• Wody (unregistered)

    Totally fake. The first rule of business: Do everything to make profits, no matter how right or wrong, ethics do not apply. Second rule: Never admit you're wrong or make mistakes, or you get sued out of business.

    Since those rules aren't used in this story, it can't have happened like this at all.

    captcha: jugis. Justice in small containers to apply twice daily.

  • RandomGuy (unregistered)

    A: You made a mistake! B: (after investigating) Sorry, can't find any, was it perhaps your mistake? A: Impossible! (investigates), yes you're right, sorry.

    Where is the WTF in that story?

  • (cs)

    The real issue is, as always, with these morons who think that screaming and ranting like a lunatic is the correct way to address problems. Does owning a company really give you this narcissist attitude that makes you talk down to people?

  • jarfil (unregistered)

    The problem with these people is they never get punished for their behavior, thus just encouraging them to be obnoxious all the time (50% wrong with no consequence + 50% right having everybody do their bidding = asshole all the time).

    I would just fire that client on the spot.

    Captcha: odio. Yes, I hate those odious people.

  • Brian (unregistered)

    TRWTF is the client's president admitting he was wrong. That is absolutely unknown. It's time to proceed straight to the punishment of the innocent!

  • lolwut (unregistered)

    TRWTF is RAWR RAWR RAWR RAWR RAWR RAWR instead of "we have an urgent issue that needs fixing, and this is it!"

  • Fred (unregistered) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    The real issue is, as always, with these morons who think that screaming and ranting like a lunatic is the correct way to address problems. Does owning a company really give you this narcissist attitude that makes you talk down to people?
    No. Having a narcissist attitude that makes you talk down to people, screaming and ranting like a lunatic, makes you sound like an Alpha Male, and the weak minded will scurry to do your bidding. That leads to owning a company.

    Now, if you happened on a good business idea, you may succeed. On the other hand, if you fail, the taxpayers will be happy to bail you out. So there is no culling of the incompetent in this scenario.

  • skot (unregistered) in reply to Brian
    Brian:
    TRWTF is the client's president admitting he was wrong. That is absolutely unknown. It's time to proceed straight to the punishment of the innocent!

    Gotta agree - the guy is clearly an a-type asshat but at least he had the decency to phone Tim back and apologize - that's extremely unusual.

    Captcha: "haero" - someone with heroic hair

  • Andy (unregistered)

    I worked for a large marketing-driven company where the marketers thought they'd found the magic incantation to replace project management: "We have a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal coming out in 10 days." They figured nobody would dare miss such a highly visible deadline.

    The problem is, software development involves actual steps. We don't just pop a tape in the VCR and presto, new website. (Anyone remember VCRs?)

    So the ad ran, and thousands of potential customers flocked to our shiny new web site to see a page that said only "Coming soon".

  • Excelsior (unregistered)

    That's odd. This happens every day at my office (except the client never apologize, that ought to be TRWTF)

  • (cs)

    This doesn't sound like a WTF to me, more like a typical winner story that should have continued with the developer saying "don't worry, we're in this together; I'll do whatever it takes to implement your campaign ASAP", becoming the hero of the day and ensuring many more years of lucrative business with Super Mega Foods.

  • (cs) in reply to arh

    It does happen every day, and it normally goes like this;

    Customer: "YOUR CRAPPY SYSTEM (which has been running fine for 2 years) HAS SUDDENLY STOPPED WORKING! FIX IT, NOW!"

    Vendor: "Well, given that it's worked for two years solid, could you please find out what your folks did to it, just before it stopped working, and ask them to reverse it?"

    Customer: "NOBODY TOUCHED ANYTHING! IT'S YOUR FAULT AND I DEMAND.. (huh?) WAIT A MINUTE (we did?) uhhh - seems like we did make a change right before the, err, outage. Leave it with me for a couple of hours. I'm sure that shouldn't have caused the system to break but, uhh, I guess we need to, err, rule it out"

    Of course they never get back to you to confirm that their change busted it...

  • lesle (unregistered)

    Vise, not vice.

  • Gizz (unregistered) in reply to lesle

    Though vice is good, too.

  • Smug Unix User (unregistered)

    Having money lets you ignore the rules of polite society.

  • (cs)

    Several comments asking "where is the WTF?".

