I’ve heard rumours that some people think I’m not nice; that I’m rude, blunt, uncouth.

I can be nice. Here’s an example:

It wasn’t too long ago that I received a message on my NeoCom from an agent. I’m sure the agent must’ve been confusing email messages with instant messaging, as only the title field was filled in. The body text was empty. I happened to be having dinner with a friend when I received the message, and showed it to her.

She shook her head, knowingly, and playfully admonished me. “Be nice.” was all she said. I gave her best “When am I not nice?” look, which was returned with a “Do you really need me to answer that?” stare, complete with sarcastic eyebrow raise.

So I was nice.

The title of the message had said “I’ve uploaded the file to your server.”

Now understand I am an organized person for my own sake. Telling me you’ve uploaded a file to my server without telling me the name of the file, the project it’s related to, or any other single useful piece of relevant information isn’t really helpful in any way.

My reply. “I’m sorry. I must be experiencing issues with my NeoCom as the body of your message was completely empty. Please resend.”

I felt good about myself. I put away my NeoCom and continued eating dinner, thoroughly enjoying the companionship and conversation of my friend.

Shortly, I received a reply. “I have uploaded a new binary to your server for you.” Excellent. At least I was made aware of the file type that had been uploaded to some mysterious project on my file server.

I sighed audibly.

My reply. “Please tell me the file name of the binary you have uploaded as well as which project you are referring to as I currently have no idea what the hell you are talking about.”

I had tried nice. Fail.

I didn’t receive an email back.

The following morning, I was called into the office of the agent’s supervisor. Apparently the agent had been offended by my curt reply. The supervisor was understanding, explaining it away as inexperience, etc, etc, but simply asked me to be nice.

“I’m always nice.” I replied. It amazed me just how many people could arch a single, sarcastic eyebrow.

We parted ways, and I went about my business per usual that day.

The next morning I received a message from the same agent. The body text was empty. The title had one simple question in it:

“Did you get the file I uploaded?”

I warmed up my autocannons.