This week I've done something I haven't done regularly in the past few years: I've spoken with a customer on the phone to try to fix a networking problem.

These days, my technical assistance is delivered in the form of "how-to" documents, web-based troubleshooting tools, and Microsoft-like (*spit*) "knowledge base" items. I rarely talk to a real live customer.

The technical issue the customer needed help with was not overly complicated, but in the course of the conversation, the customer mentioned that he and a certain employee in our company had gone to school together, and did I happen to know Bob?

Wow, a "small world" moment. Bob had been my teammate from my earlliest days in Technical Assistance, back when I was talking to customers on the phone every day. I have spoken with, quite literally, thousands of customers.

I asked my customer how he had known Bob.

They had gone to elementary school together.

The same school I attended.

In fact, though we were several years apart, we were there at the same time. Of course, as a Fifth-grader, any mere Kindergartener would have been beneath my notice.

The world shrinks yet again, in unexpected ways.

Posted by Russ at 11:28 AM, December 10, 2003 in Miscellany