Another friday at TCP Towers (honest)

It was another one of those Fridays at TCP Towers this week. Infact, it was such a strange Friday this is being written on Sunday evening instead of on the Friday.

We've got a new support guard at TCP Towers, which means its even more crowded up here. This new addtion was a great, although pleasent, surprise, to us. The boss had told us not so long ago that we wouldn't we able to have any more support guards for a while. Then a week ago he said "Oh, we've got a new person coming in soon". There was much amazement at TCP Towers at this; I mean, a new person to help guard us from the lusers. Too good to be true. Naturally, it was almost too good to be true; the new guard has to be Internet-trained. However, he learns fast and already has already skirmished lusers on a helpdesk. It will not be long before he too is forcing the scaling ladders of even the most dangerous lusers away from TCP Towers.

As I've said before, TCP Towers isn't really a tower. However, TCP Towers does have a moat now. This was thanks to some building work being done outside and the weather in sunny Southampton. Well, its very sunny once you get rid of all of the rain that keeps on getting in the way. Still, the building work is continuing on, and thanks to it we now have to cross the TCP moat whenever we enter or leave TCP Towers. It does mean that is even harder for lusers to get to us; the first action on us seeing an incoming luser would be to release the hungry pirana fish and raise the draw bridge. However, we may have problems from the RSPCA[1] for doing this. After all, it is cruel to feed the piranas with lusers. I doubt that we will have to take these drastic steps as the vast majority of our customers don't know where TCP Towers is based. This is quite lucky as we'd have piles and piles of bodies outside by now and I don't think we'd get planning permission to dig lots of lime pits from the council. The safe disposal of dead lusers is a real problem. Burying them isn't a good idea as they could leak into the water table. Burning them is better, but the smoke from burning lusers could be dangerous as well. All in all, having TCP Towers hidden from the lusers is a good thing.

Naturally, management are changing this. They are talking about relocating TCP Towers to a different location. One that the lusers know about. One that the lusers can visit us in. I can see the use of Admin restraints being order by the management before too long.

Anyway, as I said, this Friday was its normal self, although a little weirder than normal. First of all, I had the following conversation with a customer:

Me:	Hello, can I help you[2]
LUser:	Yes this is <such-and-such>, nightmare of your life

Well, at least this luser is being honest. The next time that he does this, I'm probably going to answer with:

Me: Not as bad as some we have....

And we really had a nightmare luser on Friday. Phil, who also masquardes as the TCP Towers accounting lord, locks the accounts of lusers who haven't paid their taxes for some times. Unfortunately in this "enlightened" times we aren't allowed to burn down the houses of tax defaulters. However, cutting of their net access is sometimes even more effect to some of the net-dependant lusers we have in the realm of TCP Towers. It is quite amazing how fast people will call TCP Towers when their account has been locked. They will ignore EMailed reminders[3]. They throw out the reminders we send them in the post. They don't ignore their access being cut off. Most of these are paying their taxes by cheque, so they often claim "The cheque is in the post"[4]. We sorryfully have to tell them that their account will remain locked up in shakles until their taxes are delivered to TCP Towers. The effect this has on a lot of the lusers is quite nice.

However, a lot of lusers pay by credit card. Naturally, we are always having the credit cards of lusers run out. And we are used to this, so during the month when a luser's credit card is due to run out they are sent an EMail reminding them that we require their new credit card details. When their card has expired and we require payment, we send a letter which tells them that their card has expired. Most lusers at this point see the error of their ways and give us their new credit card details. We give them plenty of time to do this. However, whilst the lords of TCP Towers are of long patience, there comes a time when a luser has to be shown that paying taxes for being in the realm of TCP is required. So we lock their accounts.

This nightmare luser phoned up the day after his account was locked for him not giving us his new details. He was outraged that we had locked his account. Even though we had given him several notices that we required his new details, he was still outraged. Is it that hard to understand. You don't pay your electricity bill, you are cut off. If you don't pay your gas bill, you are cut off. You don't pay your taxes to the realm of your ISP, you are cut off. Hard to understand ? This luser made it appear so. When the example of the electricity board was given, he said that "They give you several notices that the bill is due". We then had to point out that we had sent him several reminders that the bill was due. He didn't accept this and basically wanted us to start ringing every customer for their new credit card details. This wouldn't be too much work, oh no. Not at all.

The one saving grace here is that our boss agrees with out actions; if you don't pay your TCP taxes, you'll not be able to point and drool on the net via TCP.

[1]	Royal Society for the Provention of Cruelty to Animals. I guess that this could be similar to the Humane society in the US.
[2]	Thanks to a the new support guard at TCP Towers, I rarely have to answer the phone any more. Unfortunately, this does mean that I don't get to answer the phone in a dumb-blonde way and say: "Grumblesmurf - CanIHelpYou" any more. I think I can live with this loss from my life.
[3]	Assuming they read EMail... a lot of our customers just want to point and drool on the net.
[4]	"The cheque is in the post", one of the world's classic lies.

Posted on 15th Apr 1996