Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

You're not even trying, are you?

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • You're not even trying, are you?

    I've got a couple with a theme tonight... and that is: trying. One is trying hard to fail. The other... well, I think he may be trying hard....not to try!

    And... it's a bit late, so if this seems a bit nonsensical, sorry. I'll proofread it tomorrow. >.>

    What part of "this is what you need to do..." don't you understand?

    Last week, I got a case from a guy testing an upgrade in his lab environment before actually upgrading his production environment. Fair enough, this is fairly common in enterprise IT.

    Not fair: one of the upgrades he was testing was to a release two versions back. We don't support that. We only support upgrading to the latest version. Sure, he's free to upgrade to what he wants, but he's on his own.

    No problem, he dropped it without complaint.

    Also not fair: he was testing these upgrades in VMWare Workstation.

    No go dude. We do not support Workstation. Get yourself a real box, or deploy it to an ESX server.

    Those problems you had during the upgrade? The ones I said the only recovery option for would be to roll back to a previous snapshot or do a clean install? Yeah those might not even have happened if you'd been running on something supported.

    And that's where he got a bit uppity. He cc'd multiple people from his company on the email thread, even added in the Professional Services consultant he'd hired to come do his upgrade for him, and insisted on a solution.

    I again explained to him, no dice. There is no prevention. The solution, should you encounter such a problem, is to do a clean install, and import the upgraded export file we provided to you when you did your upgrade validation. That's the purpose of validation.

    Wait what? You didn't do an upgrade validation? Well you better hop to it.

    Their ProServ guy contacted me, asking me to open a validation case for the guy. Unfortunately, no can do. Those are handled by the First Response team, and validation cases can only be opened through the customer portal website. We can't just make a case in our system, and then turn it into a validation.

    I tell him this much, but I also shoot an email to my coworker, one of the First Responders, and tell the ProServ guy that a first responder will contact the customer with instructions on how to get his portal account activated and a validation set up. I also gave him the case number that my coworker would be using to communicate with the customer. I advised him to respond to my coworker on that email thread, because my case is done, and so it will be closed.

    What's the customer do? He changes the subject line of my case's email thread to reflect the new case number. Uh, no dude, not how it works. You go respond to the email my coworker sent you. It ain't rocket science. While you're at it, try reading it, too.

    And yet, he doesn't seem to get it. Again today, he sends another email on my case. Now the ProServ guy is onsite, and they can't do their upgrade safely... all because they failed to follow instructions.... if he had just replied to my coworker, and followed his instructions, they'd be ready. But who has time for that, right?

    And this saga is ongoing.... did I mention the ProServ guy they got on-site is a complete asshole, and everybody in support knows it?

    Anyway, without further ado, I present you, The Titular Idiot.

    I receive a new case email. I roll my eyes at the customer named in it (well known for stupid questions), and go on to the description....

    Case Description: I need to know if it's possible to block an IP that's making too many requests.

    I was immediately tempted to give the simple, yet accurate one word response: "Yes." But of course, I'm more professional than that, so I send him a decent reply, telling him there was a built-in policy that might suit his needs, or he could easily create a custom policy, and linked him a knowledge-base article and documentation.

    A few minutes later, my email alert goes off. It's the customer.

    "Would you direct me to the built-in policy?"

    And then, another couple minutes after that, while I am still trying to pull my face from my palm,

    "I read the text of the article you linked, but the video didn't play. Would you direct me to the built-in policy?"



    You're not even trying, are you? No, no you are not, because if you were, you'd never have opened this case in the first place. All you'd have to do is...look. It's that obvious. The next email I see from you better be "Thanks, you can close the case" or I'm ratting you out to your sales engineer, who'll be contacting you to see if he can get you to purchase training. Support != Free Training.
    Last edited by otakuneko; 03-13-2014, 12:08 AM. Reason: Clarification
    Supporting the idiots charged with protecting your personal information.

  • #2
    The saga continues!

    What part of "this is what you need to do..." don't you understand? -- PART TWO!

    Guess what? The customer, with ProServ's help, finally manages to start following directions!

    Sort of.

    One of the steps in the upgrade process is to apply the latest patch for your current version. Doing this prevents a lot of problems. Not doing this causes our upgrade validation system to click and whirr for a bit, then stop, extend a robotic arm and hit you on the head with a nerf hammer. (Not doing so when actually upgrading your system....most likely causes it to crash and burn)

    Alright, I'm joking. I wish it would do that though, except only to customers.

    We tried to run the validation anyway, and just as expected, it failed. What's the customer's explanation?

    "Oh, I can't patch our system, it's in production and I don't have permission!"



    You've been planning this upgrade for weeks, and you didn't consider that getting a change window to install the patch--a necessary part of the upgrade--was something you might just need to do?

    "But we were just going to clean install anyway, and use the export from the upgrade validation! Can't you just install the patch on your end?"

    Nevermind that our validation system doesn't quite work that way (it's some strange voodoo magic that even after working there almost two years, I don't really understand)*... why the hell are you trying so hard to FAIL?


    *I'm fairly certain it's a stripped-down barebones version of our product, with just the minimum needed to complete an upgrade, running in a virtual machine so it can be easily reset.
    Supporting the idiots charged with protecting your personal information.

    Comment

    Working...
    X