• Anonymous (unregistered)

    I tried to get a frist, but my printer was broken. Where should I submit the ticket?

  • Kuli (unregistered)

    My kkeybbboardd iiis brrrokkken. Pleeeaassse fixx the commment formm.

  • Stær trek (unregistered)

    "It is broken... Can you make it go?"

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WmGvYDLsj4

  • Stær trek (unregistered) in reply to Stær trek

    Now with a link:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WmGvYDLsj4

    spam no spam

  • Maciej (unregistered)

    TRWTF is obviously Darren, writing more and more elaborate emails and expecting different response. When dealing with people like his coworker, you're not supposed to try and defeat them with logic, you're supposed to walk up to their cubicle and bash their heads until they accept their idiocy.

  • campino (unregistered)

    If IT department is responsible for ordering a new printer, it may be a good idea to keep the bug open until the new printer is installed.

  • Customer (unregistered)

    Still an issue. Commentsssss arre gettinggg distorrttedddd

  • Customer (unregistered)

    Resolved... Not an issue, is the keyboard.

  • Wally (unregistered)

    This doesn't quite count as a representative line because, well, it is two lines. But still:

            if($fileObject->{isOk}){
if($fileObject->{isOk}){
    Should I submit a ticket to my printer company? I think the printer is wasting ink every time I print this program's source code.

  • (cs) in reply to Maciej
    Maciej:
    TRWTF is obviously Darren, writing more and more elaborate emails and expecting different response. When dealing with people like his coworker, you're not supposed to try and defeat them with logic, you're supposed to walk up to their cubicle and bash their heads until they accept their idiocy.

    s/Darren/Colin D/

    But yes, that. Or explain the situation to Alan H's manager and let them bash Alan H's head.

  • (cs) in reply to campino
    campino:
    If IT department is responsible for ordering a new printer, it may be a good idea to keep the bug open until the new printer is installed.

    Maybe, but then Alan H would still be an idiot for repeatedly failing to state a reason. ("Talked to customer. New printer expected to arrive on <date>. Keep this open and make sure it actually does.")

  • Tim (unregistered)

    What I want to know is what kind of ticketing system gives you a nice readable history like that? The last two my employer bought (for mega$$$$) have a tiny postage-stamp sized text box for the meat of the ticket (after 217 status and classification dropdowns) so you have to scroll like crazy and read one word at a time. Plus, after about 10 words of each previous note, it just adds a "..." and you have to click a link (wait 6 seconds) to read the rest of the note, then go BACK (wait 6 seconds) to advance to the next note -- in reverse chronological order.

    I think it is from the "no one reads anything anyway" school of web design.

  • ZoomST (unregistered) 
    Ticket 268744
=============

Open       19-Feb-2013 09:45 Opened by Colin D
----------------------------------------------
Spoke to Barry and Denise. Found an issue in the Initrode development: Alan H is defective. Must be replaced or eliminated. Customer agrees.
--
  • Fred (unregistered)

    How it should have gone:

    Status Change Reopened 15-Feb-2013 15:25 Reopened by Alan H

    Spoke to customer. Still an issue.

    Status Change Resolved 15-Feb-2013 15:26 Resolved by Colin D

    Broken printer. Still not a bug.

    Status Change Reopened 15-Feb-2013 15:27 Reopened by Alan H

    Spoke to customer. Still an issue.

    Status Change Resolved 15-Feb-2013 15:28 Resolved by Colin D

    Broken printer. Still not a bug.

    Status Change Reopened 15-Feb-2013 15:29 Reopened by Alan H

    Spoke to customer. Still an issue.

    Status Change Resolved 15-Feb-2013 15:30 Resolved by Colin D

    Broken printer. Still not a bug.

    Status Change Reopened 15-Feb-2013 15:31 Reopened by Alan H

    Spoke to customer. Still an issue.

    Status Change Resolved 15-Feb-2013 15:32 Resolved by Colin D

    Broken printer. Still not a bug.

