I'm fortunate enough to have a job where I am able to contribute to open-source software projects when I can justify the business need. Recently, I've been contributing to SquirrelMail (
http://www.squirrelmail.org), <shameless plug>an open-source webmail IMAP client written in PHP.</shameless plug>
When I began contributing, I got listed as one of the developers of SM. One of the downsides of this is that uninformed people occasionally send emails to me (or other devs) directly requesting support rather than to one of the mailing lists setup for such requests. More often than not, these people send us email thinking we are there hosting company. Now, to re-iterate an earlier point: SquirrelMail is a
FREE (as in beer) webmail CLIENT, not a server, not a hosting company. Its a client. Many ISPs choose to install SquirrelMail to give their clients webmail access. But these poor blokes don't know that, so we usually respond kindly explaining what SM is and telling them to contact their ISP.
However, yesterday I received the following email in my Inbox:
Quote:
From: Steph
Date: Wed, Jan 24, 2007 at 10:02 AM
Subject: Squirrel Email Support
Not sure if you can help me. My company currently uses Squirrel Mail for our email. We are having a problem that our email system gets full quickly. I believe we only have 10 meg. How can I upgrade to higher megs?? Please inform.
Thank you,
Steph
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Now for those of you who are not email admins, the problem is obviously that her ISP has imposed quotas on her account and she is overrunning those quotas, or the ISP is out of disk space. I'm not sure what it was about this email that grabbed my attention. But maybe it was one of the following:
1) She obviously made no attempt to look for answers with her ISP or by looking around on the squirrelmail.org site. But what else is new?
2) This company has an ISP, so they don't really *use* anything, they are *provided* with SquirrelMail by their ISP. For reading email. ONLY. OK, easy enough mistake.
3) I have no idea what she is refferring to when saying she only has "10 megs." The best I can figure is that she could be referring to a 10meg limit on attachment sizes? But that number only shows up when composing an email, so I don't know why she latched onto that number.
4) Perhaps it was Steph's particularly strong grasp of the English language: "How can I upgrade to higher megs??"
I was feeling particularly punchy, and after having a good laugh with some other devs, I decided to reply with the following:
Quote:
To: "Steph"
> Not sure if you can help me. My company currently uses Squirrel Mail for
> our email. We are having a problem that our email system gets full quickly.
> I believe we only have 10 meg. How can I upgrade to higher megs?? Please
> inform.
This is a long shot since you obviously don't know how to read a web
page on how to get help or how to read a manual, but:
http://www.netapp.com/
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I figured that was the end of it since that is normally how these conversations end. But I got up this morning and had the following waiting for me in my inbox:
Quote:
From: Steph
Date: Fri, Jan 26, 2007 at 9:52 AM
Screw you, you scum bag!!! We were willing to pay for the upgrade. We are
not computer savvy here, thought you could help. But I guess we will find
another company to access our emails. I am sure your boss would like to read
this email. I will be contacting him very soon!
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I almost hurt myself when I hit the floor because I was laughing so hard. Now, just for clarification:
1) We are *still* not her ISP.
2) We *still* cannot do anything about her situation.
3) Squirrelmail is *still* free.
4) I do not have a "boss" @ SquirrelMail.
5) Even if I did, he would fall on my side because he gets a ton of requests like this every day.
6) She's a cheery lass, isn't she?
So again, I have a few laughs with some other devs at her expense. About this time, our project lead comes online:
Me: hey
Lead: Who is Steph?
M: lol, why?
L: let me send you the email she sent me and the other devs
M: ha, ok
Quote:
From: Steph
To: All SquirrelMail Developers
Subject: Steve Brown is a jerk!! He should be fired!
Thought Steve Brown's co-workers should how much of an ******* he is. Please read below. I sent an email to Steve Brown on Wednesday January 24th for some email support. Please read below at his response! I have never been insulted like that before. He was so rude and he should be fired!!! I will be removing my company from Squirrel mail asap due to his response to
my question!!
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steph
> Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 10:52 AM
> To: 'Steve Brown'
> Subject: RE: Squirrel Email Support
>
>
> Screw you, you scum bag!!! We were willing to pay for the upgrade. We are
> not computer savvy here, thought you could help. But I guess we will
> find another company to access our emails. I am sure your boss would like
> to read this email. I will be contacting him very soon!
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steve Brown
> Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2007 11:00 AM
> To: Steph
> Subject: Re: Squirrel Email Support
>
>
> This is a long shot since you obviously don't know how to read a web
> page on how to get help or how to read a manual, but:
>
> http://www.netapp.com/
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Lets just review the scoreboard at this point, mm-kay?
SquirrelMail is a FREE webmail client. Many developers spend many many hours of their free time contributing to the project out of the goodness of our hearts. We are willing to offer support through the proper channels (documented on our site).
Steph browses through our site long enough to find email addresses for developers (not looking for support). She randomly picks mine then emails the fine piece of prose originally posted. I tell her the solution, and she fires off a pissy reply because she doesn't like my answer. She then goes *back* to the SquirrelMail site, *still* not looking for support, gets the emails for *all* the other devs and fills them in on her cluelessness, further reiterating the fact that she thinks we are her email provider. *And* she wants me fired for a totally voluntary position! At this point, the project lead is just is ticked as I am that he now has to deal with this fool and so he replies to her:
Quote:
To: "Steph", squirrelmail-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Date: Fri, Jan 26, 2007 at 11:41 AM
Re: Steve Brown is a jerk!! He should be fired!
Hello Stephany,
Steve is absolutely right. If you have read our web page or manual you
would have known that:
1: SquirrelMail is an imap client;
2: We are developers of SquirrelMail and do not host mail;
3: SquirrelMail is an opensource project with only volunteers and no
people to fire;
4: We have special mailing lists for user questions.
What does this tell about you?
1: You don't have a clue about what SquirrelMail is;
2: You don't have any sense of humor;
3: You are rude.
If I was your boss I would fire you (hopefully your boss robert reads
this). If you always communicate the way you do I feel sorry for the
company you work for.
In the mean time we continue with our unpaid but satisfying work on
SquirrelMail and make our other 100.000.000? users happy with our product.
Say hi to the people from netapp and goodluck with your job and all your
problems.
Regards,
Development leader SquirrelMail.
PS: Steve, you still have your Job ;-)
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So there you have it: proof that no good dead goes unpunished. But at least I still have my job.
