Lee, a former systems administrator at a retail company's headquarters, recalled an incident from around the year 2000. He managed Novell servers, email servers, and supported roughly 1,000 desktop users. On a Friday afternoon, a vice president reported that he could not open files because a dialog box displayed 'General failure reading Drive C:'. Lee asked whether the message read 'General failure is reading Drive C:'; the vice president corrected that the exact wording was 'General failure reading Drive C:'. Lee concluded that the error indicated a failed hard disk, not an external intrusion using the pseudonym 'General Failure'. He arranged a support call, recommended a new disk and possibly a new computer for the vice president. The episode illustrates how error messages can be misinterpreted.