The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

russ0519 · 2013-03-12 Reply Admin

Peter:
C-Derb:

Just yesterday I was on the phone for the 4th time trying to figure out why my smart phone will no longer connect to the 3G network of my phone service provider. I thought that clearly explaining that I cannot to the "data network" and "no, I'm not talking about my wi-fi network, I'm talking about the data network, Yes text and phone calls all work fine", etc. would be helpful. Turns out, I was supposed to say "No, I don't see the 3G icon." My bad.

I had this exact problem when my wife bought a brand new iPhone5 -- voice network worked perfectly, but no data network icon (where I knew we had coverage).

The tech I got (while riding in the car) asked me if I'd tried turning it off and on again. That did it. Weird that it needed a power cycle to bring up the data network when the voice network was working just fine...

Obligatory reference:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn2FB1P_Mn8

FragFrog · 2013-03-13 Reply Admin

MiffTheFox:
Worst tech support exchange I had ever was when I gave the tech a straight description of the problem "Levels at the modem are -14 dBmV" and they responded by pushing a firmware patch that blocks my access to the modem's web interface. >_<

I had pretty much the opposite experience once when trying to get a new connection to work:

FragFrog: Hi! SNR's on my modem seem fine and power levels are at ##dB, yet it's not getting an IP? Support 1: Mmm, let me transfer you to tech. ... Support 2: Hi! What's your modem's MAC address? FragFrog: it's ###### Support 2: Aight, your account was not properly activated, I've enabled it now, give it a few minutes and it should work. FragFrog: much obliged!

Took me 30 minutes of waiting on hold and 2 minutes of talking to get my issue resolved. Good times. Sadly that company (@home) later got merged with another, and the newer company was not exactly as helpful the few times I had to deal with them later.

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

I actually LOL'ed. Doesn't happen all that often these days on TDWTF.. thank you!

nie anoniem nie

anoniem:
This is why I *hate* reading the comments. You just say frist all the time and never anything remotely funny or insightful. I want to talk to Alex.

Steve The Cynic · 2013-03-13 Reply Admin

Zemm:
I'm on my phone right now with a "H". I've also seen "H+", but on my cut price network that is rare. All these letters are confusing!
BTW EDGE is 2G. Obviously your 3G runs on a high frequency so the 850/900 MHz is stronger.

Edit: H is for HSDPA, kinda 3.5G or something. H+ is 4G for Americans, more lying.

I have an iPhone 4, and it says "3G" or "E" or nothing when I'm out and about, and the quarter-rings of WiFi when I'm in range(*) of the ADSL box at home. It wanders back and forth between 3G and E when I'm in the office, and always shows more signal strength on E than 3G, but more still when I step outside the building. Your H+ is most likely really HSDPA+, up to 7 megabits or some such, but still 3.5G.

(*) Including in the lift a couple of floors down!

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

Oh yes:

"My internet is really slow. I've checked with speedtest.com and the speedtest applet and it's giving me about 10% of what I'm supposed to get."

"OK, did you restart the modem?"

"Yes, I restarted the modem like you said in the recording that I heard 17 times before you picked up"

"Can you go to your Internet Explorer settings?"

"No, I can't. I'm on a Mac, and I use Chrome."

"OK, go to settings and clear the cache"

"Whut?"

"Clear the cache"

"WHY? I would have the same exact issue in Safari (Which I never use, so it's clean) and in Firefox. I literally have ping timeouts for the Google DNS... But OK, sure"

*clears cache, we go through the speedtests again, he even remote logs into the modem (when the hell did that become an option?)

"Seems the problem is with your line, we'll send someone out."

Thanks, genius.

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

This is when you tell the customer: "Try to fit 4 gallons of water in a 2 gallon pitcher and tell me it doesn't make a mess."

Maybe a better (Well, only slightly better) metaphor would have been: You need 4 Gallons of Gas to get to your destination, if you only put in 2 Gallons you're never going to get there.

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

Narfff:
This is when you tell the customer: "Try to fit 4 gallons of water in a 2 gallon pitcher and tell me it doesn't make a mess."

