
B&B: "Well, I *bought* this business, and they said everything would be *set up* for me, and..." long, rambling diatribe, after which I broke down, and broke one of the policy rules I set myself, which is never do webwork for a customer unless they've hired us to do it. Do one little thing, just ONE, and they decide that they have the right to call you back every time they need a change made. I tell her I've made the change, and she hangs up.
That doesn't last, of course.
She calls back and informs me that the link has not changed. I assure her it has. She assures me it hasn't. I tell her that she may be looking at a cached page. I wish I hadn't. In the end, I give up on trying to define a "cache" for her, and just move on to trying to get her to reload the page.
B&B: "How do I do that?"
Me: "Look in your webbrowser for a 'refresh' or 'reload' button"
Moments Pass.
B&B: "I don't see anything like that."
Me: "What browser are you using?"
B&B: "AOL."
Me: (pausing only to pound my head against a wall) "I'm just checking -- didn't we reroute your mail just now to peoplepc?"
B&B: "I can never get my peoplepc mail to download properly. Can you help me with that?
Me: "No, no, PeoplePC will have to help you with that."
B&B: "But I have an account with you."
Me: "Yes, and you have email with us to, but you're not trying to check your email with us, you're trying to check your PeoplePC mail, and only they can help you with that."
We go in a little circle on that one for a while, before I desperately drag her back to the webbrowser and refreshing it. She can't find a reload button, and I have no idea where to tell her to look, I haven't seen AOL on a computer in years, now. Finally I give up and suggest she open Internet Explorer, since she should be able to use it, even when connected to AOL.
B&B: "What's that?"
Me: "Okay... I want you to look at your desktop. Do you see a small blue E?"
B&B: "Okay, open it by clicking on it."
She does so.
Me: "Now, I want you to type in your website name, and check on the link."
B&B: "Where?"
Me: "In the address line. Do you see the word Address at the top?"
B&B: "Yes."
Me: "Right in there."
B&B: "Okay. The link is still wrong."
Me: "Okay, now, try hitting the Refresh button and tell me if it changes."
B&B: "No, it's still the same."
Me: (sort of puzzled) Okay, let's try that again...
We try to refresh, or retype the page about four times. By now I'm worried that she's just getting cached old pages from AOL in Explorer, and that I'm never going to be able to prove to her the link, which I should not have changed for her to begin with, has been fixed.
Me: "Okay, in Explorer..."
B&B: "I'm not in explorer."
There is silence, while I ponder this.
Me: "What program are you in?"
B&B: "AOL."
Me: "Didn't you just type the address into Explorer?"
B&B: "Oh, I closed it when you told me to type the address in. Did you want me to type it in that other program?"
I consider asking her what the FUCK she has been pressing refresh on, but decide in the end, it's not worth it.
We get Explorer back open. She still can't see the change. I weep. I'm still not convinced she wasn't back in AOL.
Me: "I'm sorry... but the change has been made. You're just going to have to take my word for it."
B&B: "But the link doesn't work when I click on it! I can't send email through the webpage!"
Me: "What do you mean by that?"
B&B: "It gives me an error message."
Me: "Can you read me the error message?"
B&B: clicks on link... "The file eudora.exe is not found."
Me: "Okay, it's telling you it's having a problem finding your mail program, not that the link is broken."
Silence.
Me: "The mail isn't really going through a *webpage*... it's invoking another program on our computer, and there is a problem with that program."
B&B: "But I can't send email through the webpage, and neither will anyone else!"
Me: "No, everyone else will be fine... do you use Eudora as your mail program?"
B&B: "No, I use peoplepc, but I can't get it to work."
Me: (trying desperately to divert us from peoplepc) "Did you *ever* use Eudora on your computer?"
B&B: "Yes, but I had a customer look at my computer this morning, and he said I didn't need it anymore, so he deleted it."
Then I went away and laughed, in a corner, for a while. I won't even subject you to the rest of the conversation.
Husnok, beware.