Multiple Email Fail

(I am the only IT support in an office of 35. It is day one of our conversion to a new email spam filter. Some staff don’t adapt well to change.)

Supervisor: *irritated* “I am expecting an important email and I haven’t received it and it’s not in my junk list.”

Me: *sending a message to ISP* “Supervisor missing important email and still cannot login to new spam filter page to check.

ISP: “Okay, let’s see if we can resolve this spam filter issue once and for all today.”

Me: *sending a message to various staff* “Please attempt to login with your FULL EMAIL ADDRESS (e.g. yourname@organization.org) and EMAIL PASSWORD, not network password.”

Staff Member #1: “I DID use my full email address and it didn’t work.”

Me: “Let’s try adding the @organization.org part and tell me what happens.”

Staff Member #1: “OH! Okay, it works now.”

Staff Member #2: “I saw those emails about trying to log in and I didn’t know what to do, so I didn’t do anything.”

Me: *thinking* “So instead you forced me to hunt you down via phone and walk you through it.”

Staff Member #3: “Nope, can’t login.”

Me: “Will you share your credentials with ISP so they can test from their end.”

ISP: “We have no problem logging in with these credentials from this end.”

Staff Member #3: “It works now!”

(I go to the supervisor, after two hours of these inane individual conversations with 18 staff members.)

Me: “Everyone but you can successfully log in to the new spam filter page. Could we please double check that you are using your FULL EMAIL ADDRESS, as in yourname@organization.org, and your EMAIL PASSWORD, not network password?”

Supervisor: “I AM using my full email address and email password. Still don’t have that important email!”

ISP: *to me* “Can we get the sender to verify the date/time/address sent. Unlikely but possible it was mis-routed. We could try tracking from this end if we had some more details.”

Me: *to Supervisor* “Do we know for sure this important email was sent? Can you give me the contact name and phone so I can verify?”

Supervisor: *to me* “I will contact him.”

ISP: *to me* “Can you please attempt to observe Supervisor login to new spam filter and verify he is using the correct credentials?”

(Supervisor enters “first name” and “password”)

Supervisor: “See, it doesn’t work!”

Me: “Okay, but how about if we use your FULL email address? Can we try adding the @organization.org part?”

(Logs in successfully.)

Supervisor: “Well, I never had to put that part in before!”

Me: *thinking* “What part of ‘FULL EMAIL ADDRESS’ did you not understand?” *actually saying* “”Well… now you do. And now you know it works.”

(Hours pass…)

ISP: *to me* “Any news on the missing important message? We’d like to clear this trouble ticket.”

Me: *to Supervisor* “Any update on verifying details about this missing email?”

Supervisor: *to me* “I have sent a fax and an email message and haven’t heard anything back.”

Me: *thinking* “What the h*** is wrong with using a TELEPHONE?”

(Later I am talking to the big boss.)

Big Boss: “I don’t like the new spam filter interface as much as the old spam filter. And are you going to do some staff training on how to use it?”

Me: *eye twitches*