Maybe a better (Well, only slightly better) metaphor would have been: You need 4 Gallons of Gas to get to your destination, if you only put in 2 Gallons you're never going to get there.

Sorry, but making data/executable code analogous to water, and RAM analogous to a pitcher is clearly better.

RAM doesn't get consumed like fuel over time, nor does someone using a program generally require twice as much to run that program for twice as long (unless the program has some kind of memory leak).

In addition, your analogy doesn't work, because a car with a 1 gallon gas tank can make a 100 gallon journey, by refueling 99 times on the way; 1MB of RAM is never going to run a 100MB of application.

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

Narfff:
Maybe a better (Well, only slightly better) metaphor would have been: You need 4 Gallons of Gas to get to your destination, if you only put in 2 Gallons you're never going to get there.

Oh, I get it! You're one of those Tesla guys! http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/14/elon-musk-lays-out-his-evidence-that-new-york-times-tesla-model-s-test-drive-was-fake/

CAPTCHA: haero - The "Hairy Aero" UI design scheduled to appear in Windows 9

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

Smug Unix User:
The user needed more memory to save the president's daughter.

Maria Gabriela Chavez?

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

eVil:
Narfff:
This is when you tell the customer: "Try to fit 4 gallons of water in a 2 gallon pitcher and tell me it doesn't make a mess."

Maybe a better (Well, only slightly better) metaphor would have been: You need 4 Gallons of Gas to get to your destination, if you only put in 2 Gallons you're never going to get there.

Sorry, but making data/executable code analogous to water, and RAM analogous to a pitcher is clearly better.

RAM doesn't get consumed like fuel over time, nor does someone using a program generally require twice as much to run that program for twice as long (unless the program has some kind of memory leak).

In addition, your analogy doesn't work, because a car with a 1 gallon gas tank can make a 100 gallon journey, by refueling 99 times on the way; 1MB of RAM is never going to run a 100MB of application.

How about: loading 4 tons of goods onto a vehicle (a boat's a good example) which is designed to carry only 2 tons?

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

Jazz:
Martijn:
Remember, to 90% of the customers "no connection to the data network", "there is a connection, but there is no data traffic" and "there is data traffic, but webpages don't load" are identical problems, which may all called "it doesn't connect to the network" by the customer, and you can't blame him for not knowing the difference.

Sure I can. It's the user's responsibility to know how to operate their device. If the user doesn't know the difference, whose fault is it? It's definitely not the fault of the UI designer, who spent hours adding easy-to-recognize icons to common tasks. It's definitely not the fault of the tech writer who put the manual together. It's definitely not the fault of the OS developer who added an online help feature.

Let's look at this a different way. Say you borrow your friend's car, then you fail to use your signal at a left turn and you get into an accident, and you have to go to court. You argue in front of the judge that you didn't know how to use the turn signal on that particular make and model of car, and it isn't your fault that you didn't know how to use the controls. No judge in the world would find your argument to be anything short of patently ridiculous, because if you truly didn't know how to use the turn signals, you're expected to educate yourself on that PRIOR to using the car.

We absolutely can and should blame users who refuse to educate themselves for the consequences of their neglected education.

This is a terrible analogy. In this case, the user is our customer who purchased our vehicle with their money. If they're complaining because they truly couldn't figure out how to use the turn signal on our car, we absolutely should validate that feedback and correct the problem some way if it's deemed valid. Whether that is updating the user manual, or changing the product to make it easier. Otherwise, why the hell would they continue using ours, let alone buy another one in the future?

Sometimes you forget that customer support is CUSTOMER support.

Kuba · 2013-03-13 Reply Admin

Anonymous Coward:
Master Chief:
If his shop doesn't record calls, and he's the only one in the building, why didn't he just cuss this dumb bastard out? He's obviously called multiple times, with the same issue, constantly being told the same thing, and just being cheap and stubborn about fixing it. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results, but more often than not, it's not insanity, it's just good old stupidity. TRWTF is that our society demands that customer service entail constant ass kissing, and doesn't allow for severe verbal abuse when it's justified.
Yes, truly the real WTF is that most of society grows out of the misanthropic teenage years.

