Au Revoir! Sucky Motor Club!

[Jetfire]

There's this quote from Charles Babbage that seems appropriate.
"On two occasions, I have been asked, by members of Parliament, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

Sadly nothing appears to have changed in the last 150 years since he died.

What's worse is when you hear those requests from people who should know better.

We have developers (software developers) at my company who make requests to do things from another team. The other team comes back and says "no we can't do that. The spec and all the standards we follow say we can't do that." Yet the first group still says "Well, when can you do it?"

And often times it comes down to "We want our company's software to be able to load and correctly handle anything from any source."

When the other team's leader was ranting about that after one of our standups (he's the scrum master for my unrelated team), I joked that we just need to add "#include <telepathy.h>" to the code and we'll be able to fix things on the load.

[ADeMartino]

What's worse is when you hear those requests from people who should know better.

We have developers (software developers) at my company who make requests to do things from another team. The other team comes back and says "no we can't do that. The spec and all the standards we follow say we can't do that." Yet the first group still says "Well, when can you do it?"

Heh. That sounds remarkably like my favorite line from the movie FORBIDDEN PLANET.
"All right, so it's impossible. How long will it take?"

[Silent-Hunter]

Nothing made by human beings is infallible! Human beings are highly imperfect, very fallible creatures; how can an imperfect creature make a perfect system?

When you have a team of multiple people, theoretically a large enough team with each person only working on one small part could, conceivably, make something perfect. But they'd have to be VERY lucky.

[aulocksmith]

When you have a team of multiple people, theoretically a large enough team with each person only working on one small part could, conceivably, make something perfect. But they'd have to be VERY lucky.

That sounds so much like having a thousand monkeys banging on typewriters for a thousand years to get the complete works of Shakespeare typed out.

[paxillated]

I think a lot of this goes down to the fact they don't want to admit their system, which they probably paid a lot for, is prone to making more mistakes than they'd like.

The salesman who sold them their software told them it was INFALLIBLE so by golly that's how they'll treat it!

My cousin, who lives in luxury thanks to her consulting biz, said that, more than 99% of the time, the problem with the computer system was that the higher-ups and the salesman chose the system - without ever asking the people who used it what they need! Morons in Management indeed.

[mhkohne]

My cousin, who lives in luxury thanks to her consulting biz, said that, more than 99% of the time, the problem with the computer system was that the higher-ups and the salesman chose the system - without ever asking the people who used it what they need! Morons in Management indeed.

You'll note that the sales weasels at large firms like IBM don't go around taking the workers to lunch to discuss needs.

[Jetfire]

You'll note that the sales weasels at large firms like IBM don't go around taking the workers to lunch to discuss needs.

And usually the Sales Weasels will promote their software to Management in terms of how much peon work the software could do, meaning they would need fewer peons around (theoretically).

[MadMike]

My cousin, who lives in luxury thanks to her consulting biz, said that, more than 99% of the time, the problem with the computer system was that the higher-ups and the salesman chose the system - without ever asking the people who used it what they need!

That happened at my job awhile back. My company had recently purchased a software package that interfaced with our own inhouse software, and as I started working with it, I quickly became aware that it was a steaming pile of crap, and a royal pain in the ass to work with. I mentioned it in passing to my team leader and he told me that he and the other team leaders realized it was junk when the company was still evaluating it, and he tried to go to the big boss with his concerns. The big boss seemed interested in what the team leaders had to say, and told them to put together some documentation about their concerns and problems with the software, and he'd hold off purchasing it until he got their report.

While they were busy putting together their report, the stupid ass went ahead and purchased it anyway.

[Jetfire]

While they were busy putting together their report, the stupid ass went ahead and purchased it anyway.

Most likely the Salesman got wind that something was up, and pushed a few buttons to finish the sale faster before it fell through. "Buy now and we'll give you 10% off! But I can only give you this offer for the next week...."

[XCashier]

Most likely the Salesman got wind that something was up, and pushed a few buttons to finish the sale faster before it fell through. "Buy now and we'll give you 10% off! But I can only give you this offer for the next week...."

Must've been the same jerk who sold our company their scanners.

[JarethsPet]

Well this could be one of 3 motorclubs and I think I can guess.

We have the same problems. Especially with GOA's, them not wanting to pay because we didn't call exactly 15 mins after our ETA and that voids the GOA that we supposedly were awarded from their own dispatchers.

Everything has to be absolutely perfect down to a proper signature from the name on the policy or they will not pay. BUT if we try to say we can't tow for any reason IE wrong person with wrong vehicle then they give us the run around that we have to do it anyway.

That is called fraud my friends and I will not be a party to it.

[Argabarga]

A lot of them are nitpicky and will refuse to pay for paperwork errors. And on the one hand, we did agree to not make them when we signed the contract, but, considering how much we bend over to try and help, with often incomplete or downright wrong info given to us by them, it's amazing they can't see what a slap in the face it is to turn around and refuse to pay, since we could have just called in GOA when we got to the location and the customer wasn't there, instead of using a little intuition and extra effort to actually find them and help them.

Well, they wanna shoot themselves in their own feet? It's a free country.

[JarethsPet]

If anything changes with the call no matter how small, I call them to make sure they are aware so they don't try later on to say nope to payment. And they hate it but at the same time it's covering our asses.

[Deserted]

Especially with GOA's, them not wanting to pay because we didn't call exactly 15 mins after our ETA and that voids the GOA that we supposedly were awarded from their own dispatchers.

Care to explain to us non-towers what "GOA" is?

[Argabarga]

Care to explain to us non-towers what "GOA" is?

"Gone On Arrival"

A token payout if the call cancels while you're en route, or, you get to where they say the customer will be, but, for a number of reasons (Got it going themselves, gave wrong address, PD came by and had it removed by another company) they aren't.

To qualify for it you have to have been running on schedule to make the ETA you gave had they been there, give or take 15 minutes.

Problem is, some clubs are fairly stingy, and while you're driving around the block trying to find their customer, the thought that you have to call the motor club inside that window frequently takes a backseat, and by the time you realize the customer just isn't there, and call in to explain what happened, some clubs of the sucky persuasion will say that since you spent that time looking for their customer instead of updating them on the status so they could approve a GOA, you now don't get one.

It's as frustrating as it sounds.