Dear Bill Gates,

How are you today? I know you're a busy man and I appreciate you taking the time to read my note. The time you take to listen to your customers is very special and I know we all appreciate it greatly.

I hate to bring my little problems to you, especially given that you're incredibly busy running a monopoly and generally raising heck among your competitors. Don't worry, I'm not going to rant about Windows ME and its instability or how I don't care for the way Netscape always crashes and IE never does. This is all in the past, and I assure you, I've made my peace with these particular quirks. In fact, it's rather adorable the way my computer occasionally refuses to turn off and I admit, I'm rather attached to that "End task" window.

But Bill, there's a time in every girl's life when she has to make a stand and that time is now. Here's the deal: I'm trying to format a document. And the document format has to be very specific. You must be familiar with these kinds of issues, right? Given your extensive experience with government bureaucracy in that little antitrust matter, I'm sure you feel my frustration as well as I'm trying to format the document to these contraints.

My problem is that MS Word refuses to allow me to an omit a header on the first page. Bill, I don't want the same header on the first page that I have on the second page! I've tried everything, Bill, and I just can't get the headers to come out properly for me. I've even asked that damned paperclip of yours for help but it gives me some kind of nonsense about partioning sections continuously and bringing back the previous header. I don't want the previous header, Bill.

I'm begging you. I've spent thirty minutes on this stupid header and I can't think a more worthless endeavour to spend my time on than trying to figure out how to have different headers on each page. I imagine I could type each one out, but really, Bill, MS Word is supposed to my life easier, not more difficult.

In the great spirit of fandom, I've decided to start an online petition. Out of respect for your accomplishments, I will not call you a communist or accuse you of infringing on my First Amendment rights to write what I want to write in the safety of my own MS Word.

Thank you for your time and consideration, Mr. Gates. Together, we can make Microsoft a better product for all of us.

Sincerely,

Seema