Hans van der Kamp

My only novel (Nette mensen in een nieuwe tijd -1993) is out of print for more than a decade. I have one copy left and I am always looking for extra copies. Today it looked like I got lucky on a Chinese Amazon shop..

Some people smile when I say I wanted to become a photographer at age 7, but here is a photograph from the album of my mother. Underneath it she scribbled for me: I want to become a photographer and this is my first camera.

It’s a pity we can not see the camera, but I remember it well. It was a plastic Russian camera. The first time I accidentally left it on the dashboard of our Volkswagen Kefer when stopping for some drinks and cake, the thing had melted under the heat of the sun.

In real life it is hard to judge people. I have made some mistakes that I regretted later. On the internet however one can spot an asshole right away. After three weeks of helpdesk activities for AMEA, I feel like a veteran on the subject of assholes.
The die hards are recognized by the fact that they always use just one line of text.
Example: “My password gets rejected? email address is the only one I have…so??”
He could have told me his user name, the site he experienced problems with, anything to avoid a back and forth correspondence that ended up taking away 2 hours of my Saturday night.

There *was* no problem, I have checked his account four times. He is just an asshole and with three weeks of practice I had seen that almost instantly. I will spare you the rest of the correspondence with him. In the end I felt like jumping out of a window.
He is just an idiot like so many out there, hammering away on their keyboards. Angry. Nothing works for them and they paid 19.95 $ for a subscription so you have to be there for them. And I am.
But he taught me one thing:
Never respond on helpdesk emails on a Saturday night. Certainly not if they complain their password does not work.
After twenty emails back and forth, I had almost reconfigured the server, reset his account, until I realized what his real problem was.
He just forgot to close one eye while typing his password. He was drunk.