January 10, 2005
For some people it is intuitive to use donotreply.com
For most people listed here, this is the last stop in a long line of contacting. Normally if it is someone I can contact by phone, I try a phone call. I try to contact someone in the department that may have caused the issue. I know what it is like, deadline pressing, idiots barking feature creep in your ear, all you want to do is finish the project. So you make a goof, you slug in donotreply.com as you test, next thing you know it is live and your error is being sent to me. My normal mode is call a couple of times, email a couple of times, then maybe post.
Not this time.
Also if you have been around, you may notice some come down. The normal deal is if your company will donate $x to your local animal protective league, pound, etc, I will remove it. No money has ever gone to me for a removal, always straight to a charity we agree on. Normally I make it a modest amount.
Not this time.
There is one company I hate above all other companies. There is one company that I am forced to use because my accountant uses them. This company is intuit and my forced using of Quick Books. Is Quick Books bad? Not really, it is simply, twice now they have not sent me my rebate. Twice. I tried calling, I tried emailing, nothing. For the second one I documented it closely. Still no luck. They simply stole $100 from me. For this, I will not forgive them.
Is $100 going to break me? No. But if some stranger came up to you on the street and asked you for $100 for doing nothing, would you give it to him? I sure as hell wouldn't.
I know what you are thinking. Okay, so they screwed you on the rebate, but these are the guys you trust the security of your business with, you can trust them. These are the guys that you trust your taxes with. Surely they must have a solid security procedure in your place and keep any company data safely in-house.
And if you thought that, you would be wrong.
The kids at intuit like to send to CompileServer@DoNotReply.Com, they send it from Compile_Server_Station@intuit.com.
What do we learn?
Boring stuff.
On 01/08/05 at 2:04 pm, it seems they compiled for the "WH-435 LLC change".
What happened?
Master Compile Server
4 projects compiled.
Processed Projects
------------------
VTOUTPUT.P04 Build #: 04.1.01.4986
P4VTFUNC.DLL Build #: 04.1.01.4987
P4VTDiag.DLL Build #: 04.1.01.4988
PVT4.DLL Build #: 04.1.01.4989
Hints, Warnings: in compiling c:\04tax\Par\VT\VTOUTPUT.P04
Time: 00:01:06
They had actually tried at 2:02 pm but something seems to have been amiss:
Master Compile Server
0 projects compiled, 4 projects halted. (4 projects attempted.)
Halted Jobs
-----------
PVTOutPut ()
PVTExpr ()
PVTDiag ()
PVT ()
The kids at intuit worked late that day. At 4:15pm they ran a process for the "city fixes"
Master Compile Server
4 projects compiled.
Processed Projects
------------------
OHOUTPUT.I04 Build #: 04.1.01.5063
I4OHFUNC.DLL Build #: 04.1.01.5064
I4OHDiag.DLL Build #: 04.1.01.5065
IOH4.DLL Build #: 04.1.01.5066
Hints, Warnings: in compiling c:\04tax\Ind\OH\OHOUTPUT.I04
Time: 00:00:33
I have a hint in compiling ohoutput.io4 don't send the freaking email to my server.
And if you think that was a light day at intuit, I failed to mention they first compiled at 9:53am for "FI/letter changes for 25K".
So far intuit has sent me over 1,000 emails. To celebrate the new year, or something, I am going to offer these emails to you. Free of charge. Download them and load them up in your favorite mail reader. Pretend you are the head programmer at Intuit. Order some recompiles, I would suggest recompiling rebate.dll myself, but hey, it is your email to do with what you want. Intuit must have sent it to me for a reason. To share the joy.
And to the intuit lawyer who will be contacting me, yes the phone number on the whois doesn't work, I moved. Feel free to email me at chet at evilemail.com and I can tell you where you can send the C&D, or if you are feisty where you can stick it.
In the meantime, can you ask somebody about my rebate check? Thanks. Talk to you soon.