    Some people just don't get the concept of a loop until they've experienced it personally. Eventually Alan H may start to wonder if something has gone off the rails somewhere. Curiosity is often the first step to learning.

    If curiosity never arises, then yes, a welt from a 2-by-4 will sometimes help focus attention.

  • anoniem (unregistered) in reply to Customer

    No. The problem is about 40cm away from the keyboard, in the direction of the chair.

  • Accalia.de.Elementia (unregistered) in reply to ZoomST
    ZoomST:
    Ticket 268744
=============

    Open       19-Feb-2013 09:45 Opened by Colin D
    

    Spoke to Barry and Denise. Found an issue in the Initrode development: Alan H is defective. Must be replaced or eliminated. Customer agrees.
--

    StatusChange
Assigned       19-Feb-2013 11:16 Assigned by Colin D
----------------------------------------------
Spoke to "One Mad Man" Tony K down at the docks. He is dispatching some of his boys to permanently resolve the issue with Alan H.
--
  • Ash (unregistered)

    Status Change Reopened 19-Feb-2013 10:33 Reopened by Alan H

    Setup script to reopen case until issue is fixed

  • BDX (unregistered) in reply to Tim
    Tim:
    What I want to know is what kind of ticketing system gives you a nice readable history like that? The last two my employer bought (for mega$$$$) (...)

    Well obviously you can't have something that simply works in a straigth forward way for Mega$$$$.

  • IN-HOUSE-CHAMP (unregistered) in reply to BDX
    Tim:
    What I want to know is what kind of ticketing system gives you a nice readable history like that? The last two my employer bought (for mega$$$$) (...)

    Obviously a in-house written one. People need to understand the difference between bespoke solutions and off-the shelf products like Microsoft Word / Excel. Most problems would automatically go away or reduce significantly.

  • vt_mruhlin (unregistered)

    ugh, "not my job" bugs are the worst, especially when the responsible team doesn't use the same ticketing system as you do.

    Customer-facing guy just wants the ticket to stay open until the customer is happy. He doesn't understand that different teams handle different tickets.

    Best strategy for those is to keep the ticket open but assign it to customer-facing guy so he can close it once the new printer is installed.

    Then you don't need to worry about the bean counters getting upset that you have so many open tickets. They'll complain to him instead, and maybe he'll get fired.

  • Andrew (unregistered)

    The first two paragraphs describe my old company exactly. When I left it I could finally stop cringing, because my boss kept using the words "unit testing" and it did not mean what she thought it meant. I wonder if they are still using Java EE 1.4.2...

  • PolarityMan (unregistered)

    This could have been down to a lack of joining up 2 parts of the business. It's not uncommon for a customer to want a ticket open somewhere until theyre actual problem is resolved. My guess is that in this case it ended up on a bug tracker for some specific product instead of somewhere that deals with hardware and recquisitions etc.

    Nedded one of those 2 guys to take ownership and sort things out.

  • Al (unregistered)

    As someone as already stated, the call should stay open.

    Re-assign the ticket to the team that looks after the printers. Failing that you would hope that the ticket could be closed with a code that stated the cause was defective hardware/peripherals.

  • QJo (unregistered)

    Alan H should have said in the ticket: "Please leave this ticket open until the printer is installed and the customer is satisfied."

    Colin D should not have closed the ticket until the customer's problem had been resolved. Instead he should have said: "Resolution awaiting on new printer to be installed."

    I expect there may have been history between Alan and Colin: the latter thinks the former is a small-minded little pen-pusher who just can't understand plain technospeak and is to be treated with off-hand contempt. Alan recognises this fact and offers, by means of the minimal necessary communication, the egregiously abrupt and arrogant Colin the opportunity to say something that will result in his career prospects to be severely damaged.

    In this context my sympathies lie with Alan. Colin is a 99-octane prick.

