sort of.
During the Christmas season of 2000, while I worked on a museum project
for a local university, I got a call from Don Nelson, a friend and
Pentax sales guy some of you will remember from GFM. He told me that
Pentax USA, which carried the PAML and PDML on its website, was looking
to get out of the email list game because of potential liability issues
arising from unsanctioned and borderline dangerously irresponsible
technical and repair advice getting posted to the PDML.
Don then asked if I knew anyone who could take it over. I thought about
a few members I knew at the time, even reached out to one or two, who
pretty much laughed, and I reported back to Don that there didn't seem
to be much interest. He said ok.
A couple days later, a nice woman from the marketing department at
Pentax called to tell me she had heard from Don that I would like to be
considered for the role of List Guy. After a long pause, followed by
some muttering and me repeating "wait, what?" a few times, the nice
woman in marketing assured me that Don said I was very interested.
That was Don, as those of you who knew him would agree.
I told the nice woman that I was not a list guy by any stretch of the
imagination. I wasn't a software guy, didn't know anything about how to
run an email list, was in all things comprehensively incompetent and
liked it that way, and so on.
The nice woman in marketing was unimpressed, so it was decided. I
begrudgingly agreed that I would download some list software packages
and see if I could make any sense of them. After that, I said, I'd get
back to her in a week or so with my decision. The nice woman in
marketing rang off.
That afternoon I found and downloaded some software, installed it, and
poked around for a few minutes until I had to do something with my
actual job. The only thing I had really discerned from my brief time
with the software was that I was out of my depth and needed some serious
hours with it before I could even begin to think about whether or not I
would take over the PDML.
Some time that night the PDML broke.
The next day, the nice woman in marketing called to tell me that the guy
who worked at the advertising agency that handled the Pentax USA website
and was the only one there who knew the list software and how it
interfaced with the website was off on Christmas vacation and the server
was down and hey, she would email me a list of everyone who was
subscribed to the PDML. Good luck and godspeed, it was now my baby.
I still can't tell you how I got it going, but here we are, and I'm
grateful for it.
Happy New Year, kids.
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