Pilot fish’s company uses a third-party MSP to monitor its servers. The in-house server is a hefty box with two VMs running, one for the file server, and one for the Exchange server.

Comes a night with wild weather everywhere, and the power goes out for longer than the UPSs can keep the servers going, so naturally, they shut down.

Fish discovers this the next morning when he checks his email and finds that it hasn’t updated on his phone since 1 a.m.

He tries to log in to the server: No connection available. He hurries into the office and finds that the power is still off. Once he gets everything powered back up and functioning, he contacts the MSP to ask why he hadn’t been notified.

We did notify you, they say. Fish checks his cellphone but there are no missed calls. He checks his text messages; same story.

Yeah, says the MSP, we sent you an email.

MSP promptly amends its procedures: In case of power outage, notify user via phone call or text.

Email definitely works for Sharky. Send me your true tales of IT life at sharky@computerworld.com. You can also subscribe to the Daily Shark Newsletter.