As readers of Head Rambles will know, I am in the process of relinquishing my VPS as I am shutting down my business, and that is a tad expensive to host a couple of sites.

While I am having great fun trying to break my new server [successfully, I might add] I still have all my old accounts sitting on the VPS, waiting to be moved.  This should happen at any time, but in the meantime I have this dreaded feeling that I am still responsible for them, despite all the emails saying I had quit at the end of last month.

I received a mail last night from a client.  They were having trouble with their mail, and for once they gave a detailed analysis of the problem [which beats the hell out of “I can’t send mail – fix it please”].  It took me two seconds to Google the error report they sent – an Outlook problem.

I was delighted to receive that mail.  It reminded me why I am getting out of the business. 

While some clients had genuine problems, the majority seemed to think that it was perfectly acceptable to fire me an email at eight in the evening rather than go to the trouble of seeing what the problem really was, and whether it was my problem at all.

Having just moved servers to a new and completely unfamiliar control panel, I am having a lot of problems of my own.  When something goes wrong, I try to fix it myself.  If I can’t do that, I search the Internet to see if anyone is having similar problems.  If that fails, I go to my last resort – the Blacknight support team.  They are exceptionally helpful there and will go out of their way to explain things.  However, they do not want their time wasted with trivial complaints and queries and I respect that.

I replied to my client.  I sent a mail pointedly saying that I had found the answer straight away with a simple search.  I also politely reminded them that I have shut up shop.  I finished off with a chatty note about my retirement and how I was looking forward to peace and quiet with no one mailing me with trivial problems late in the evening.

I wonder if they got the hint?