There's this thing called self defence that has nothing to do with being misanthropic. If you're faced with someone who behaves like a jerk, then customer or not, you should have the right to tell them what's up. That's only fair. I wouldn't want customers like that.

beginner_ · 2013-03-13 Reply Admin

That was obviously long ago. Nowadays any sane support would insist on seeing the issue himself be it locally or over "remote desktop".

Didn't change anything, didn't do anything. blabla. Like Dr. House says. Everybody lies.

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

Your Name:
Master Chief:
If his shop doesn't record calls, and he's the only one in the building, why didn't he just cuss this dumb bastard out? He's obviously called multiple times, with the same issue, constantly being told the same thing, and just being cheap and stubborn about fixing it. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results, but more often than not, it's not insanity, it's just good old stupidity. TRWTF is that our society demands that customer service entail constant ass kissing, and doesn't allow for severe verbal abuse when it's justified.

Even if the shop isn't recording, you never know when the caller is recording.

..which, in much of the US, is a felony if they don't tell you...

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

Tom:
And I have had some success, when I was in a hurry, with telling Tier I "Yes, I already did everything on your script. But I understand you have to do your job, so let's go through it quick and check off the boxes, so we can escalate to Tier 2." Because Tier 1 doesn't really want to waste time helping a power user solve an obscure problem either.

Am I that unique? I've never had a problem that a Tier 1 has solved. Maybe it's just me, but I've pretty much done everything in the script before I call support. And I don't really lie about it either.

Almost always it's been something like.

"Oh yeah, you're right, the network is down."

Or... my favorite was this one time.

"So, I don't think we can help you. Should we send someone out." Me, "Wait. I think I got it. It keeps going out at pretty much exactly 10 mins. Let me blow it out. Ah, it was overheating. Your modem is defective, send me a new one."

The most trouble I ever had was convincing the cable company to NOT bury my cable in my backyard for the 100th time, because my dog will chew it. Rather mount it on the fence, like you did for my neighbor, but won't do for me. Finally I asked them to send out a contractor instead of one of their company workers, and the contractor buried it in my neighbor's yard.

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

Valued Service:
The most trouble I ever had was convincing the cable company to NOT bury my cable in my backyard for the 100th time, because my dog will chew it. Rather mount it on the fence, like you did for my neighbor, but won't do for me. Finally I asked them to send out a contractor instead of one of their company workers, and the contractor buried it in my neighbor's yard.

So now the neighbour's dog chews it instead of yours? Not really an improvement

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

urza9814:
Your Name:
Master Chief:
If his shop doesn't record calls, and he's the only one in the building, why didn't he just cuss this dumb bastard out? He's obviously called multiple times, with the same issue, constantly being told the same thing, and just being cheap and stubborn about fixing it. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results, but more often than not, it's not insanity, it's just good old stupidity. TRWTF is that our society demands that customer service entail constant ass kissing, and doesn't allow for severe verbal abuse when it's justified.

Even if the shop isn't recording, you never know when the caller is recording.

..which, in much of the US, is a felony if they don't tell you...

No, in most states it's legal as long as one party to the conversation knows it's being recorded (i.e., the caller). There are only a handful of states that require every party know about the recording (this is usually correlated with above-average corruption in the state government).

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

Narfff:
Oh yes:
"My internet is really slow. I've checked with speedtest.com and the speedtest applet and it's giving me about 10% of what I'm supposed to get."

"OK, did you restart the modem?"

"Yes, I restarted the modem like you said in the recording that I heard 17 times before you picked up"

"Can you go to your Internet Explorer settings?"

"No, I can't. I'm on a Mac, and I use Chrome."

"OK, go to settings and clear the cache"

"Whut?"

"Clear the cache"

"WHY? I would have the same exact issue in Safari (Which I never use, so it's clean) and in Firefox. I literally have ping timeouts for the Google DNS... But OK, sure"

*clears cache, we go through the speedtests again, he even remote logs into the modem (when the hell did that become an option?)

"Seems the problem is with your line, we'll send someone out."

