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10-year-old Microsoft Ticket Resurfaces?
Ian Lamont writes "Microsoft is apparently taking seriously a blogger's claim that a Microsoft tech support employee called back to check on a 10-year-old BSOD trouble ticket. The anonymous blogger suspects someone at Microsoft typed "1/8/08" into their tracking system for the date of a follow-up call, instead of "1/8/98." Microsoft told Computerworld support cases "are reviewed regularly so that we can ensure we're resolving customer issues in a timely fashion — regardless of the callback commitment set by the agent. Nonetheless, no system can ensure complete accuracy."" To be fair, this is all unverified, so choose to believe at your own risk.
My father, who worked in two-way communication systems (think CB radios/base stations, 911 comms systems, etc) before retirement, has had the same mobile phone number since the late 1980s when it was attached to an $1100 in car system, the old kind with a base station mounted under the driver's seat and a handset cradle bolted onto the floorboard. He actually kept the same number with the same system (through NUMEROUS buyouts/takeovers) until cell number portability was finally mandated in the US.
Makes my 9 years with the same mobile number seem paltry in comparison.
I call BS. I worked Windows 95 support around that time ('98), and while we did often call people back to check on problems, it didn't work the way this guy imagines. Calls logged in workbench that we wanted to follow up on were just left open. Each morning you checked your open tickets, and called the ones that needed calling. No automated dialer either, as some have suggested. If something was left open to long your supervisor would check on it with you, and it would get closed or escalated posthaste.
If this guy really did get a call, my guess is he got a wrong number when a tech was following up on somebody else's problem. Maybe his customer record got mistakenly linked to somebody else's ticket. Maybe he's making the whole story up.