Really, really unclear on the concept

Pilot fish is the IT help desk manager at a big insurance company, and a member of his staff kicks a call up to him.

The actuary on the other end of the line is furious. He's trying to send a fax, and the machine, in his words, "will not send the document."

The IT shop doesn't officially support the company's fax machines, but because the actuary is so angry, fish dispatches one of his hardware techs to see if he can help.

Some time later, the tech walks into fish's office with a stunned look on his face. Fish asks what happened.

"All the actuary would say was, 'It won't send the document, I have tried 20 times and it won't send the document,' " tech says.

"I couldn't get anything else out of him, so I asked him to show me.

"He put his document in the fax machine. I watched to make sure he was doing it properly. He dialed in the receiving fax number and hit the Send button.

"We heard the machine dialing and heard the handshaking at the other end. The document read in, one page after another coming out the other side as expected.

"When it was done, he pointed at his document in the output tray and said, 'See -- it won't send it.' "

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