Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2006-03-18 11:23:51 - Graham Ellis
6U, 40 degrees C
That was a typical answer from John, who provided my "third level" technical support a few years back when I looked after the RasterFlex family of Graphic boards for Sun Workstations. The answer told me all I needed to know (but nothing else!) and would have left my European customer base feeling that it had been barked at them, and fearing to ask for any detail or clarification (such as "is the 40 degrees a sea level spec?"). Get to know John, meet his wife and baby in when visiting the parent company in the USA and you realise it's just his way; a clipped response of few words, with no extra provided - and yet he would go out of his way to resolve questions and issues and his real persona was not what was projected in his email.
I have to say there are times that a short email does say enough, but I send a longer one. And there are times that copy lists can get too long for their own good. But I really appreciate being cc'd / kept in the loop and to receive emails with just a bit of padding - otherwise I end up with this feeling - often groundless - that I'm hanging on by my finger tips and there's no safety net.
John - I hope your life's going well. If you're ever bringing the family to show them our old stamping grounds with Vitec and Connectware, I hope you'll let us know and look us up. And I hope your email will say enough so that it doesn't fall inconspicuously between all the others.