Speaking of the Melissa virus….
Published Apr 16 2004 08:36 AM 966 Views

As an Exchange Support Engineer, I dread the onset of any virus that will affect our customers.  However, given that my name is Melissa, this virus was particularly painful for me!  Imagine answering a support call during this outbreak “Thank you for calling Microsoft Exchange Support, this is Melissa” only to hear a deafening ‘click’ on the other end.  A more typical response to my greeting was an awkward silence followed by “You’re kidding, right?”   For a time, I seriously considered using Missy or even Mel when answering calls at work.

 

A lot of customers would tease me that I was the Melissa that spurned the guy that started all of this. But I was ok with it, hey if people needed someone to blame, I’m a big girl, I can take it. 

 

Of course my co-workers couldn’t resist taking advantage of a ripe situation.   They creatively decorated my cube with yellow police tape and assorted anti-virus CDs.  But it was all in fun and I kept my sense of humor about it.  It started to get a little extreme though when some of my emails would bounce back because of my name on the From line.

 

Alas the Melissa virus is now a distant memory.   However to this day, I have a former colleague who still refers to me only as “Virus”.  Since he left Dove dark chocolate nuggets on my keyboard every morning, I am willing to overlook it.  He actually left chocolates for all the women on our team.  Truly this is a man who knows what women really want!  So I think it’s only fair to dedicate this blog entry to my “Dove fairy” Edwah, from “Virus”.  I miss you buddy!

 

- Melissa Travers

5 Comments
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You know, there're people named Melissa Virus & Melissa Hacker out there, imagine if they're programmers...
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I was actually interviewing at Microsoft the day the Melissa virus hit - lots of people had no email and were pretty stressed. I blame this virus for my continued non-employment at Microsoft ;)
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LOL - too funny. Back then, I worked for the government, and they insisted that display names must include a person's legal name - mine being Melissa. I too took a lot of heat for that one! (It would have been worse had Melissa gotten through our gateways, as we didn't have A/V on the Exchange servers - not my choice, but that's the way it was...)
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Yes so you can definitely relate Missy! Every once in awhile, a customer will make a comment like "you're not THAT Melissa are you?" LOL. Our name is infamous now.
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THose in the know, know the virus was named after a cheerleader, not a stripper. Right oh short and mousey one? <g,d&rrrr>
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