In a reminiscence about product support stories, a now-retired colleague related a story of a call that they took when working the product support phone lines for Microsoft FrontPage, a Web site authoring tool from the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.

The call came from a person who was creating a fan site for the rock band Van Halen. They had a java applet on the web site that played music, this being back in the days when java applets on Web pages was a thing, and the applet wasn’t working.

This was not a FrontPage issue, but my colleague figured they could try to help out anyway. “But man, was this person lit.” The sound of ice clinking in a glass was readily apparent, and as the call went on, the customer got more and more drunk.

The customer shouted in frustration, “You’re not even a real f—ing fan of Van Halen!”

My colleague advised the customer that if the swearing continued, they would have to end the call.

This was apparently not the response the customer was hoping for.

“F— you! I wanna talk to Gates!”

I don’t know what happened next. I wonder if the customer was transferred to the special operators who pretend to be Bill Gates’ secretary.

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.