• What's elliott?
• About elliott
• Contact us

t o p i c s

• Business
• Commentary
• Destinations
• Help
• Leisure
• Technology
• Vault

s u b s c r i b e

• Elliott's E-Mail, a free weekly newsletter, is your insider resource for moneysaving ideas.




• Read back issues. Like what you see? Now you can become an underwriter.

a l s o

• Referring sites
• Public relations
• Visit Tripso
• Home


s e a r c h

• Find a story.



Copyright Elliott Publishing. All rights reserved. For more information, call (305) 453-4781 or send e-mail to us.

A Last Look at the Mail
The Travel Technologist · May 14, 2002

Last week I promised I'd take a look at the mail this column received during more than four years on the Internet.

There's a good reason for this retrospective. Not only is this column ending in a few weeks, which is probably as good an excuse as any to look back. But reader responses sometimes also offer instructive insights into the world of tech travelers, or what industry insiders like to call "end-users." And as I review some of these notes, I often wonder if the manufacturers and developers are bothering to read the feedback they get from customers.

One popular target is Microsoft.

"It is impossible to get any support satisfaction from Microsoft," wrote Kirk Short, a real estate consultant in Truckee, Calif. "Its $35 per-incident charge is offensive, but echoes a Dilbert cartoon that says 'We have a new business plan. We will ship defective products and make our money on tech support." E-mail tech support from Microsoft took more than a week to respond and then they wanted lots of serial numbers and said they would get back to me. Another week has gone by and I am no closer to using my modem."

Short is just one of many, many readers in search of tech help who have been given the runaround, mistreated, slighted and overbilled by technology manufacturers. I've been willing to be a crying shoulder for them, but why don't the makers of faulty hardware and software do something? I have no idea.

Their anger pales in comparison to those of people who are threatened by technology - specifically, readers who are driven off the road by cell phone users. My coverage of new laws designed to prevent drivers from chatting on the phone drew thousands of indignant responses from irate e-mailers.

"It's a shame that legislation has to prevent people from being stupid," wrote Kim Aisquith. "I ride a motorcycle, and last week I was cut off three times by drivers on cell phones entering highways. I'm very aware of the visibility problem with motorists and motorcyclists, but give me a break. If you can't turn your head to see what's around you then you shouldn't use the phone. It seems a simple thing to me."

To me, too. But there are an equal number of cell phone users who think legislation can't address the cell phone problem.

"I don't want any more laws!" wrote reader Jeannie Veilleux. "We have enough already. I don't want a law that says I can't use my cell phone in my car - or anywhere else for that matter. I don't want someone else determining what is my own good. I think that now that I'm an adult I should be responsible for myself."

Most of the missives were aimed at me, though. Here are a few gems:

  • Responding to a column I wrote about ditching my Apple Macintosh for a Wintel machine, reader Cindy Cingone zipped me this one-liner: "You're an [expletive]. Period."

  • Reacting to a story about airline attitudes toward technology, reader Bill Renner send me a note saying, "Get a real job, [expletive]." (Bill, I'm working on it.)

  • A lot of readers were upset by my post-9/11 coverage of technology, including my insistence that using cell phones on planes remained a bad idea. "Boo-hoo [expletive] hoo," wrote one anonymous e-mailer who worked for an airline. "How many associates did YOU lose last Tuesday?" (Point of clarification: there were more passengers killed on Sept. 11 than airline crewmembers.)
Oh well, you can't please all of your readers all the time. Unfortunately, many angry e-mailers don't bother to finish the columns they rant about. If they did, I think about three-quarters of the flames I got would have never been sent. But that, as a former editor once said, is neither here nor there.

There's one final type of question - not entirely related to technology - that I've been getting a lot recently. Segues nicely into the comment about getting a real job, actually. "I envision you looking out the window at the ocean in 80-degree weather," wrote Gary Worrell. "Or are you using your laptop on a deck chair by the pool?"

It's true that I relocated to a tropical island about a year ago. But that hasn't affected the quality of my work, I swear. Each column I write is completely original. For example, I would never just string together a series of letters and make a column out of it. What a cop-out!

Excuse me while I take a sip of my Margarita.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator based in Key Largo, Fla. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion. The Travel Technologist appears weekly on this site. This story was also published on SmarterLiving.com.