Only in Zimbabwe

Here is a real email message sent out to all customers by Zimbabwe Online, a major ISP in the country ruled by King Robert 1 of Jongwe. At least they have a sense of humour.

Subject: ZOL downtime and emergency maintenance


Dear (name removed)

This is a brief update of our considerable downtime today (Monday 16th March) from about 2pm to 5:30pm. We are also announcing emergency maintenance that will take us offline from approximately 8pm to 10pm tomorrow (Tuesday 17th March).

Unfortunately every backup system including generators, UPS and routers were totally flummoxed by 2 painters painting the building where our satellite dish is housed. Being diligent men, they decided to remove a junction box to paint behind it. Unluckily that box belongs to Telecontract and houses a fiber optic cable joint connecting to ZOL. This took down not only ZOL, but many ISP connections on the same fiber.

We are operating on a temporary solution now, but to fully repair this damage Telecontract have advised us that they will have to redo the entire joint. This will take approximately 2 hours, and will be done at 8pm on Tuesday 17th March.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused. Sometimes human brilliance just shines through regardless of the best laid plans!

Best Regards
The ZOL Crew