The brouhaha over Intuit’s TurboTax product activation (the Amazon customer reviews are scathing) reminded me of Lotus’ little debacle with copy protection, circa 1989. As described on this page about cracking 1-2-3’s copy protection, Lotus actually created a utility that would remove the copy protection from an installed version of 1-2-3 version 2.01. They shipped it in a “Value Pack” of helpful software. Unfortunately, users often ran into problems with the sometimes not-so-valuable Value Pack, rendering their spreadsheet software unloadable. Deluged with product support calls, Lotus hired a batch of college interns that summer to assist in taking calls from frantic users. That’s where I came in. Thanks to Lotus’ copy-protection scheme and faulty removal process, I got my foot in the computer industry door. Lesson learned: never skimp on quality assurance, even if you think you’re doing customers a service.

A less common support call related to copy protection: a customer calling to say that they bought a copy of Lotus 1-2-3, in “original” shrinkwrap, but it had someone else’s name already on the disk. That’s when I learned that Egghead stores would shrinkwrap returned software and put it back on the shelf like it was new. Lesson learned: Fry’s Electronic’s restocking sticker (aka The White Sticker of Death) actually demonstrates some level of good customer service.