  • (cs) in reply to QJo
    QJo:
    Alan H should have said in the ticket: "Please leave this ticket open until the printer is installed and the customer is satisfied."

    Colin D should not have closed the ticket until the customer's problem had been resolved. Instead he should have said: "Resolution awaiting on new printer to be installed."

    I expect there may have been history between Alan and Colin: the latter thinks the former is a small-minded little pen-pusher who just can't understand plain technospeak and is to be treated with off-hand contempt. Alan recognises this fact and offers, by means of the minimal necessary communication, the egregiously abrupt and arrogant Colin the opportunity to say something that will result in his career prospects to be severely damaged.

    In this context my sympathies lie with Alan. Colin is a 99-octane prick.

    3/10 Would not respond to this troll again

  • (cs)

    There was already a ticket with IT support desk

    An issue was raised with IT Support Desk (SUP88373).

    So raising a bug with the application support... muppet

  • Swedish tard (unregistered) in reply to QJo
    QJo:
    Alan H should have said in the ticket: "Please leave this ticket open until the printer is installed and the customer is satisfied."

    Colin D should not have closed the ticket until the customer's problem had been resolved. Instead he should have said: "Resolution awaiting on new printer to be installed."

    Depends entirely on the rules/processes for tickets.

  • (cs)

    Time to fix the bug in the help desk software that won't allow Alan to see other comments in the call. That's the only explanation for why he wasn't fired.

  • (cs) in reply to Al
    Tim:
    What I want to know is what kind of ticketing system gives you a nice readable history like that?
    If you're looking at free software, Trac does that quite nicely by default. And if it is not to your taste, it's fairly easy to modify as well. Add a ton of plugins and you can usually make do with it for all your ticketing and issue tracking needs.
    Al:
    As someone as already stated, the call should stay open.

    Re-assign the ticket to the team that looks after the printers.

    What makes you think their company is responsible for the printers of one of their customers? In fact, I find that quite unlikely, given the remarks about excel and windows etc. also being broken. In all likelihood, it went something like:

    Customer: "huh, the labels come out all garbled!" Support: "I am on the case and will file a bug report immediately!" Tech: "Right, called the customer, problem was not with our software but with their printer, closing this."

    [shortly thereafter]

    Support: "Hey customer, just following up, can you print now?" Customer: "Well no, we haven't replaced the printer yet." Support: "Ow, I'll reopen the ticket immediately!"

    Call my cynical, but my guess is that the support person / sales rep was probably just an idiot who didn't understand the issue. This believe is furthered by the fact that the support person did not realize that the problem was with the printer and not the software to begin with - that's like a two minute troubleshooting step ("does it work if you print from another program? No? Well, not a problem with our program then").

  • Urlax (unregistered)

    He should bring his clue-by-fournext time he comes in..

  • (cs)

    This isn't really such a WTF. One person thinks they are using a support system, the other a bug report system.

  • Mike (unregistered)

    The ticked was sort of kept open. The status pinged on and off 'resolved' but only at the end was it 'closed'. Though oddly the other status was 'reopened' so resolved is clearly not open either.

    So, TRWTF is bad issue workflow.

    When is an open ticket not an open ticket? When it's a jar!

  • Mark (unregistered) in reply to Fred
    Fred:
    How it should have gone: *snip*

    No, This is how it should have gone:

    Status Change Reopened 15-Feb-2013 15:25 Reopened by Alan H

    Spoke to customer. Still an issue.

    Status Change Resolved 15-Feb-2013 15:26 Resolved by Colin D

    Broken printer. Still not a bug.

    Status Change Reopened 15-Feb-2013 15:27 Reopened by Alan H

    Spoke to customer. Still an issue.

    Status Change Resolved 15-Feb-2013 15:28 Resolved by Colin D

    Thwack Thwack Thwack Crunch Splatter

    Some people are wastes of Oxygen.

  • (cs)

    My printer is always making feeble excuses that it can't print when there is no paper.

