More Replies from the Help Desk

Once again the IT Help Desk I work on is inundated with terrible requests and emails from crazy users. I can't show you the original email still, but the replies we sent should give you an idea of what has happened so far


From: SED IT Helpdesk
Sent: <Date withheld>
To: Jeffers, Phillip
Subject: RE: More “Spam” e-mail

Hi Phil,
We are aware of the Spam e-mail problem, which is currently causing various issues throughout the organisation. As we have suggested in the previous emails we have sent you, a special mailbox has been set up in order for you to forward this Spam Collection to in order to prevent similar messages in the future. So please do not inform us every time you think you have received Spam.

If you have further queries, please contact the IT Helpdesk on x88888.

Regards,
Tim

SED IT Helpdesk

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From: SED IT Helpdesk
Sent: <Date withheld>
To: Burgess, Stephanie
Subject: RE: Name Change Complaint

Hi Stephanie,
We would like to apologise for not correcting your account details and even rejecting your request on one occasion. As of now the corrections have been made to your account details. The Help Desk staff unfortunately was not informed of your gender reassignment and thus believed it was a spelling/typing error made by the HR department. This mistake has been corrected and we hope this has not inconvenienced you greatly.

If you have further queries, please contact the IT Helpdesk on x88888.

Regards,
Jane

SED IT Helpdesk

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From: SED IT Helpdesk
Sent: <Date withheld>
To: MacAndrews, Tiffany
Subject: RE: Help

Hi Tiffany,
We have some advice from the questions you have given us regarding the current Spam issue.

1) You should not open and read email that you believe is Spam, has been sent from a unknown source, or sounds unusual if it does arrive from someone you know.

2) If you do read the potential Spam email in question, do not reply to it whatsoever.

3) If the email claimed something to the tune of “H4 h4 h4 I n0w h4v3 4LL y0uR 1nTr4w3bS” then this is probably a hoax. After all this was sent to your work email and not to your private address.

4) Lastly, do not give out your credit card details to the mysterious sender, in the hopes that it will be used a ransom for the “intrawebs” to be returned to you, even though you didn’t seemed to be certain if such things existed.

I hope this has been helpful and good luck with resolving your problem

If you have further queries, please contact the IT Helpdesk on x88888.

Regards,
James

SED IT Helpdesk

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From: SED IT Helpdesk
Sent: <Date withheld>
To: Pascall, Stephen
Subject: RE: The SPAM wants me to kill!!!11

Hi Stephen,
We mistakenly sent you email to the Spam Collection team and based upon the sheer volume of email you have sent to us in the past month, your email address has become blacklisted throughout the organisation.

Until this matter is cleared up, please see you manager about contacting us for assistance.

If you have further queries, please contact the IT Helpdesk on x88888.

Regards,
Karen

SED IT Helpdesk

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From: SED IT Helpdesk
Sent: <Date withheld>
To: Tamaran, Clarice
Subject: RE: Offensive Phone Call :(

Hi Clarice,
We understand that you on a phone call to the Help Desk, last Wednesday, where the operator said some pretty offensive words to you. The particular help desk operator had unfortunately ran out of medication for his Tourette’s Syndrome and thus was not able to control his outburst. He is deeply sorry and could not control what it had said to you.

If you have further queries, please contact the IT Helpdesk on x88888.

Regards,
Kimberly

SED IT Helpdesk

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From: SED IT Helpdesk
Sent: <Date withheld>
To: naturallyhuge@notspam.ru
Subject: RE: Increase Y0ur S1z3 T0d4Y!

Hi NaturallyHuge,
I would like to make it bigger. MUCH bigger. Please tell me, is it a cream or a pill? It is also 100% natural as you claim, because I really don’t need any chemicals that could affect my health or future “greatness”. I have tried many products before and none of them have seemed to work. I would like to purchase these as soon as possible with my new credit card.

Regards,
Ragesh

SED IT Helpdesk

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Chaos Worshipping Shit Eaters!

