“Your call may be monitored for quality assurance. The expected hold time is currently 1 minute. Please wait for the next available represenative.”
“Hello, this is Bob. Not the same Bob as you called yesterday [1], but still, just call me Bob. [I should mention this was a very perky Bob. —Editor] How may I help you?”
“I'm calling in reference to ticket number ‘tango mike papa charlie zero zero zero six six six zero zero zero foxtrot uniform.’”
“And whom am I speaking to today?”
“This is Sean.”
“Okay, Mr. Sean, if you can please hold while I review your ticket.”
“Okay.” (cue FX (sound effect) of Girl from Ipanema [2])
“Thank you for holding, Mr. Sean. I didn't understand a word that Bob wrote yesterday but I gather it has something to do with sending email.”
“That's the gist of it.”
“Can you please send an email message to [garbled]?”
“What was that?”
“[garbled]”
(cue montage of Sean roaming around the office looking for a quiet place to write down the email message—many minutes go by while this happens)
“Oh! It's testmyemail@mpc.example.net!”
“Yes Mr. Sean. From that the email [DELETED-company-DELETED] department can diagnose what happens.”
“Please hold on a second, I can test this right now.”
“Okay.”
“Yup, just like I said, it won't get through because your The Monopolistic Phone Company's email server is dropping the connection from this particular server.”
“So it's a networking issue?”
“No, because I can get to The Monopolistic Phone Company's email server from other computers.”
“Oh. Well then, just send a message to testmyemail@mpc.example.net explaining the situation and they'll be able to handle it.”
“Okay, can I include the ticket number?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, thank you.”
“You're welcome Mr. Sean! Thank you for calling The Monopolistic Phone Company Dialup Support Line.”
Click.
Director's Commentary on this entry [3].