    The WTF is that Tim's organisation does not have some ticketing system and does not follow some kind of escalation path. Hence the incident trickles down from the CEO, rather than up from a first-line support dude who has a script question that weeds out work that has not been requested and paid for.

  • Kaso (unregistered) in reply to Raedwald

    @Raedwald You can be the one who has to explain to the CEO of the biggest client that he has to ring your level 1 support when he has a problem.

  • JMO (unregistered) in reply to Raedwald

    I'm sure they do.

    Client CEO didn't use it.

  • (cs)

    This story ends rather too abruptly.

  • (cs) in reply to Kaso
    Kaso:
    @Raedwald You can be the one who has to explain to the CEO of the biggest client that he has to ring your level 1 support when he has a problem.
    TRWTF is the CEO calling support for any reason since their time is very expensive, at least on paper. Obviously this CEO can't delegate, and wasted several valuable hours yelling at people who didn't even make a mistake!

    Also I wouldn't give out my private extension to any client, even (especially) if they are the fucking CEO! I mean why the fuck would i give a direct line, and the power to derail my work (or at least harass/annoy me) to someone who starts conversations with yelling insults at me.

  • (cs) in reply to RandomGuy
    RandomGuy:
    A: You made a mistake! B: (after investigating) Sorry, can't find any, was it perhaps your mistake? A: Impossible! (investigates), yes you're right, sorry.

    Where is the WTF in that story?

    Are you implying that, when your customer makes a mistake, they own up to it? That would be a first for me.

    Just today, I had a customer insist that he sent a cancellation for a service before he signed up for the service.

  • Pock Suppet (unregistered) in reply to RandomGuy
    RandomGuy:
    A: You made a mistake! B: (after investigating) Sorry, can't find any, was it perhaps your mistake? A: Impossible! (investigates), yes you're right, sorry.

    Where is the WTF in that story?

    Oh, so it's not just our company! That makes me feel a tiny bit better...

    Angry client? Check. Client bypassing normal communication lines? Check. Executives jumping straight to accusations before getting the whole story from either side? Check. Client totally wrong about the problem? Check. Client (and/or executives) apologizing for their mistake? crickets

    Captcha: causa, as in, angry clients calling the EVP are the causa my rapid hair loss and elevated blood pressure.

  • microcoder (unregistered)

    Once I received an email from quite an important customer that he has made mistake in several URLs in a an already sent mass-mail... it was Friday evening... spent some time adding rewrite rules for Apache

  • (cs)

    The other WTF is these small fry companies who are almost 100% dependent on one large company to the point where they kowtow to the whims of that company. If you would go out of business if you lost one client, and are therefore unable to fire said client for the inevitable unreasonable demands they will make, chances are you don't deserve to be in business in the first place.

  • Doodpants (unregistered)

    The work order was supposed to be submitted by the president's daughter, but she got sick.

  • (cs)

    Those of you who aren't seeing where the WTF is need to flip your perspective around to the Super Mega Foods side of the incident. They printed up and distributed fliers for a sale, include a URL on the flier, forgot to actually have Tim's company create a page for the URL (that's WTF? #1), then initially misidentified the source of the failure (WTF? #2).

  • (cs) in reply to Doodpants
    Doodpants:
    The work order was supposed to be submitted by the vice president's daughter, but she got sick.
    +1. Also fixed it for you.
  • someone who can't be bothered to enter a meaningful name (unregistered)

    I was expecting the ending to be slightly different: that the site was up and running just fine, but the 200000 flyers had been printed with a slightly wrong address for the site.

    Probably because it happened to a company I worked for 15 years ago. Although there the company noticed the error in printing and fixed it. Well, had their employees (including me) apply a sticker with the real address on top of the wrong one. On each separate flyer.

    Nothing screams good publicity like a flyer with a corrective sticker on it. Hey, at least we didn't use corrective fluid.

  • (cs) in reply to dgvid
    dgvid:
    Those of you who aren't seeing where the WTF is need to flip your perspective around to the Super Mega Foods side of the incident. They printed up and distributed fliers for a sale, include a URL on the flier, forgot to actually have Tim's company create a page for the URL (that's WTF? #1), then initially misidentified the source of the failure (WTF? #2).

    This.

  • emaNrouY-Here (unregistered) in reply to Raedwald
    Raedwald:
    Several comments asking "where is the WTF?".

