Sudden Surges in Demand … 🥵

clarke ching 1 min read
Sudden Surges in Demand … 🥵
Photo by Jelleke Vanooteghem / Unsplash

Hello again and thanks to everyone whom replied to my last email, the first I’ve sent from Ghost, my new platform.

Your responses revealed a few glitches, which I’ve fixed, but at least I didn’t cause millions of PCs to blue-screen, which is good.

Unfortunately, the sudden surge in emails kicked off Gmail’s spam filters and they shut me down.

Temporarily, thankfully.

Which reminds me …

In 1995, I worked in an IT department at a large bank.

My friend Josephine, a colleague, sent an important email to over 300 people, setting a read receipt to track who opened it.

Unfortunately, her PC was set to say “DOH!”—like Homer Simpson—every time a new email arrived.

Which wasn’t normally a problem … but …

For the next 2 hours the office was filled with “DOH! DOH! DOH!”

Her PC froze, and even after restarting, the dohs kept doh-ing.

“DOH! DOH! DOH!”

Josephine lost about an hour and a half of work, which was of no real consequence, but she gave us a story that still makes me smile 30 years later.

Is there a lesson here?

  • Perhaps it’s that small details can create unexpected bottlenecks?
    Perhaps it’s that sudden unexpected surges in demand create bottlenecks?
    Perhaps - with a little more thought - it’s the realisation that overwhelmed PCs shutdown … and so do humans?

That last one resonates … big time.

So many of us are overwhelmed by overflowing inboxes, and yet no one is laughing about it. Perhaps we’ve stopped noticing?

Before I go, let me tell you about Ken, who I worked with in Dublin, in 1999.

One day, Ken, a mild-mannered accountant, the picture of respectability, opened an innocent-looking email.
The volume on his PC suddenly turned up to 100%, and it shouted, “I’m watching porn over here’.
Which provided endless entertainment to everyone except Ken, who, I imagine, probably still blushes to this day.

Talk soon… about snakes.

Clarke - “The Bottleneck Guy”

Share
Comments

Clarke Ching - The Bottleneck Guy

I'm Clarke. I help busy bosses claw their weekends back.

Great! You’ve successfully signed up.

Welcome back! You've successfully signed in.

You've successfully subscribed to Clarke Ching - The Bottleneck Guy.

Success! Check your email for magic link to sign-in.

Success! Your billing info has been updated.

Your billing was not updated.