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By ReallyEvilCanine (Fri Jun 16, 2006 at 08:07:43 AM EST) A Day in the Life, cubicle, Windows, Vista, IE7, steaming pile of beta, pie (all tags)
It's YOUR software. YOU make it work!

I took two tickets in May from a guy I'll call Eddie. One ticket complained that $OurBigApp didn't work with the newest version of a particular browser. The other complained that $OurBigApp didn't work in the newest version of a particular operating system.

We have the SPG (Supported Platforms Guide). It's explicit; if an operating system ain't listed, it ain't supported. If a particular version of an application ain't listed, it ain't supported. If it's beta, it definitely ain't supported.

Internet Explorer 7 and Vista are both beta.

x-posted to blogspot, sans poll.


No one supports beta software. As things are, Vista's already two years late and is looking like it's going to be little more than XP's Service Pack 3, but prettier. I don't want pretty; I want functional. Aunt Betty likes pretty but she doesn't have to administrate a network. What fucking professional out there actually wants a search panel with a goddamned animated cartoon wasting processor cycles rather than a panel full of search options? Put that shit in the "Home" version if you must but

And IE7 sucks -- the IE page was initially proclaiming the new invention of tabbed browsing. Real new, guys. And extensions -- sorry, Add-ons -- are additions, most of which must be paid for. "Value-add", I'm sure they're calling it. I'm still trying to figure out why they have a POVray add-on (and that has to be a license violation).

No company in its right mind supports beta software. The software is still being debugged! Anything you do in a QA environment is invalid since the software's subject to unannounced change. There's no way to know how it'll behave after the next compile.

I explained all of this to Eddie in both of his tickets. I also told him the correct way to pass information on to our Engineering department (through his TAR, one of our rare, competent Technical Account Reps).

Fast-forward a few weeks: I took three tickets today reporting new problems with $OurBigApp and IE7/Vista, all submitted by a man in Redmond named Eddie.

Root Cause: 3-Unsupported Platform.
Root Cause: 5-Unsupported Execution.
Root Cause: 6-No Customer Research.

Eddie is a fuckwit. I desperately need my Root Cause: 17.

< What's a female peacock called? | BBC White season: 'Rivers of Blood' >

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Poll
IE7
- Beta software? Yeeeee-haaaaaahhhhh!!1! 0%
- Tried it. Like it. 0%
- Tried it. Meh. 0%
- Tried it. It blows goats. 0%
- Tried to remove it. Had to reinstall Windows. 16%
- Haven't tried it. Don't plan to until forced by OS change or IE6 deprecation. 33%
- Haven't tried it,. Won't ever use it. 50%
- Might try if they port it to Linux. 0%
- lynx, bee-otch. 0%

Votes: 6
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A Day in the Life | 10 comments (10 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback
If it's by blixco (4.00 / 1) #1 Fri Jun 16, 2006 at 08:10:23 AM EST
just XP sp3, then why won't your software work with it?

My animosity toward users is completely gone.  They paid for my house, my cars, my wife's education.  I can't hate the people who blindly line my pockets.
---------------------------------
Taken out of context I must seem so strange - Ani DiFranco


Especially the Root Cause 17s by DesiredUsername (4.00 / 1) #2 Fri Jun 16, 2006 at 08:27:26 AM EST
They take 3 seconds to resolve and pump your stats up. Sounds like a win-win scenario to me. You should be thanking this guy, not mocking him.

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Now accepting suggestions for a new sigline
[ Parent ]

That depends on the level of seventeenitude by lm (4.00 / 3) #4 Fri Jun 16, 2006 at 08:37:52 AM EST
I have no problems leading someone without a clue through the various hoops they need to go through to get their job done. At a basic level, most people simply don't have enough technical training to know what to do when. On this level, me fielding a help desk call isn't a whole lot different than a visit to a mechanic or an accountant.

