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Once upon a time, I ran a website for a pornographer whose first name was "David."
David was a bit old school, so much so that using email "wasn't his thing." His preferred method for receiving reports about the performance of his website was by fax. I thought it was a bit antiquated as a reporting channel, but I wanted to keep the guy happy. So, every Friday, I would dutifully fax him a report that included the previous week's traffic and sales figures, conversion ratio, retention rate, affiliate payouts, etc.
About 12 weeks into this process, I got a call from David, who was quite irate.
Here is the approximate text of that conversation.
David: Q, I'm really upset with you. You are supposed to be sending me a report every week about the website.
Me: Yes, and I have been. I send you a fax every Friday. You mean to tell me that you haven't received any of these faxes, and you're only now telling me this?
David: No, I have never received a fax from you! Every Friday I get one from someone named "David," but I've never gotten one from you.
Me: David... can you read me one of these faxes, please?
David: Sure, I've got one right here. It says his name, David, at the top, and then it says "here are the site's statistics for the last week" --
Me (interrupting): Ah -- see this is the problem: YOU'RE David. That is a fax addressed TO YOU. You might also notice that the information in it is exactly the same as the information I agreed to send you each week...? That's not a coincidence.
I've had conversations with a good number of fairly thick people in my life... but that one took the cake.
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Q. Boyer
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