This is a moment I have been waiting for. Since October, I have sacrificed the scant personal time I possess to study my course at university. This has not been an easy thing. After all, since moving to the Glowing Octopus, I still studied through correspondence with the Uni at the Old Town. Doing this has been a terror, quietly studying in solitude, hoping that my hours of dedication paid off. That my gambling with grades would finally show fortune. I finished an assignment that was 60+ pages long and took away nearly every one of my conscious hours.

It robbed me of my life. Not a big part, but enough to feel diminished. Then straight after the tentative posting of the assignment, it was straight into study for the exam. At this point I’m already drained. I push on. I study at work as after hours its gets quiet and there are less distractions where I live. I would come into work on the weekends, just to use the good parts of every Sunday to study. I was becoming a zombie, there was nothing else in my life but study, which at first tasted like ashes, but as you might know, if it’s the only thing you have, you get used to it. Then came the exam, the most stressful experience of my life, so far. I’m glad I didn’t throw up.

I did all I could, while my hand decided to lock up into some malformed claw. The pain I learned to ignore, but I’m sure it was creeping up my arm. I eventually got the shakes near the end. It was so bad that I could barely write. I finished all that I could and then left.

Then I waited.

My problem was that after so much study, and stress, and study, and work, I had trouble relaxing. I still hung back after actually finishing, even though I had nothing else to do. I still came in on a Sunday, because I got into a terrible habit. I practically brainwashed myself. I even felt depressed over the fact that I had nothing to occupy my time. This is what this course has done to me. I’m getting over it, but its slow.

The ultimate problem behind all of this for me, is this is the eleventh hour. This is the last course for my degree. This is also the last chance to get the degree. Apparently, I burned a bridge with the university and now I’m only a student with them as a kind of technicality. I’m a guy who managed to get back in because I stumbled through a loophole with the system and it worked brilliantly.

For two weeks, I waited with baited breath. I have almost become physically ill from the very idea of what my result might be. All I need is a pass, but the Universe and I have often come to loggerheads about what I need and what I get, so there you go. Prior to the result being released, I felt sick to my core, like weird alien parasites eating my small intestine. That hollowing drop and cold, sick feeling in your Manipura Chakra, that undeniable dread. Just the thought of visiting the site give me this.

The time of the results being released, and for me, the moment of truth, the reckoning comes. I log into the university’s website. And the result is displayed with a goldenrod background:

NR

My results were not released. I rang the university to get some answers, after being directed around their switchboard, I talked to a Sheryl. She politely explained to me that the results were not released, as the course leader, had left the university before finalising the course.

I only had stunned silence, but Sheryl continued. She explained that the while all the exams had been marked, they were not finalised and while the course leader was probably on some boat with Moroccan boys, the marks would be finalised by another and would be released later.

And although this time is soon, I am now unsure how I will survive my weekend. I had pent myself up so much that even failing looks like a good prospect, because at least I’ll know, no more waiting, no more trying to keep myself distracted with pointless tasks and being busy with nothing. I would be able to move on.

So to you jackass, time-eating, life-wasting, duty-balking, course leader: you are a chaos-worshipping shiteater.

Addendum: A very tense week later, the university released my results. I got a distinction for the course and would (finally) graduate. Thanks, "Anonymous" I forgot to include that part.

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Pure Awesome

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. However, after seeing this I feel a little dumbfounded. It had taken me sometime to formulate the words, though this is not the reason for the delay in updates.

Still, there are times where images merely express everything we fail to put into words. In a nutshell: This picture is the Internet. This picture is Japan. This picture is short of a catchphrase to make it an inspirational poster. So here it is...




So take a moment to bask in its weird.

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Valentines Day

Lonely during Valentines?


I could see Sandra in the doorway. It was dark, so I guess it was only her silhouette. I couldn’t see her eyes, but I could feel them burning to me, through me, beyond into something I couldn’t fathom.

I asked her what was wrong. There was a pause, the kind that people take when you don’t understand them, that time for thought, to churning the feeling into words…

“I’m empty,” she finally said still trying to find the words, “Hollow. I feel hollow inside.” All I can here is the wind blow right through me and I can’t even feel the cold. There’s just nothing.”

