It's all about good taste

This city has its e-mail system set up in the format name@ourtown.org, and it's used for all city business, says a pilot fish on the scene.

"The cultural affairs group, the people that put on concerts and art shows, have a Web site for their summer concert series: www.ourtownmusic.org," fish says. "It's fired up in the spring and the schedule is uploaded, and it comes down in the fall after the last concert. Other than the upload, it never changes."

But one day a cultural affairs staffer calls IT and says she needs an e-mail address -- info@ourtownmusic.org -- for inquiries about the concert series.

IT guy says it can't be done; there's no mail presence for that domain. How about music.festival@ourtown.org? IT guy suggests.

CA staffer isn't happy, says it's not acceptable and badgers the IT guy. IT guy goes to his manager, who confirms that the resources aren't available to do it, and tells IT guy to send the CA staffer to him.

"Creating another mail presence is by no means impossible," admits fish, "but the key staff that would do it are involved in high-priority, time-critical work for the police department and city council. On the side, they're cleaning up the aftermath of a VoIP, so they're working nights and weekends.

"We've been putting off other important network management issues to get these things done, so creating a mail presence for one address is not even in our sights."

The cultural affairs supervisor calls down and gives IT manager the whole story. Turns out the cultural affairs commissioners have already published this e-mail address in a flyer that's gone out to 10,000 households -- and it's supposed to go live in 10 days.

IT manager is sympathetic, but he's under pressure from the CIO. The answer is still no way.

"So the CA supervisor comes down with a gift to apologize and see if there's any room to work on it between now and the go-live date," fish says. "She brings super cupcakes from the local cafe. Manager accepts the bribe, but tells the CA supervisor there's no hope of freeing up a tech until the CIO's project is done.

"Manager takes the bribe box to the tech and tells her she's being bribed to work on an e-mail issue by cultural affairs. Tech is fried and says she's not even taking bribes unless it's a red velvet cupcake.

"Lo and behold, that's what the CA supervisor has in the bribe box.

"There's a round of laughter, and the tech agrees to work on it between other catch-up tasks the following week."

Sharky's taste is for true tales of IT life. Send yours to me at sharky@computerworld.com. You'll score a sharp Shark shirt if I use it. Add your comments below, and read some great old tales in the Sharkives.

Now you can post your own stories of IT ridiculousness at Shark Bait. Join today and vent your IT frustrations to people who've been there, done that.