Thanks, genius.

Speedtest ALWAYS give a lower reading than my actual network speed. I know I'm getting the speed I should though because other tests give that value (actually a higher one) and I've had torrents not only reach, but maintain (for an hour at least) higher speeds than what speedtest claims I have. My conclusion has been that Speedtest's servers suck, and if you actually have a fast connection there's a good chance that your connection will be faster than what their servers can provide to test it.

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

The real WTF is shipping a product that won't work in 2 Mb RAM. I've seen chess coded in 4K of memory! Sure it's going to run faster and better with more RAM but just to fail with less is horrible.

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

QJo:
eVil:
Narfff:
This is when you tell the customer: "Try to fit 4 gallons of water in a 2 gallon pitcher and tell me it doesn't make a mess."

Maybe a better (Well, only slightly better) metaphor would have been: You need 4 Gallons of Gas to get to your destination, if you only put in 2 Gallons you're never going to get there.

Sorry, but making data/executable code analogous to water, and RAM analogous to a pitcher is clearly better.

RAM doesn't get consumed like fuel over time, nor does someone using a program generally require twice as much to run that program for twice as long (unless the program has some kind of memory leak).

In addition, your analogy doesn't work, because a car with a 1 gallon gas tank can make a 100 gallon journey, by refueling 99 times on the way; 1MB of RAM is never going to run a 100MB of application.

How about: loading 4 tons of goods onto a vehicle (a boat's a good example) which is designed to carry only 2 tons?

+1 In terms of how things work, that's probably the best analogy so far. If you overload a vehicle, it might still manage to work, but just travel very slowly. At some point the overload is so severe that it won't even move. I suppose if you use a boat, at some point the overload is so severe that it sinks.

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

Jazz:
Sure I can. It's the user's responsibility to know how to operate their device. If the user doesn't know the difference, whose fault is it? It's definitely not the fault of the UI designer, who spent hours adding easy-to-recognize icons to common tasks. It's definitely not the fault of the tech writer who put the manual together. It's definitely not the fault of the OS developer who added an online help feature.
Let's look at this a different way. Say you borrow your friend's car, then you fail to use your signal at a left turn and you get into an accident, and you have to go to court. You argue in front of the judge that you didn't know how to use the turn signal on that particular make and model of car, and it isn't your fault that you didn't know how to use the controls. No judge in the world would find your argument to be anything short of patently ridiculous, because if you truly didn't know how to use the turn signals, you're expected to educate yourself on that PRIOR to using the car.

We absolutely can and should blame users who refuse to educate themselves for the consequences of their neglected education.

Hmm, not really a valid analogy.

If the user could not figure out how to work, say, his accounting software, and thus did not pay his employees the correct amount, the employees could rightly complain that he should learn how to use the software. Your analogy would work in a case like that.

But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about someone calling customer support asking for help. That would be more like the car owner calling the manufacturer and saying, "Hey, I can't figure out how to use the turn signal on this car." For the manufacturer's customer service line to reply, "Well, you'd better figure it out before you get in an accident!" would not be a helpful or expected answer. I would expect their customer service to help the user find the control for the turn signal.

Likewise, your statement that if a customer does not know how to use the software it is "definately" not the fault of the developer, the manual author, or the help screen designer is absolutely false. It MIGHT not be their fault. If the manual is crystal clear and 99.9% of users understood it and can use the software correctly after one quick read, then perhaps the 0.1% who cannot are idiots. But if 90% of the customers who read the manual still can't figure out how to use the software, then I think it's likely the manual is not well written.

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

I don't know why you're complaining to me. I haven't repeated any jokes about her.

Granted, the poster you qoute has curious ideas about salvation. I don't need more memory to save her. She just has to have faith.

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

Jazz:
Smug Unix User:
The user needed more memory to save the president's daughter.

Jesus Christ, everybody. Get over this. It wasn't a good joke to begin with. It's not made any better by the constant stream of stupid references. Pack up whatever excuse for a sense of humor you have and please leave.

Perhaps I should clarify that I was referring to this post.

