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Exclamation pointIn the mid-nineties, I worked at an internet advertising agency with some pretty big corporate clients. Many of these companies were great successes at traditional marketing, but unsure of the benefits and limitations of the world wide web.

I served as the point person for our company, trying to translate the customer's plain-speak requests into geek-talk for our creative team and vice-versa.

One client in particular had unreasonably lofty goals for his restaurant's new site and a very serious exclamation point addiction. Things weren't just important, they were urgent!!! I nicknamed him "Captain Exclamation Point" and did my best to meet his demands.

At one point, the guy pretty much wanted his site to read minds and tailor itself to each customer's needs and wants without getting any data from that person. After repeatedly trying to explain over email why this couldn't happen, I got frustrated and forwarded the thread to my supervisor, with the subject line clearly marked "Private" and a plain-spoken request: "I'm about to tell Captain Exclamation Point here to go f--- himself, can you take over?"

To his credit, my boss backed me up and wrote a very clear message about why our client's dreams had to go unmet at this point in time. Unfortunately, he also forwarded my private message along with that rational missive. Sure enough, Monday morning I get a phone call from a man identifying himself as "Captain Exclamation Point!"

Luckily, he had a good sense of humor about it all and we eventually designed a really great site well within the limits of the technology of the day.