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Shark Tank: Another satisfied customer
50 comments- TAGS:e-mail
- IT TOPICS:Internet, Management, Networking, Personal Technology
Program director goes on vacation, returns a week later and calls this netadmin pilot fish a few days after that. "I have odd e-mails about 'undeliverable mx-exchange' on here," he tells fish. "Do you have any idea why I would get these?"
Are you sending e-mail to addresses that don't exist? fish asks. "I don't think so," PD says. "Don't worry about it; let me double-check and make sure."
A week later, fish gets word that the PD has called the IT director: "Hey, I'm still getting these crazy e-mails. Your network administrator isn't doing anything. Let me forward one to you."
IT director forwards the sample to fish, who figures out it's undeliverable and an internal e-mail, but for some reason, it doesn't show the actual address.
Fish calls the PD. Could you be sending e-mail to someone who has resigned? "No, I use my own lists that I created."
So fish goes to the PD's desk to see the list -- 500 names of people in call centers up and down the coast. Fish points out that PD likely wouldn't be notified if any of them quit or resign. PD insists that fish call the supervisors to make sure the addresses are good.
It takes half a day, but fish tracks them down and confirms that the list contains only active employees.
"Program director calls the CIO to tell him I still haven't done anything, that I'm incompetent, and that our IT department is a useless cost center," says fish. "CIO calls me and asks for a status update. I answer that I'm still confirming the list for the program director."
Finally, PD calls to tell fish he's noticed something: He's getting the returned e-mails even when he doesn't send any out. Consistently, every hour. For the past four days.
Fish returns to PD's desk and looks at his in-box. Sure enough, the call center phone system is e-mailing him every hour with a summary. The "From" line changes with each message, because it encodes the date and time.
And when it hits the PD's mailbox, it triggers the PD's auto-reply vacation message.
"I turn off the program director's vacation message," fish says. "As I'm leaving, I e-mail the CIO from my BlackBerry that the problem was fixed.
"On my way out, the secretary who sits just outside his office stops me and asks me a quick question. Program director shuts his door and takes a call on speakerphone from the CIO. I couldn't make out the words, but I could hear the tone -- the CIO was furious.
"I haven't gotten any requests for assistance from the program director since."
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