You may enjoy this exchange with a customer from a few years back. I’ve changed the names to protect the guilty:

Dear Joe,

I reviewed your Sarbanes Oxley compliance document and noticed a few things that are worthy of mention:

1. The security section requires that sensitive information be encrypted in transit but most users do not have encryption tools available.

2. The security section mentioned that a user is not allowed to disable his virus scanner, yet this is permitted on most or all workstations.

3. The security section requires that if possible a session must time out after 30 minutes, but none of the windows workstations times out. This is something that could be centrally controlled.

Yours Truly,

AP

And the response:

Thanks for your feedback. I’ll forward your email to Sue and Francine and add it to my file.

Joe

Today, I sit across the light brown cubicle wall from yet another proverbial profane personage. Yes, I said I would sit next to him again and here I am. I shall label this one a subspecies since his habits are different from my former profane office mate. This man spits vituperation and vulgar slang in a tone that ranges from ill-tempered to hateful.

He just picked up the telephone so I shall narrate. Now he asks “What the f___?” Now calls his customer’s mother a bitch. Now he calls for God’s damnation on some thing or other. Now he slams the receiver down. Well, at least he is unhappy about that conversation.

[Sigh]

Given my sustained frustration with the JDEdwards OneWorld software, I decided that tracking the level of said frustration was in order. For your review, here is the first month’s graph.

As you can see, I was enraged twice during the month but the second peak occurred during a period of sustained rage. Towards the end of the month I was able to coach myself back into denial, mainly because I interacted less with the most vexing features of the software.

As I upgraded a client’s computer last week, I overheard a conversation. It sounded something like this:

“Hey John, how’s it goin’?”

“Pretty Dern Good. Say, you burn wood at yer house don’cha?”

“Yah.”

“How much you use in a year?”

“Oh I ain’t gonna go troo more’n two maybe tree cords at da most. I just use it now and den ya know — usually whenever it gets below zero an’ stuff. Say, you know Jake Johnson don’cha?”

“Yah, I drive by ‘is place on my way to work.”

“Yah, I guess I knew dat. Did you see dat pile o’ firewood ‘e had in ‘is front yard? He musta had ten cords right dere between da house and da road!”

“Yah, I wonder what ‘is wife thought o’ dat. Well, she musta said somethin’ ’cause ‘e got dat pile outa dere inside o’ two weeks.”

“Yah, I’ll pro’ly cut up a li’l more wood dis year.”

“Yah.”

I’m tired…