Sometimes, all you can do is laugh…

You know the sayings, “Laughter is the best medicine,” and “It’s good to be able to laugh at yourself from time to time.” Well, this morning was one of those situations where being a consumer of Microsoft technology and an employee of Microsoft came to a cross-road, and all I could do was laugh at the situation and at us (Microsoft).

Here’s the situation… I had crafted an email message to send off to one of the teams here at Microsoft including all of the information I wanted to convey, attaching the supporting documentation, double-checking the grammar and spelling, you know the routine. Upon finishing the mail, I took the mouse and clicked on the “Send” button in Outlook. The response I got back?? I’ve included it below:

Upon reading the highly-descriptive error message and the very nice follow-up question, the first thing that popped into my mind was, “Are you kidding? What do you think? Obviously it didn’t get sent, so this message helps me how?” So, I promptly clicked the link for “Was this information helpful?” and submitted my feedback.

The moral of my story? Well, I guess it’s just to share the fact that yes, we all are consumers of technology and from time to time we all come across those situations where you really can’t believe how ludicrous a response or error message may appear; however, it is just these situations where it is often most helpful to realize it is not an intentional reply to raise your blood pressure or to cause you to inflict physical damage to your keyboard or monitor while vocalizing utterances that may not really be fit for public consumption. Instead, if you look at the actual comedy of the situation, and take a moment to provide your feedback to those responsible for the message, hopefully we can help make these types of situations appear less and less with time.

As for my situation, I simply copied the text from my failed message into a new message and pressed “Send” and voila, off it went without a problem. Does that justify the error message I received? No, but hopefully my feedback, along with yours, can help improve those messages if we ever receive them again in the future. Hopefully it also helps to know that there really are people here at Microsoft who want your input and feedback and sincerely are interested in helping make your experience the best it can be.

Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman
Microsoft US Senior Manager
Small Business Community Engagement
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

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