    The WTF is that Tim's organisation does not have some ticketing system and does not follow some kind of escalation path. Hence the incident trickles down from the CEO, rather than up from a first-line support dude who has a script question that weeds out work that has not been requested and paid for.

    Actually, it seems to me that Tim's organization DOES have a ticketing system and follows some kind of escalation.

    CEO from SMF: Support? I don't need support, I freaking need your CEO RIGHT NOW! Tim's CEO: yes, yes, yes, we'll see what happened.

    It just so happened that Tim's ticketing system did work as intended because the ticket for SMF wasn't in there because it was never sent over. For that, I imagine some heads rolled at SMF. Just because the ire of the CEO from SMF had been resolved towards Tim's company doesn't mean that the ire of that CEO has dissipated.

  • polanski (unregistered) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi

    Yes. Especially in former Communist countries. Had a boss like that.

  • foo (unregistered)

    WHY WASN'T MY FRIST COMMENT POSTED? YOU IDIOTS DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING!

  • The answer is simple... (unregistered) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi

    Simple: Yes.

  • Todd Lewis (unregistered) in reply to foo
    foo:
    WHY WASN'T MY FRIST COMMENT POSTED? YOU IDIOTS DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING!
    This is the first "frist comment" post I've ever actually laughed at. (Maybe the first I've ever smiled at.) Thank you, foo.
  • Ironside (unregistered) in reply to polanski
    polanski:
    Yes. Especially in former Communist countries. Had a boss like that.

    Stalin

  • (cs)

    Rule #1 in web marketing. The client doesn't make up URLs. Certainly the client is allowed to request them, but NO URL EXISTS until I give it to you.

    This is not me being a hard-ass. This is me, having been caught in error situations often enough to recognize that there is a HIGH RISK of communication failure here, and this is the only effect risk management strategy there is.

  • (cs) in reply to someone who can't be bothered to enter a meaningful name
    someone who can't be bothered to enter a meaningful name:
    I was expecting the ending to be slightly different: that the site was up and running just fine, but the 200000 flyers had been printed with a slightly wrong address for the site.

    Probably because it happened to a company I worked for 15 years ago. Although there the company noticed the error in printing and fixed it. Well, had their employees (including me) apply a sticker with the real address on top of the wrong one. On each separate flyer.

    Nothing screams good publicity like a flyer with a corrective sticker on it. Hey, at least we didn't use corrective fluid.

    TRWTF is not using rewrites, which I think existed in Apache even then. Or, at the least, just a holder page with a redirect.

  • Dan Mercer (unregistered)

    "Your software doesn't work" was the way the problem call started. A major West Coast client was complaining that his satellite link went down at 5 PM every Friday and stayed down all weekend. "Now what?" everyone thought. We'd had a problem when someone installed a "feature" to collect link statistics at midnight every day - it crashed every box it was installed on. We had fixed that problem. Our top analyst was dispatched immediately. Many long nights pouring over code showed no place where time of day, let alone day of week, was a factor. Exhausted, he was standing by the window in the office of the CIO being berated for his incompetence. Down below he could see the satellite dish that had become the noose around his neck. Suddenly, there was a glint and something landed in the dish. A few seconds later there was another glint and then another. He grabbed the CIO and dragged him down to the dish where they observed a bunch of union communication workers playing beer can basketball with the dish as the basket. Every Friday they would drink a couple of cases of beer and toss the empties into the dish, then on Monday mornings they would clean out the dish restoring connectivity. They were union guys so all they got was a mild chewing out. There was no apology to our company or offer to reimburse the money spent flying the analyst out.

  • DuggleBogey (unregistered)

    I have been on the receiving end of that phone call a few times too, and it gets much worse from there.

    Even though it is their screw up, it is then up to you to get everything you should have had weeks to do working in a few hours.

    While you didn't do anything wrong, you are definitely the one who suffers. And if you get it done quickly by killing yourself, then they think "it should be done that quickly all the time." It's a no win situation.

  • Paul Neumann (unregistered) in reply to DuggleBogey
    DuggleBogey:
    ... And if you get it done quickly by killing yourself, then they think "it should be done that quickly all the time." It's a no win situation.
    You're doing it wrong. Don't kill yourself, kill them!

    Also I call shenanigans. If you had indeed killed your self, you wouldn't be commenting on it. Perhaps you meant kilting yourself?

