How many techies does it take to fix e-mail?
Mary Henkel Judson

The e-mail saga goes on.

Since we last visited, I have talked to Eric, Jackson (again), Adrian, Jennifer, Lawanda, Mike and one techie whose name I didn't get. I also have e-mailed the district manager, who answered my e-mail, which is why I got a call from Jennifer. She's a Supervisor.

Jennifer promised she'd call me back. She fibbed.

I'm waiting now for Mike to call me back. He promised he would. I hope he's not fibbing.

I did find out from Jennifer that they are routing certain e-mails (with no rhyme or reason) to "junk".

Problem is, I don't know which ones are going to "junk". The situation is further complicated by the fact that many of these e-mails are not junk, like the ones I e-mail myself from my home. Increasing the complexity of the dilemma is that sometimes an e-mail from a certain source is routed to "junk", sometimes it's not. These e-mails that are being routed to "junk" are from centurytel.net, .com addresses, yahoo, hotmail and all kinds of other addresses. There's no pattern.

Meanwhile, I'm flush with pornographic emails that are not being routed to "junk".

Hey! Mike just called back! It only took him 30 minutes! We have a major break-through!

Mike tells me they need a few more days to resolve the problem. They don't host the domain (my terminology may be off there) anymore. He's proved to whomever they've contracted to host it that the problem is theirs. He says I should give them until mid-day Wednesday to get it solved.

No, I say. That's not good enough. I've been at this since May 21. It's June 4. Why has it taken this long to get to this point?

"We have thousands of issues, and we have to figure out which are real and which are not," Mike says.

That sounds like they aren't able to take care of their customers. I tell Mike that. I ask to talk to someone higher up on the ladder. He puts me on hold while he gets Nathan, but Nathan is busy, and Mike turns me over to Ryan.

You won't believe this, but Ryan tells me my situation is unusual and he'll send it up to the guys who resolve their e-mail issues. They have 24 to 48 hours to resolve the problem. (I think there's more than 48 hours between May 21 and June 4, but I don't say that to Ryan 'cause I think I've got a live one on and I don't want to lose him.)

But here's what's different. Ryan tells me his last name. He even spells it. He gives me his direct line and tells me he's going to call me back tomorrow.

It's tomorrow, and you're not gonna believe this! Ryan called me back this morning - just a little after nine! He thinks the problem is fixed and tells me to call him if I think any of my e-mails that are legit have been routed to "junk".

Amazing! It took a little over two weeks to fix a problem that probably took less than 12 hours to fix once someone decided to do it.

I'm hopeful now that I will not, after all, have to change my long-standing e-mail address.

So, if you don't get a response to an e-mail you send me, give me a call. Then I'll call my new friend, Ryan.

Ryan really doesn't want to hear from me. Mary Henkel Judson is editor and co-publisher of the South Jetty.