    I think that's a lame excuse and I am going to call up my printer's support desk to raise a bug with them.

  • Anonymous Paranoiac (unregistered)

    This reminds me of some correspondence I've had with account managers about requirements specs:

    account manager:
    Here's the requirements spec.
    me:
    What about requirement XYZ where it allows user interaction with no specified response action?
    account manager:
    (no response)
    me:
    (response to own sent email) Did you get this email?
    account manager:
    What email?
    me:
    The one about requirement XYZ (scroll down)
    account manager:
    There is no requirement XYZ
    me:
    Yes there is (with requirement copy-n-pasted and bolded in for clarity)
    account manager:
    oh...I'll ask the client
  • (cs) in reply to Customer
    Customer:
    Still an issue. Commentsssss arre gettinggg distorrttedddd

    The correct response is "You're an issue."

  • georgioz (unregistered)

    As much as I'd like to think Alan is a fucking moron, I'm pretty sure he's just a dick.

  • Customer (unregistered) in reply to Customer
    Customer:
    Still an issue. Commentsssss arre gettinggg distorrttedddd

    Resolved - you resolved the issue, just when I plugged in a new keyboard.

  • (cs) in reply to emurphy
    emurphy:
    campino:
    If IT department is responsible for ordering a new printer, it may be a good idea to keep the bug open until the new printer is installed.
    Maybe, but then Alan H would still be an idiot for repeatedly failing to state a reason. ("Talked to customer. New printer expected to arrive on <date>. Keep this open and make sure it actually does.")
    The simplest way to deal with this is to just assign the ticket to Alan H (reason: "not product defect"). At that point, he can keep it open or close it as he sees fit.
  • (cs) in reply to dkf

    You could always handle it like this:

    Alan: Product is defective; printing doesn't work Colin: Printer is broken, being replaced Alan: Product is defective; printing doesn't work Colin: Printer is broken, being replaced Alan: Product is defective; printing doesn't work Colin: Alan is defective, being replaced.

  • Ben Jammin (unregistered) in reply to Accalia.de.Elementia
    Accalia.de.Elementia:
    ZoomST:
    Ticket 268744
=============

    Open       19-Feb-2013 09:45 Opened by Colin D
    

    Spoke to Barry and Denise. Found an issue in the Initrode development: Alan H is defective. Must be replaced or eliminated. Customer agrees.
--

    StatusChange
Assigned       19-Feb-2013 11:16 Assigned by Colin D
----------------------------------------------
Spoke to "One Mad Man" Tony K down at the docks. He is dispatching some of his boys to permanently resolve the issue with Alan H.
--
    StatusChange

    Reopened 19-Feb-2013 15:16 Opened by Colin D

    Customer saying Alan H. is leaking "some sort of fluid" and is alternating between between making "annoying, sobbing" and "Oh please, God, No!" sounds.

    --

  • Ben Jammin (unregistered) in reply to georgioz
    georgioz:
    As much as I'd like to think Alan is a fucking moron, I'm pretty sure he's just a dick.
    I agree. This is why Colin needs shorter terse statements, instead of large reactions. Feeding the troll results in more support tickets.
  • Dave H (unregistered) in reply to dkf
    dkf:
    emurphy:
    campino:
    If IT department is responsible for ordering a new printer, it may be a good idea to keep the bug open until the new printer is installed.
    Maybe, but then Alan H would still be an idiot for repeatedly failing to state a reason. ("Talked to customer. New printer expected to arrive on <date>. Keep this open and make sure it actually does.")
    The simplest way to deal with this is to just assign the ticket to Alan H (reason: "not product defect"). At that point, he can keep it open or close it as he sees fit.

    The system probably has a dropdown of IT people tickets can be assigned to and since Alan H isn't technical/on the product team/capable of walking and talking at the same time he isn't in the list.

