A system administrator at a Wall Street law firm was called urgently to help a senior lawyer whose Outlook text appeared “slanted”. The issue turned out simply to be italics, prompting amusement from the lawyer’s secretary and underscoring that technical support requests can arise regardless of professional status or academic achievement.

The anecdote was submitted to The Register’s regular reader-contributed “On Call” column. The lawyer had attended an Ivy League university and held law and business degrees, while the sysadmin resolved the problem by showing him Outlook’s italics button.