Mail from the "E" - spam today, spam tomorrow, please sir, some spam?
Long ago now, but unfortunately not long enough or far enough, I worked at a perfectly interesting job that involved lots of sun, dirt, rocks and hiking - great stuff. Then the "boss" decided that, in addition to the perfectly interesting and enjoyable work we were doing, he wanted to start an ISP. Since we had already wired up the office, he thought that under the "guidance" of a professional IT person, his skilled, professional staff would don a second hat at no additional pay and staff the help desk for his ISP as well.
Now the ISP idea wasn't all that bad. The area where we were headquartered had one of the lowest employment rates in the US at the time, and while people had heard of "the internet," there was very little service available. What was available was expensive, so the ISP idea looked like a great way to print money (and since we could then be our own provider, he could save the cost of the business connection we had, and since the connection to the backbone in the backroom was a T3, we really were very, very happy with it). The downside was that being new to the internet and computers in general, many of our customers were complete rubes and needed a LOT of hand holding. My favorite call was from a fellow who had signed up for our service. He his problem was that he was not "getting any mail from the 'E'." I was initially blindsided when I finally grasped what he expected. He thought his 'mail box' should get all the same kinds of barbecue-starting material that fills your normal mail box. So, after initially trying to explain that this was not the way the internet worked unsuccessfully, I signed him up on some of the more prolific spam sources of the time. A week later he called to thank me. I've actually seen two other calls I took listed as "urban myths." I won't say which ones, but I did take them, and they really were made and are not mythological.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
