From: manitou@rasputin.bc.ca (The Manitou)
Newsgroups: alt.tech-support.recovery
Subject: Re: Yesh, it happens.
Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 09:52:59 -0700
Organization: Rasputin the Terrible's LART Emporium
Approved: probably not

In <<7lfhue$dh$1@perki.connect.com.au>>, davide wrote:

> Grrrrrrr, I *hate* hearing this.  I have been known to retort :
>
> "Yes!  And my toaster also worked the day before it broke down!"
>
> I love the inventive use of analogies.  Does anyone else have any
> often used, witty analogies?

Well, I don't know if you'd consider this _witty_ or not, but ..

Users that don't actually connect, they just open Internet Explorer
and nothing happens get told this:

"Okay, connecting to the Internet is a must.  It's like going down to
Wal-Mart, buying a fish finder.  You strap it to your boat in the
driveway, climb in with a few beers, and turn on the fish finder.  It
doesn't find any fish, of course, because you're not in the water.
Would you then take the fish finder back and yell that it doesn't
work?  Of course not.  You gotta put the boat in the water so it'll
find the fish.  Connecting to the Internet is the same way; you make
the connection, then Internet Explorer can see the Internet."

(surprisingly enough, this works 100% of the time that I use it;
everybody knows what a fish finder is.)



Or the various parts of email:

"I have two email programs, Outlook Express and Eudora.  Can you set
one of them so it'll pick up the mail?"

"Picking up email is a lot like picking up your postal mail from your
mailbox.  If you send your husband down to pick up the mail, then he'd
get all the messages in the box.  If you go down there before your
husband does, you'd be able to pick up the mail.  If you're in Eudora,
for instance, that will 'go to the mailbox' and get the mail, leaving
the mailbox empty for whatever other email programs."



Or "My friend sent me an email, but it didn't arrive yet."  (quick
check to make sure we're not firewalling their friend's ISP, and ..)

"If you sent a package from Toronto to Vancouver, and it never
actually arrived in Vancouver, how would you start searching to see
where the parcel is?"  "I'd start looking from Toronto, of course."
"Okay.  Since your message has not arrived, I would suggest having
your friend check with their ISP to see where the message is now, and
where it's been; hopefully we can find the reason it's not arrived
yet."



Or the "I don't have to go online to use the Internet!" statement:

a) "Damn, sir, if you share that secret with me we'll patent it and
   both get rich."

b) "That's like saying you don't have to pick up the telephone in
   order to make a telephone call, ma'am."


My old supervisor was excellent at making up analogies on the fly.
Now that I'm supervisor, I find it much more difficult.

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