But some people have seventeenitude so deeply ingrained in the psyche that they insist that they are always right. These are the sort of people that say things like ``I've been doing it this way for thirteen years, I'm not going to change the way I do things'' despite the fact that they've been doing things wrong for thirteen years and doing it wrong has a price tag measured in thousands of dollars per year in unneeded maintenance.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

If only by ReallyEvilCanine (2.00 / 0) #5 Fri Jun 16, 2006 at 08:42:51 AM EST
This guy, yes. At least until he then complains to management that he's getting ignored and I'm not being helpful. Or the tard I'm currently saddled with who, despite three calls and five mails from two other monkeys, still insists that because he's too stupid to get the new compatibility patch from Microsoft despite the clear instructions in the alert and in the mails we sent, we have to send it to him. The fact that it's illegal for us to distribute said patch, even to our customers who need it, doesn't mean dick to him.

He's wasting a lot of people's time (managers' time, too) and making life rather difficult for all involved, but because his company paid buttloads of money for Executive Class support, he gets our attention and can keep escalating the issue all the way up $CEO.

Maybe I should also be asking for a Root Cause:18-You Made Me LMAO for the funny ones and keep RC-17 exclusively for the rant-worthy.

[ Parent ]

Well by DesiredUsername (4.00 / 1) #6 Fri Jun 16, 2006 at 08:47:20 AM EST
If he paid buttloads for the Executive Class support, he's not wasting your time, he's using what he paid for. If he goes over that, you need to charge more.

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Now accepting suggestions for a new sigline
[ Parent ]

Then send him the "patch" by Rogerborg (2.00 / 0) #7 Fri Jun 16, 2006 at 10:31:42 AM EST
As a .vbs script that downloads it for him, zipped up with 20MB of goat porn.

-
Metus amatores matrum compescit, non clementia.
[ Parent ]

I don't hate the users. by ReallyEvilCanine (4.00 / 1) #3 Fri Jun 16, 2006 at 08:35:45 AM EST
It's usually their admins. And most of them are clueful, making it difficult to rant on about their actions. The 17s, however, are rant-worthy or too damned funny not to share with the world (like that screenshot customer).

[ Parent ]

Humm...he might be a tester at his company... by haplopeart (2.00 / 0) #8 Fri Jun 16, 2006 at 12:15:52 PM EST
...The group I work for is the one which is tasked with deploying/testing/evaluating all the hardware, OS, and software that the comapny uses.

We are part of the Microsoft TAP, program.  This means we need to meet certain deployment goals for Vista and IE7 once they are released, and in testing even before its released.

In other words we need vendors software to Wrok NOW on Vista/IE7.  So we are basically doing the same trhing this guy is doing...although he is not doing it well.  Basically we are having to stay in contact with vendors and push them to do their Vista testing and development.  However its a request through the right channels, and they send us what they can, as their Engineering/development departments get Vista stuff working we get it and test it.



I understand testing. by ReallyEvilCanine (2.00 / 0) #9 Fri Jun 16, 2006 at 01:59:38 PM EST
I've even written about having some respect for the work they put into compatibility (thanks to seeing that NT source code). But this tard is filing tickets for "broken features" which work fine on every current OS. We don't "cheat the OS" -- we use MS APIs, methods, and -- for reasons I'll never understand -- let MS help us with quite a bit of it.

The problems Eddie is seeing are due to changes in Vista, not our app. He should be contacting our Eng rep. Instead, he's wasting our time with these reports. Yes, it's some easy numbers for me, but if he posts another, say... now, when I'm home and some other unknowing monkey might take the ticket and try to work it. I have a couple posts waiting to be written all about that sort of situation, yessiree.

[ Parent ]

WIPO: by wumpus (2.00 / 0) #10 Fri Jun 16, 2006 at 08:52:50 PM EST
Using Xgl. Like it. It needs to be debugged (I need to make KDE Xgl and be able to switch to gnome and run debugged 2d).

I suspect the mac contingent will point out how long quartz has made them happy.

Wumpus



A Day in the Life | 10 comments (10 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback

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