Matt Westwood · 2013-03-13 Reply Admin

jay:
QJo:
eVil:
Narfff:
This is when you tell the customer: "Try to fit 4 gallons of water in a 2 gallon pitcher and tell me it doesn't make a mess."

Maybe a better (Well, only slightly better) metaphor would have been: You need 4 Gallons of Gas to get to your destination, if you only put in 2 Gallons you're never going to get there.

Sorry, but making data/executable code analogous to water, and RAM analogous to a pitcher is clearly better.

RAM doesn't get consumed like fuel over time, nor does someone using a program generally require twice as much to run that program for twice as long (unless the program has some kind of memory leak).

In addition, your analogy doesn't work, because a car with a 1 gallon gas tank can make a 100 gallon journey, by refueling 99 times on the way; 1MB of RAM is never going to run a 100MB of application.

How about: loading 4 tons of goods onto a vehicle (a boat's a good example) which is designed to carry only 2 tons?

+1 In terms of how things work, that's probably the best analogy so far. If you overload a vehicle, it might still manage to work, but just travel very slowly. At some point the overload is so severe that it won't even move. I suppose if you use a boat, at some point the overload is so severe that it sinks.

Another one is giving a man with two arms four suitcases to carry. He can do it by carrying 2 cases down the road a way, putting them down, going back to pick up the other two, carry them down the road a way, putting them down, going back ...

As a process it works, up to a point, but horribly inefficiently and (don't try to push the analogy too far) someone might make off with two of your suitcases while you are carrying the other two.

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

eVil:
In addition, your analogy doesn't work, because a car with a 1 gallon gas tank can make a 100 gallon journey, by refueling 99 times on the way; 1MB [swap] of [swap] RAM [overlay as invented around 1960] is [overlay as invented around 1960] never [write to temp file, read from temp file] going [write to temp file, read from temp file] to [write to magnetic tape, read from magnetic tape] run [write to magnetic tape, read from magnetic tape] a [write to magnetic tape, read from magnetic tape] 100MB [tape starts burning because of friction] of [operator phones programmer: "Your program started the tape drive on fire, what should I do?" -- true story] application.

As long as you don't use tapes for your swap device, you should be able to handle it.

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

Edmund:
The real WTF is shipping a product that won't work in 2 Mb RAM. I've seen chess coded in 4K of memory! Sure it's going to run faster and better with more RAM but just to fail with less is horrible.

With all due respect, that is an utterly ridiculous argument.

Why should your chess program need 4K, particularly? By your own argument, it should be able to run in 2K! And by applying the argument recursively, it should be able to run in 1K; or 512 bytes; or 256; and so on.

Sure its going to run faster and better in 4K, but just to fail when there is only 1 byte is horrible!

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

Hi. I do end user support in a call center and I'll just chime in:

I do support for everything ranging from cable/fiber/DSL ISPs to $30,000 microwave radio links.

Our call center uses some in-house software for scripting and processing calls. This enables us to have a more 'unskilled' agent population on our ISP clientele and thus more frustration on calls for the end-user.

I share in the frustration of having you powercycle. I know you're not lying, but if I don't do it and document that it was done with me on the phone, I get in trouble. If I don't go through basic troubleshooting to the script* I can get in trouble for not following it.

To note though, I'm a skilled agent. I can make more calls than most agents in bypassing troubleshooting without the supervisor batting an eye. I've been known to set service calls for one of our WISPs within 5 minutes of answering the phone because of my knowledge of the tools the client gives us (billing/management system + full access on all towers and CPE). Unfortunately, because we are an 'unskilled' environment, you don't get someone like me most of the time (and I mainly sit dedicated to our specialty clients, like the microwave link company, so I don't get traditional ISP calls often).

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

PiisAWheeL:
Jazz, You're doing it wrong. If you want a specific joke to take an arrow to the knee, you need to stop reacting to it. You just draw more attention to it when you do. Even the president's daughter knows that!

I thought Irish Girl was the president's daughter?

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

Kasper:
Tom:
The first rule of support: callers lie. They might not even know they're lying (usually they do) but it doesn't matter. They're lying.
I can tell you why it is so. Supporters lie.