I went to move. But she spoke again and I instinctly froze, not knowing what would happen next.

“I’m tired. Of being empty.” Her voiced seemed purposeful, “And hollow. And numb. I want to fell again”

She raised something, held in between her finger and thumb that glinted like ice. It was a razorblade.

*~*~*

Her tears mixed with the blood that had been splattered across. They didn’t clean her up for the cameras, it would only lose its effect. You could see a microphone pressed practically into her face.

“He screamed out to me, that it wasn’t over,” she sobbed, as the ambulance drivers tried to treat her, pushing the cameraman out of the way, “He said – he said that his heart still belonged to me and…and that he wanted me to have it.”

“That’s when he got out the knife.”

*~*~*

The Emergency Dispatch is flooded with calls. Floyd sits there cradling his head in his hands, as the emergency lines ring out. There are no more ambulances to send, all of them are busy trying to rescue failed lovers from certain doom.

Something barks over the radio, It’s the driver of SW0100, he reporting that he’s just run over a young couple, who just dived straight in front of his wagon. The problem is that he can’t stop, because he already is carrying another couple that had set themselves on fire…

For those who are spending Valentines Day alone this year, just think – at least your not part of some bizarre memetic massacre of failed relationships

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No Country for Old Men Review

It’s Saturday night, and it’s cinema time. This time around its time for No Country for Old Men, a new Coen Brothers movie. I have only seen one of their films before. It was Fargo, which was an okay black comedy and criminal drama. They have this ability to capture a scene and distil it. There’s a kind of weird vacuum after these movies, which continues after the credits roll. It’s no surprise the industry wants to bury these two guys alive with awards.

Taking my seat, the theatre quickly fills up and people become anxious for a seat. Right next to me, a couple take a seat. They looked strangely familiar. My God, is it them? Will I be interrupted again by oral faux pas? Have they noticed me? Sadly, for you, my show would not be interrupted by the unknown of uncomfortable blow-jobs. The couple soon left, never to return to these seats. The cinema continued to fill. I continued to eat popcorn trying to pick out various conversations. The couple’s empty seats were soon replaced by another couple which I assumed were a mother and son. Would my assumption be correct? God, I hope so. The lights dimmed.
No Country for Old Men is a story, that is really three different stories. It is the story of Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), of small border-town, Texas, who has never carried a gun and resolved his quiet corner of the earth with good police work. The story of Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a Texas everyman, who stumbles on a terrible find, four pickups, a dozen dead gangsters, a truck full of dope and 2 million cash. He takes the cash. Then there is Anton Chigurgh, a sociopathic hitman, with a killer moptop ‘do, and an unusual philosophy of chance and fate.
Llewellyn’s find brings him more trouble than it’s worth with Anton hunting him down in a very tense game of cat and mouse, while Bell is attempting to save Llewellyn and restore order. The mechanics of this story are interesting, as neither Bell, Moss, or Chigurgh meet, even appear in the same frame. Each are shot, as if they exist in their own narrative. Interesting in that aspect. Or saves working around schedule conflicts. Not sure about that one yet.
Nevertheless, this is a story about fate and chance, which may appear to be separate at times, are at others intertwined so tightly, it’s hard to tell one from the other. However, the whole thing ended strangely, and left me feeling wanting more, that something definitive was missing. I drove home, the usual route only to remember it was Summernats, meaning it was the season for the people who pumped money into their vehicles. And tonight the streets were full of motorheads, neo-greasers, road-thuggees, hip-hop beats, dance-techno bass, 4 to 5 digit paint jobs, legality-pushing modifications and wide rims that shone in the street lights. Hell, even those bicycle hackers were around, with their own unique rides. With unique frames and lighting jobs, those things at night look more like luminescent sea creatures. I curse myself for a journalistic opportunity missed, but I had other things planned and sleep was necessary. And the couple that sat next to me in the cinema? Hey, what goes on in the theatre, from now, stays in the theatre.

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