A customer I am currently dealing with would clearly prefer to be using the crap produced by our competition instead of the gear we make. But the powers that be at the customer have chosen to purchase our stuff instead.
While being vague to protect my employer, the situation is like this: We sold them Box A and Box C. They bought Box B (which sits in the middle) from the competition, but we sell it also (and I'm very familiar with it.) They also own the competition's version of Box C (which I'll call C2), which my customer would much prefer to be using.
Box A won't talk consistently with Box C, but will talk with C2. Customer suspects Box C, and frankly I don't blame them at first. However, I pull logs from Box B, and because I'm so awesome, I figure out exactly what the problem is, and it's in Box B. Because they bought B from the competition instead of us, the competition needs to fix it. I explain all this in excruciating detail to the customer. It's a veritable masterwork of technical writing; explaining all the hexadecimal log fields, going over all the steps in the protocol that Box B is screwing up, the whole works.
The dialog then goes like this:
Me: SC, forward this e-mail to your Box B supplier; they'll know what it means and can start fixing your problem.
SC: Please Fix A.
Me: The problem is B, which we didn't sell you.
SC: I'm waiting for you to fix C.
Me: C isn't broken; I've found the problem, and it's B.
SC: I won't buy anymore C until you fix it.
Me: *silence*
I don't give a *bleep!* what he buys or does not buy. I work in defect/warranty support, not sales, and they pay me twice a month, no matter what he chooses to do.
If he's waiting for us to fix the problem, he'll be waiting a long time.
While being vague to protect my employer, the situation is like this: We sold them Box A and Box C. They bought Box B (which sits in the middle) from the competition, but we sell it also (and I'm very familiar with it.) They also own the competition's version of Box C (which I'll call C2), which my customer would much prefer to be using.
Box A won't talk consistently with Box C, but will talk with C2. Customer suspects Box C, and frankly I don't blame them at first. However, I pull logs from Box B, and because I'm so awesome, I figure out exactly what the problem is, and it's in Box B. Because they bought B from the competition instead of us, the competition needs to fix it. I explain all this in excruciating detail to the customer. It's a veritable masterwork of technical writing; explaining all the hexadecimal log fields, going over all the steps in the protocol that Box B is screwing up, the whole works.
The dialog then goes like this:
Me: SC, forward this e-mail to your Box B supplier; they'll know what it means and can start fixing your problem.
SC: Please Fix A.
Me: The problem is B, which we didn't sell you.
SC: I'm waiting for you to fix C.
Me: C isn't broken; I've found the problem, and it's B.
SC: I won't buy anymore C until you fix it.
Me: *silence*
I don't give a *bleep!* what he buys or does not buy. I work in defect/warranty support, not sales, and they pay me twice a month, no matter what he chooses to do.
If he's waiting for us to fix the problem, he'll be waiting a long time.
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