THIS THIS THIS After about the third time a tech support guy asked me to reboot in response to a problem that cannot be fixed by rebooting, I made a sound file with a beep and some hard drive noise. Every time I've gotten that question since, I've played that sound, to good effect. You almost never need to reboot to fix a computer problem nowadays. Especially if the problem isn't on your end.

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

Jazz:
Smug Unix User:
The user needed more memory to save the president's daughter.

Jesus Christ, everybody. Get over this. It wasn't a good joke to begin with. It's not made any better by the constant stream of stupid references. Pack up whatever excuse for a sense of humor you have and please leave.

So YOU'RE the one who killed the president's daughter!

2013-03-13 Reply Admin

That's what I was thinking.

2013-03-14 Reply Admin

mabinogi:
PiisAWheeL:
Jazz, You're doing it wrong. If you want a specific joke to take an arrow to the knee, you need to stop reacting to it. You just draw more attention to it when you do. Even the president's daughter knows that!
I thought Irish Girl was the president's daughter?

That would make her Ronald Reagan's daughter? Yikes! Down boy, down.

2013-03-14 Reply Admin

Kasper:
Tom:
The first rule of support: callers lie. They might not even know they're lying (usually they do) but it doesn't matter. They're lying.
I can tell you why it is so. Supporters lie.

Or just have crazy, stupid, entirely irrelevant scripts to go through. At the point where I have explained that I have no access to the internet through either my laptop or my desktop, via browser or MMORPG game client, it's quite clear that fiddling with the settings in a browser I don't even use is going to do nothing.

After half an hour of asking me to do totally irrelevant things while I cheerfully lied to her, the support person told me she'd get 2nd line support to call me back.

Next day, I got a text saying they'd fixed the outage in my area. I don't know why that's not the first thing they check for.

2013-03-14 Reply Admin

Ryan:
Before using a broadband/wifi router was a common thing in homes I used to have to lie to ISP support constantly that I had a Windows system plugged into my cable modem and not a Linux box.
Fortunately TCP/IP doesn't have a Windows pre-requisite.

We kept getting slow/dropped from ISP. I was trouble shooting with the tech and the OS was French. I was trying to remember the terms in French ( the menu order changes too ). I asked the tech to bear with me, explained and they said that was what was causing the problem. So apparently TCP/IP only works for Windows in English.

2013-03-14 Reply Admin

justme:
Ryan:
Before using a broadband/wifi router was a common thing in homes I used to have to lie to ISP support constantly that I had a Windows system plugged into my cable modem and not a Linux box.
Fortunately TCP/IP doesn't have a Windows pre-requisite.

We kept getting slow/dropped from ISP. I was trouble shooting with the tech and the OS was French Windows. I was trying to remember the terms in French ( the menu order changes too ). I asked the tech to bear with me, explained and they said that was what was causing the problem. So apparently TCP/IP only works for Windows in English.

Fixed the typo

2013-03-14 Reply Admin

Hey! Who turned out the Lights?

2013-03-15 Reply Admin

PRMan:
It was like a game to beat DOS's Memmaker utility. I always won.

No, the real game was to beat QEMM386's Optimise. Sometimes reordering your TSRs worked; the trick was to load the TSR with the longest path first but the one that didn't free its environment block last.

If you wanted to get really tricksy you could use their BUFFERS, DEVICE, FCBS, FILES and LASTDRIV utilities to move stuff from CONFIG.SYS into AUTOEXEC.BAT - the DOS command-line parsing helped in that you could write (e.g.) DEVICE=LOADHI.SYS so it even looked the same.

2013-03-15 Reply Admin

Jack:
Herr Otto Flick:
try to run
How does one code that?

[code]try { run(); }

try { hide() }

on(through()) { break; }

2013-03-20 Reply Admin

Master Chief:
iMortalitySX:
Unlike the way 12 year olds talk trash when playing Halo, in the real world the customer can get your fired or in terms you can understand "ban you from the game". This story does not constitute "severe verbal abuse" by any means. It may be a horrible inconvience to the support person that had to put up with such a call at the last minute of the day.
If you want to get into that, then TRWTF is that the call center should be charging per call instead of a blanket support package. "Oh you can't read the system requirements on our software? That will be $500, have a nice day!". Seems to work well for MS, I bet they get a lot less stupid calls now.

