Stays fresh after opening

This pilot fish does tech support for users of a service for real-estate agents -- some of whom have, um, unusual ideas about how things work.

"I spoke with a real-estate agent who receives our automatic e-mails, containing links to properties that a client might be interested in," fish says.

"She called us saying that the links in the e-mails don't work, so she's not able to view the properties."

Fish has the agent forward one of the faulty e-mails. Sure enough, the links appear to be garbled.

But fish notices something else: The e-mail appears to have been forwarded more than once. What's going on? fish asks agent.

Agent explains that she she gets the prospect e-mails from fish's service every day -- and the links work. But she doesn't have time to look at the properties then. So instead of saving the e-mail in her inbox until she has time to view it, she immediately forwards each message to herself at the same e-mail address -- and then deletes the original e-mail.

"For some reason, her e-mail provider is distorting the link when she forwards the e-mail to herself -- probably as a precaution against spam -- so she's unable to open the second e-mail," says fish.

"When I suggested that she just keep the original e-mail and use that, her only answer was, 'But I don't have time to look at the e-mail when it comes in!'"

Sharky will take the time to look at your true tale of IT life if you send it to me at sharky@computerworld.com. You'll get a stylish 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.