As far as I can gather, the person on the other end has had an email stopped by the firewall. My colleague gives them my number, and asks them to phone me as he hasn't dealt with that problem before. He hangs up and leaves the office for this morning caffeine intake.
Five minutes later and my phone rings. I am finally waking up and answer with as much enthusiasm as I can muster.
"IT support" I say politely and introduce myself.
"Hi, I was talking to someone else and they gave me your number." A lady says.
"What seems to be the problem?" (I had to ask didn't I!?!? You'd have thought I'd have learnt by now.)
"Ummm, well, I dunno, hang on."
The phone gets clonked down on to a desk I presume and I hear "What's the problem?" being called out in the back ground. I sigh; it's going to be a very long day.
The phone crackles and the lady blurts out "I have an email stopped."
"Ok, can you give me more information? Like, what's your name? What has been blocked? What has blocked it?"
We have two main email filters and both send out alerts, I needed to know where to look and what to look for. Normally with this information and the "to and from" email addresses I can track it down. This lady didn't seem to have any of this.
"I got an email." She says.
"From where?"
"Hang on..."
The phone gets banged down again and my poor ears wish they were still in bed. If I wasn't awake before, I am now.
"It says it's been blocked."
"What does?"
"Why would it be blocked?"
"Where is the blocked email from?
"I don't know." She says.
"Maybe it thought it was spam or contained something harmful." I explain.
"Are you sure it's an email you need?" I ask her.
"Oh yes!"
"What is saying it's blocked?" I ask again.
"WHO SAID IT'S BLOCKED?" The woman bellows. "I am just talking to our IT guy in here, he's looking at it." (IT Guy? Oh you mean someone in your office who knows what a computer is. That must mean they are an expert in all things technical. Oh joy, just what I needed to brighten up my day.)
In the end I ask her to forward the block message to me, so I can see what we are dealing with, without having to relying on her or a third party. I have had bad experiences in the past. Turns out this one wasn't going to be much better.
"CAN YOU FORWARD THE EMAIL?" She cries out.
"Who to?" I hear in the background.
"Who to?" She asks.
"To me," I tell her my name again and she confirms the email has been sent. I am watching my Inbox and nothing appears.
"Are you sure you have sent it?" I ask after a couple of minutes.
"Yes, haven't you got it? Maybe it's slow."
"No..." I start to say, but the phone gets crashed down again and I just hope my ears haven't started to bleed.
The handset crackles and a different voice, a man's this time says "Have you got it?"
"No, can you try sending it again please."
"It's in the sent items! What's your name?" (Who the hell did you send it too before?)
I tell him and he hands the phone back to the woman. After a few minutes the email has still not arrived. By now it's either lost in the ether or sitting in someone else's Inbox. I am now a little frustrated to say the least.
Now at this point one of those annoying things happen when you're on the phone with someone, trying to help them and... They start having a conversation with someone else. Not work related, but a personal conversation about who is going to txt who about going out that night.
I go from frustrated to downright peeved, so I tell the lady to get a copy of the email sent over to me and I'll look into the problem, and ring her back when it's sorted.
Half an hour later and the email hasn't appeared.
I phone the woman back (who kindly didn't leave her name) and managed speak to the tech-head who cut in briefly and whom I assume was doing all the driving on her computer for her.
I tell him that I still haven't had the email come through. (Perhaps it was blocked.)
"Oh, don't worry" he says. "The blocked email has come through now anyway. Turns out it was just an advert." (urrrmmm, that's why they call it spam...)
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