CAPTCHA : ingenium (Latin) the ability to understand similarities and relationships that is innate in all humans...
Excellent set of assumptions:

I'm too young to hold a job: Wrong.

I don't have a job: Wrong.

I don't know how to act professionally: Wrong.

I like Halo: Correct, but you'd be fantastically stupid to not get it.

But professionallism, like any way to act towards another person, IMHO, is a two way street. This person is blatantly giving false information to the people trying to help them, wasting the supporters time, and theirs. That's bad enough by itself (costing his employer money, and the supporting companies money too) but he's also now an hour or so after clock, which is very likely overtime, so it's not just wasting money, it's wasting a LOT of money.

Double down on that with the fact that this poor guy is just trying to go home, when he's already diagnosed the problem 2 minutes into the call, CORRECTLY, with falsified information no less. He's obviously pretty damn good at what he does.

Double down on THAT with the fact that this person has obviously done this before (he knows all the right places to lie), convinced that the tech support guys just need to flip a switch at their end to halve the memory requirements of a piece of software, which is stupid enough by itself, and compounded that he's been told MULTIPLE, TIMES, that this is not the case, and he really does need 4 MB to use the damned thing.

So finally, the tech guy gets the real information, oh, what do you know, you have the problem I thought you did a FUCKING HOUR AGO. An hour on company time, which shouldn't have been on company time in the first place. An hour spent diagnosing a problem YOU FUCKING WELL KNEW EXISTED.

That's unprofessionalism to an insane degree, and he's entitled to nothing less than a curt, non-cursing teardown of an explanation of all the ways he's wasting time, money, and resources better suited to other things to get out of buying a freaking stick of RAM, followed by a very loud CLICK.

You know it's people like you that make trolling so fun right?

So just to make your day, I agree with you that it is a two way street, but find out which one gets fired when the F-bomb is used in a customer service job. Even though many that work in such a position don't want to admit it, any customer service job is like working at BK, and it sucks. The customer is right, even though you know they are wrong, and as soon as you man up and throw it in their face, you are out of a job. Anyone that works in any service industry has an unfair job. Period. We should treat everyone as we would want to be treated, but the truth is that people in general are ignorant to the fact that other people are trying to do their job by helping them.

OBTW, I was totally trolling you on the Halo thing. I play all the time. I didn't mean to get you so riled up honestly, and I appologize if I upset the rest of your day.

2013-03-23 Reply Admin

L User:
Here's a little known fact about computer people, which means, anyone who touches a computer as part of their job, except me:
They can work magic.

That's right. Computers are magic, therefore, computer people are magic. They can do anything.

The problem is, they're so spoiled by their power that they get lazy, and hate to help anybody.

Tis oughta be good.

L User:
Now we all know the first law of Marxism. You have something -- knowledge. I am weak, stupid, needy.

Assumed this has happened in Cuba.

Here however it is a little bit different.

I have paid MONEY for the program. I am da KA! STA! MA!

L User:
Therefore you owe me help. Not grudgingly, but generously. Your refusal to help, buried in mumbo-jumbo about RAM or drivers or whatever, is proof of your moral corruption.
So get in there and do the fucking magic already asshole so I can get back to Farmville!

Exactly.

2013-04-11 Reply Admin

The real WTF is that Tom converted the hexadecimal numbers to decimal before adding them.

2013-12-27 Reply Admin

Jazz:
No judge in the world would find your argument to be anything short of patently ridiculous, because if you truly didn't know how to use the turn signals, you're expected to educate yourself on that PRIOR to using the car.
We absolutely can and should blame users who refuse to educate themselves for the consequences of their neglected education.

"You have reached CarCo support. Can I help you?"

"The lights on my car aren't working"

"I'm sorry. If you refuse to educate yourself on the different kinds of lights your car has, we can't help you."

A Misleading Memory

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