If it weren't for my company's emphasis on "Client Focus" as our number one principle, I would start charging a commission for every stupid question clients ask me. I simply don't have enough time (or make enough money) to be taking my time out to point out stuff that should be completely obvious to them if they were to just do two minutes of research (like I did) - especially when they're the ones in error. Took me longer to read and respond to their email than it would have if they'd just done some fact-checking before contacting me.

Boy am I glad I'm going on vacation and will be incommunicado for the next week, the last three since I came back from my previous week of vacation (the glorious post-graduation relax-a-thon) have been hell.

I feel your pain. I have to deal with this on an almost daily basis. People come at me with questions they could easily answer themselves by Googling the very question they ask. You ever wonder how they think I know the answer? Because that's what I do!

I just have to keep telling myself: "Stupid people = job security".

My boss used to email me asking for test results. Mind you at the time to do this he had to be on his laptop, and hooked up to the internet, and all test data was put onto the server as soon as I entered it. It would have taken him less time to look up the data himself, than to email me, and then wait for me to send him the tests. The problem was he didn't know how to use the software. Once again keep in mind this was software he was supposed to be in charge of monitoring.

No sympathy from the unemployed :p

Speaking of dumb questions, I was getting rid of some old computers at work, and my boss asked me if I could extract the gold from the circuit boards first.

Thar's gold in them thar boxes!!

The answer to this question is, Yes but given how much work goes into getting it I am not giving it to you! :D

The way she asked me about it was so intense that I could almost see the dollar signs in her eyes. Looking back on it, I wish I had been a bit more sarcastic in my answer. To be fair, attempting sulfuric acid electrolysis at a school for special needs children would have made for one hell of a story.

.....doooooo eeeeeeettttttt!

Tell me how it is that these guys I work with remember sports stats going back years but don't recall something work-related that they did just the day prior? I swear, I spend more time researching **** only to find out that it was their action that caused the problem they're asking me about.

Man, I just love people. I've got this one guy a few pay grades above me that totally agreed with me that finding, troubleshooting, and resolving production issues were more important than documenting all the crap, now he's demanding documentation by this Wednesday.

My so-called "help" is anything but - I swear, his brain empties out every weekend and I have to continually re-train him in stuff I've been having him do for over a year. To show him anything new, such as documenting all this old crap, will take me longer than doing it myself. Hell, he asks me if someone responded to his email rather than looking in Outlook himself.

Edit: Ooh, here's another email related thing - a guy I sent data to on Friday is asking me for the same data today. Means he never even opened my email. I swear, if you hear about some chick shooting up a Wall Street firm, you can be the first to tell people that you know her.

Read receipts and saving every single email you send/receive..This will save you a bunch of pain.

I save them already - got archives going back to 1997 on some stuff.

Read receipts are more of a pain for me only because I often have to send to such big distribution lists that my box gets flooded with the messages that someone has read the message (apparently not who I actually need to read it)

Do you know if there's an option in Outlook 2007 to just tell me if someone has NOT opened the email within a certain period of time (I think I do get messages if they delete it unread)? Maybe that's a question for the Workshop.

I am a pretty big outlook user and not that I know of. I know you can request read receipts and of course force delivery receipts, but not tell if they haven't read it in x time. In my exchange environment I rely on delivery receipts and I have a rule set for certain "problem" users that filters their specific receipts to a folder. That way if they come to me (most have learned not too try and ******** me now) and claim they didn't get it, I can quickly prove that they did in fact get it. As the delivery receipt does not trigger unless they execute a send receive and you know for certain they got it.

Perhaps you would do well to set up a rule that auto filters delivery receipts like that for you. Auto delete all users you don't worry about, but the ones that cause you regular problems get filtered into a "problem user" folder.