Part of what I do here is work as email network support. If there's an issue with the mail platform, and beyond a tier 1 support level, it comes up to me here. Issues with customer networks, mail clients, or software configuration, however, is not my problem.

But fucking try telling that to tier 1 support. Needless to say, whenever I get an escalation from the lower echelons here, I' naturally a bit suspicious. Not fair, maybe? But how I have learnt through hideous, hideous experience.

Today, was really no different. However, today had one of the worst escalations I've ever dealt with. Why the worst? Oh, I shall tell you.

So, this little old lady (I can tell these things, tell with my MIND!) gets put through to me - she hasn't received any email in over a week! Comes straight through to me, no introduction, no case referrence, no nother. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. So I start asking the customer a few preliminary questions, what does she do to check her mail, does she get any kind of errors, that sort of thing. I'm also checking out the network on my side, for a better picture of what's happening, while we talk.

It takes me a grand total of about, ooooh, let's say, thirty seconds to work out what was "wrong".

"...The reason you haven't received any email in the last week is because no-one has sent you any."

...

Yes, I'm fucking serious. This person was sent through to me, (apparently) level 2 technical support, 'cause someone confused "no email" with "email issue".

Now do you begin to see why I hate my coworkers so much?

(fake edit: here, for your amusement, is the brief missive I fired off to the "colleague" who originally escalated the customer...

"Hey there. In future, please complete all email troubleshooting steps before escalating an email issue to CTS. Namely, in this case, making sure there is actually an error, rather than the customer simply not having been sent email."

Owned.)