now they tell me

[kareina]

When I enrolled at UTAS, back in 2005, they assigned me a computer-generated e-mail address, which was comprised of my first name, my last initial, and the numeral 0. At the time I told them that I would much prefer an address without any numbers in it, and I think I have vague memories of the computer tech guy in our department putting in a request for an address that didn't involve any numbers. But I never heard anything more on the subject, and, over time, got used to the address as assigned.

Today I received the following letter from the UTAS computer department:

Because you have a job entry on the HRMS or a student entry on the USRS
and the details there for your birthday, surname, or given names did not
match our existing records you were allocated an additional email account.
The account reiac is now being closed to eliminate the duplication.
Mail held in account reiac is now in a folder called reiac in the mailboxes of account reiac0.
All formal addresses now deliver mail to account reiac0.

This was a surprise to me, so I logged in to the Webmail (which I never use, since my mail is downloaded by Eudora) and checked the new folder. over 3000 messages! Apparently it was *also* subscribed to the various geology department e-mail lists. Paging down through the old messages, I found at least three which had been intended for me, personally, and sent each a reply letting them know why I never saw the message and apologizing for therefore not having replied (one was as recent as May of this year, one of the other personal letters was from as early 2006).

If only they had told me in the first place that the version of my address without the zero existed, I would have happily switched to that one and let them delete the other. Silly computer people...

Comments

[hersir.livejournal.com]

Silly computer people...

Just think of the trouble we could get into if we were serious.... :)