Looking out the window, our Data Detective could see the clouds roll in as the sky turned from blue to milky white to dirty white, and then dark gray. The gloom of the approaching winter was on his mind, as the blustery day and chill in the air caused him to get up from his claw-footed chair and stoke the fireplace.
The fire began to roar and crack and pop as the embers rose up the chimney. It had been a short fall season, but the smell of an approaching snow shower was only overcome by the smell of smoke from all the stove pipes in the sleepy little town.
Suddenly, his landlady opened his door in her shy, but intrusive way, and proudly announced, “From this letter, I would say you likely have a new case, old man.” The old Sleuth quickly grabbed the letter, whipped out his trusty switch blade, and sliced open the envelope, barely missing his thumb, since the blade was as sharp as a Samurai sword.
As our detective friend read about a distressed QuickBooks user by the name of Jasmine. He soon realized that this simply was a misunderstanding. It seemed Jasmine wasn't aware her plight was not the result of abnormal goings-on – it actually was a typical QuickBooks behavior.
You see, from time to time, Jasmine noticed that QuickBooks changed the Build Reference Number of an assembly build that had been pending due to a lack of on-hand quantities. After opening a pending build in preparation of finalizing it, once the required components were available, sometimes, but not always, QuickBooks would change the Build Reference Number when the build was saved again.
Our Sleuth thought to himself, "How am I going to tactfully tell her that QuickBooks hasn’t gone crazy, that the changing numbers is normal behavior?" Jasmine obviously thought, mistakenly, that the Build Reference Number should never change once it was originally assigned.
It wasn’t worth the time or effort to head down the road 40 kilometers to see her, for there was snow on the way. "I shall just have to write a reply as I remain warmly here in my flat in front of the roaring fire," he thought.
So, he sat down at his writing desk, whipped out some appropriately scented stationary, gathered his favorite quill and bottle of blue-black ink, and set out to enlighten Jasmine on the truth of the situation.
Letter to Jasmine
Yes another mystery solved – another case marked "closed" in the books.
As the old Sleuth once again bent down to stoke the fire, he pondered to himself, "Now where is the landlady with my cocoa? Yes, it's going to be a long, long winter."
Our Data Detective, even in the fall and winter of his life, just never ceases to amaze those in need of his endless sleuthing abilities.