  • mrfr0g (unregistered) in reply to operagost

    That is a WTF, unless they printed the wrong domain and couldn't purchase the new one.

  • (cs) in reply to Paul Neumann
    Paul Neumann:
    DuggleBogey:
    ... And if you get it done quickly by killing yourself, then they think "it should be done that quickly all the time." It's a no win situation.
    You're doing it wrong. Don't kill yourself, kill them!

    Also I call shenanigans. If you had indeed killed your self, you wouldn't be commenting on it. Perhaps you meant kilting yourself?

    No, I suspect he simply meant "killing" in a figurative sense. But I also agree with you - he should have whipped the GAU-8 out of his back pocket and applied it vigorously to them.

  • OldCoder (unregistered) in reply to dgvid
    dgvid:
    Those of you who aren't seeing where the WTF is need to flip your perspective around to the Super Mega Foods side of the incident. They printed up and distributed fliers for a sale, include a URL on the flier, forgot to actually have Tim's company create a page for the URL (that's WTF? #1), then initially misidentified the source of the failure (WTF? #2).
    The Real WTF is anyone who thinks up URLs and sends them out to the world without testing them out first.
  • Robin (unregistered) in reply to MrDaniil
    MrDaniil:
    This story ends rather too abruptly.

    Tim relaxed, a smug grin slapped wide across his face. He went home via the pizza shop and relaxed in a gentleman's manner. The end.

  • (cs) in reply to jarfil
    jarfil:
    I would just fire that client on the spot.
    ...and there is why you don't run a business.
  • (cs) in reply to mightybaldking
    mightybaldking:
    Rule #1 in web marketing. The client doesn't make up URLs. Certainly the client is allowed to request them, but NO URL EXISTS until I give it to you.

    This is not me being a hard-ass. This is me, having been caught in error situations often enough to recognize that there is a HIGH RISK of communication failure here, and this is the only effect risk management strategy there is.

    Yeah, it's like the endpoint URL of a web service. Why would the client be allowed to determine exactly what it is?

    Anyways, TRWTF is Tim's manager not stepping in and doing some actual......management. Isn't that what managers are for? I know that when I was a manager, my developers were not allowed to be contacted by clients.

    <Bob>"What would you say ya do here?"</Bob>

  • (cs)

    Yes, it seems that this kink of "problem" can be classified as an "Emily Litella" problem. It ends with a proper "Never Mind" from the protagonist.

  • (cs) in reply to Dan Mercer
    Dan Mercer:
    "Your software doesn't work" was the way the problem call started. A major West Coast client was complaining that his satellite link went down at 5 PM every Friday and stayed down all weekend. "Now what?" everyone thought. We'd had a problem when someone installed a "feature" to collect link statistics at midnight every day - it crashed every box it was installed on. We had fixed that problem. Our top analyst was dispatched immediately. Many long nights pouring over code showed no place where time of day, let alone day of week, was a factor. Exhausted, he was standing by the window in the office of the CIO being berated for his incompetence. Down below he could see the satellite dish that had become the noose around his neck. Suddenly, there was a glint and something landed in the dish. A few seconds later there was another glint and then another. He grabbed the CIO and dragged him down to the dish where they observed a bunch of union communication workers playing beer can basketball with the dish as the basket. Every Friday they would drink a couple of cases of beer and toss the empties into the dish, then on Monday mornings they would clean out the dish restoring connectivity. They were union guys so all they got was a mild chewing out. There was no apology to our company or offer to reimburse the money spent flying the analyst out.
    5:00 PM every Friday immediately screams environment to me. Maybe I've been reading this site too long, but I would have first looked for some janitor unplugging something to plug in his vacuum or some employee turning off some equipment "to save power" over the weekend.
  • (cs) in reply to Kaso
    Kaso:
    @Raedwald You can be the one who has to explain to the CEO of the biggest client that he has to ring your level 1 support when he has a problem.

    Exactly. This is actually a perfectly realistic scenario. We've got a normal ticketing system here, but when the spam hits the fan and things go completely wrong at a major client, it's not at all unusual for my boss (or even one of my coworkers) to get a call directly from someone in a very high position at a client site, frantically asking/demanding/begging us to fix it ASAP!!!!!111one!!

  • (cs) in reply to someone who can't be bothered to enter a meaningful name

    Um. Would it have been possible to create a redirect at the incorrect url?

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