From: jwgh at earthlink.net (Jacob Haller) Subject: Mailing list lusers revisited Date: 20 Feb 1999 06:43:20 GMT Message-ID: <1dni3pp.le7m3z1e7c6v2N@1cust47.tnt1.morristown.nj.da.uu.net> Newsgroups: alt.tech-support.recovery
I've ranted before (both here and in asr) about idiot subscribers to mailing lists. Today I wish to bring up a different topic: the idiots whose job it is to send announcements over the mailing lists I've set up for them.
The process for sending out the mailing is relatively straightforward, although there are a couple of 'gotchas' that I won't go into here. Basically you send out the mailing using the correct "From:" address, the email software mails you back asking if you're sure you want to send out the mailing, you reply OK, and out it goes.
So the other day, at 6:30 pm (after I'm supposed to be able to go home but often before I actually can get out) one of the folks who's in charge of a mailing list gave me a call.
Luser: "Uh, hi, Jake? I tried to send out the mailing today, but I never got a confirmation back."
Me: "Really? Let me check the log files. What address were you sending the mailing from?"
(He told me, and I looked in the log files and saw no record of it whatsoever. I then checked for log file entries that would indicate that he had made one of a couple of common mistakes, but again came up empty. This was puzzling and slightly worrisome: was there an email problem somewhere?)
Me: "What time did you send the mailing out?"
Him: "....um...let's see, around 12:30 pm."
Me: "Huh."
(I briefly wondered why he waited six hours before asking me about this, given that the confirmation request usually comes back virtually instantly. But I had other fish to fry.)
(I looked through the log files, this time concentrating on the period around 12:30, but still to no avail.)
Me: "You're looking at the message you sent right now, right?"
Him: "Yes."
Me: "OK, why don't I come over and take a look at it; maybe I can figure out what went wrong."
(My leading theory at this point was that he had screwed up the "From:" address, although I would have expected that to show up in the log files. I went over and looked at the message he had pulled up on his screen and the "From:" was in fact correct, as was the "To:" [another prime candidate for screw-ups]. After a short while I noticed another problem, however.)
Me: "Wait, is this the message that you sent out earlier?"
Him: "Yes."
Me: "B-but...this message hasn't been sent yet." (I pointed to the 'send' button, which should have been greyed out but wasn't.)
Him: "Oh. Um. I thought I had sent it."
Fiddle de dee,
jwgh