Email Fail, Part 18

(One day, none of our emails seems to be sending. We’ve lost the connection on the modem, and can’t reconnect. I check the phone lines and everything seems fine, so I phone the London IT Helpdesk.)

Tech: “Yeah, the email system went down overnight. We’re trying to fix it, but we need to recall the backup tapes, so it’ll be at least a few hours before anything is back online.”

Me: “Okay, no worries. I’ll let you go; you’re probably really busy.”

Tech: “Yeah, everyone keeps phoning us to ask why email isn’t working. Did you not get the alert we sent out?”

Me: “The alert that goes via email?”

(A pause. I can almost hear the cogs whirring in the young man’s head.)

Tech: “Oh, my God. That was dumb, wasn’t it? We’ll put an alert up on the intranet page!”

Me: “Good idea.”

(As I hung up, I heard him shouting to his boss, “Why did we email the bloody alert?!”)

Related:
Email Fail, Part 17
Email Fail, Part 16
Email Fail, Part 15