The Export Shop Sketch
(with thanks and apologies to Monty Python)
(a customer walks in the door.)
Customer: Good Morning.
Owner: Good morning, Sir. Welcome to the IBM Lotus Notes Export Facility!
Customer: Ah, thank you, my good man.
Owner: What can I do for you, Sir?
C: Well, I was, uh, sitting in the Beach Club lobby just now, skimming through the "Lotus Notes and Domino 6 Programming Bible" by Brian Benz and Rocky Oliver, and I suddenly came over all timorous.
O: Timorous, sir?
C: Weak-kneed, spineless, panicky, mostly about whether I could get my multitudinous highly formatted documents out of Lotus Notes without data loss.
O: Eh?
C: 'Ee, Ah got the willies cuz I wanna get lots of stuff outa Notes widout it lookin loike shite!
O: Ah, indeed, sir!
C: So, then, bring on the fine export formats please, my good man.
O: (lustily) Certainly, sir. What would you like?
C: Well, eh, how about a nice flexible Open Document Format.
O: I'm, a-fraid we're fresh out of ODF, sir.
C: Oh, never mind, how are you on StarWriter 5.0?
O: I'm afraid we never have that at the end of the week, sir, we get it
fresh on Monday.
C: Tish tish. No matter. Well, stout yeoman, serve up a portion of XHTML, if
you please.
O: Ah! It's beeeen on order, sir, for two weeks. Was expecting it this
morning.
C: 'T's Not my lucky day, is it? Aah, ordinary HTML 4.0?
O: Sorry, sir.
C: Works 6.0 or 7.0?
O: Normally, sir, yes. Today the van broke down.
C: Ah. Lotus WordPro?
O: Sorry.
C: Outlook Express .EML?
O: No.
C: Any Internet Explorer Web Archive .MHT, per chance?
O: No.
C: Word 97?
O: No.
C: Word 95?
O: <pause> No.
C: Microsoft RTF, perhaps?
O: Ah! We have Microsoft RTF, yessir.
C: (suprised) You do! Excellent.
O: Yessir. It's..ah,.....it's a bit rummy...
C: Oh, I like it rummy.
O: Well,.. It's very rummy, actually, sir.
C: No matter. Fetch hither le plus bas dénominateur commun ! Mmmwah!
O: I...think it's a bit rummier than you'll like it, sir.
C: I don't care how fucking rummy it is. Hand it over with all speed.
O: Oooooooooohhh........! <pause>
C: What now?
O: It doesn't actually handle images, sir. They all turn grey. And bullets disappear.
C: <pause> Do they?
(pause)
C: You...do *have* some export filters that maintain fidelity, don't you?
O: (brightly) Of course, sir. It's a export filters facility, sir. We've got--
C: No no... don't tell me. I'm keen to guess.
O: Fair enough.
C: Uuuuuh, PageMaker.
O: Yes?
C: Ah, well, I'll have some of that!
O: Oh! I thought you were talking to me, sir.
Mister PageMaker, that's my name.
(pause)
C: PDF?
O: Not *today*, sir, no.
(pause)
C: Aah, how about Microsoft Word 2003?
O: Well, we don't get much call for it around here, sir.
C: Not much ca--It's the single most popular file format in the world!
O: Not 'round here, sir.
C: <slight pause> and what IS the most popular file format 'round hyah?
O: OpenXML, sir.
C: IS it.
O: Oh, yes, it's staggeringly popular in this manor, squire.
C: Is it.
O: It's our number one best seller, sir!
C: I see. Uuh...OpenXML, eh?
O: Right, sir.
C: All right. Okay.
'Have you got any?' he asked, expecting the answer 'no'.
O: I'll have a look, sir...
nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnno. Not until next year.
C: It's not much of a file export facility, is it?
O: Finest in the district!
C: (annoyed) Explain the logic underlying that conclusion, please.
O: Well, it's so clean, sir!
C: It's certainly uncontaminated by file export filters....
O: (brightly) You haven't asked me about AppleWorks, sir.
C: Would it be worth it?
O: Could be....
C: (slowly) Have you got any AppleWorks?
O: No.
C: Figures.
Predictable, really I suppose. It was an act of purest optimism to have
posed the question in the first place. Tell me:
O: Yessir?
C: (deliberately) Have you in fact got any file export filters that maintain fidelity here at all.
O: Yes,sir.
C: Really?
(pause)
O: No. Not really, sir.
C: You haven't.
O: Nosir. Not a one. I was deliberately wasting your time,sir.
C: Well I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to shoot you.
O: Right-0, sir.
The customer takes out a gun and shoots the owner.
C: What a *senseless* waste of human life.
To avoid such a senseless waste in your organization, why not try our Midas Rich Text LSX? While we don't support all of these formats, we do support several of them, and more are on the way.
Copyright © 2006 Genii Software Ltd.