    CAPTCHA: Inhibeo - a Harry Potter spell that needs to be cast on Alan H

  • Eggbox (unregistered) in reply to Fred

    The support person could have just indicated that they are leaving the defect open for tracking purposes until they verified that everything was working correctly with the new printer. This is still a breakdown (?) of communications which is the real WTF.

  • eVil (unregistered)

    There clearly isn't an actual problem here, just some data on a computer that alleges that there is a problem. Colin could have easily just ignored that ticket for a week and moved on.

    Unless Alan is standing by Colin's desk shouting about the issue, then there is no issue.

    Basically, Colin doesn't like Alan, and has accidentally trolled himself by responding to him, when he could have just gone to the kitchen for a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.

  • Chelloveck (unregistered) in reply to Tim
    Tim:
    What I want to know is what kind of ticketing system gives you a nice readable history like that?

    Ticketing system? You're lucky! We have to make do with a continuous chain of emails that include all the other emails ever sent in the conversation. Half the people top-quote, half bottom-quote, and nobody trims headers. Oh, we dream of having a crappy ticketing system!

  • (cs) in reply to Dave H
    Dave H:
    dkf:
    emurphy:
    campino:
    If IT department is responsible for ordering a new printer, it may be a good idea to keep the bug open until the new printer is installed.
    Maybe, but then Alan H would still be an idiot for repeatedly failing to state a reason. ("Talked to customer. New printer expected to arrive on <date>. Keep this open and make sure it actually does.")
    The simplest way to deal with this is to just assign the ticket to Alan H (reason: "not product defect"). At that point, he can keep it open or close it as he sees fit.

    The system probably has a dropdown of IT people tickets can be assigned to and since Alan H isn't technical/on the product team/capable of walking and talking at the same time he isn't in the list.

    Or alternately, Colin isn't allowed to assign a ticket to Alan because of some super-strict business rules. Either way, someone who won't take "This is hardware, not software" for an answer (multiple times) needs to have their bug-tracker account mysteriously disabled.

  • Jellineck (unregistered) in reply to tweek
    tweek:
    Dave H:
    dkf:
    emurphy:
    campino:
    If IT department is responsible for ordering a new printer, it may be a good idea to keep the bug open until the new printer is installed.
    Maybe, but then Alan H would still be an idiot for repeatedly failing to state a reason. ("Talked to customer. New printer expected to arrive on <date>. Keep this open and make sure it actually does.")
    The simplest way to deal with this is to just assign the ticket to Alan H (reason: "not product defect"). At that point, he can keep it open or close it as he sees fit.

    The system probably has a dropdown of IT people tickets can be assigned to and since Alan H isn't technical/on the product team/capable of walking and talking at the same time he isn't in the list.

    Or alternately, Colin isn't allowed to assign a ticket to Alan because of some super-strict business rules. Either way, someone who won't take "This is hardware, not software" for an answer (multiple times) needs to have their bug-tracker account mysteriously disabled.

    I'm not sure if that would work seeing as this is likely a support ticket system and not a bug-tracker. Maybe the solution is to keep the developer out of the support system and make him go through the product owner to resolve support tickets.

  • RFoxmich (unregistered)

    How it should have gone: Alan, You are right the customer is experiencing a problem that is preventing them from getting work done, I have moved this ticket over to the hardware support staff. They will keep it open until a new printer is installed. If at that time there are still printing issues please raise them with that staff. <closed>

    Not really a need to let Alan know there is no hardware support staff ticket ...and maybe not even a hardware support staff. Make him feel good that the issue is being resolved and tracked. That's all he really wanted.

    Alan is an idiot but Colin is the prick.

  • Tom (unregistered) in reply to RFoxmich

    How it should have gone is that it should have stayed at "resolved" by the customer ordering a working printer, then set to "closed" or reopened, as the case may be, after the new printer is installed.

    Alan's both idiot AND prick, for continually opening a resolved ticket.

Leave a comment on “I'm Sensing Some Tension”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article