4 ms·

There are parts in their description that point to unnecessary cruelty/meaniness. > When the display did not change, the sales guy yelled at me; "WHAT DID YOU

by relix 5y ago

There are parts in their description that point to unnecessary cruelty/meaniness. > When the display did not change, the sales guy yelled at me; "WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!?" At this point OP could have explained what they did, and explain why what the salesperson tried didn't work, and what should be done to fix it. They did not, instead they: > So after watching him panic for a moment Watched him panic, then showed that they could fix it (probably ego tripping), and then to rub it in even further, put it back on and walked away. Depending on the experience or seniority of the sales person this might have caused the sales person problems, a lot of stress, ruined a presentation, and real-life consequences, all of which OP disregarded. There are pranks, and then there are pranks. This was unnecessarily cruel.

jacquesm 5y ago
I've been on the receiving side of such pranks in tradeshows, it's part of the interaction. You put up gear for the general public to mess with, you have to calculate this in. Firato, the annual CAD/CAM show for the metal working industry, The Hannover Messe (which used to be the largest IT show in Europe) the building equipment trade shows. Put enough gear in front of enough people (especially nerds) and pranks will happen. As far as I can see this was a harmless prank because a powercycle fixed the issue. If he had reprogrammed it to the point that it was bricked for the duration of the trade show that would be a different matter.
- nmstoker 5y ago
  Glad to hear that are people that get the environment and norms at these kind of events. Presenting a control freak attitude around public interaction hardly seems like it would win over many customers, so this kind of thing is par for the course and reacting well to the unexpected (including pranks) is part of the skillset.
- relix 5y ago
  I agree that you probably should be prepared to handle such scenarios. I don't agree that this is a good reason that doing such a prank is harmless. The sales person might not have been prepared. They may have been having a bad day already. They may not be confident that power cycling would have solved the issue and thus may have been extremely stressed out going forward, ruining an (important?) presentation. Probably I'm reading too much into a casual retelling now, but from what I can read: The fact the sales person was panicking should've been an indicator for OP to help him out. At that point OP should've empathised with the sales person instead of make things worse. It's not because "Oh you should know how to fix this" may be true, that it's not a dick move to throw a fellow human in distress under the bus.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    > The sales person might not have been prepared. But: they should have been. If you don't know the gear you are demoing you are a minder, not a sales person. > They may not be confident that power cycling would have solved the issue and thus may have been extremely stressed out going forward, ruining an (important?) presentation. Important presentations don't happen at the front of a booth, they happen in the back behind the partition. > The fact the sales person was panicking should've been an indicator for OP to help him out. At that point OP should've empathised with the sales person instead of make things worse. Fair enough. But: suits that don't know their stuff have no place on a tradeshow floor. I recall walking up to a guy at a Tek booth and asking him about their new storage scopes, he proceeded to take the thing apart on the spot and show me what the guts looked like resulting in a very long term relationship. That's the kind of person you want to man a booth displaying spectrum analyzers, not someone who apparently doesn't even know how to program it and what bits get stored in which part of the machine. > It's not because "Oh you should know how to fix this" may be true, that it's not a dick move to throw a fellow human in distress under the bus. I think that's exaggerating a bit. Throwing a fellow human being in distress under the bus is a far cry from "I put my name on your device and you will have to powercycle it to get rid of that". But one conclusion I have from this thread is that Hacker News has lots its way, and that Hackers are not really welcome here anymore. Hackers showing up (empty) suits is about as old as it gets. Food for thought.
    - relix 5y ago
      You make so many assumptions about the sales person it's as if they're an NPC for you. I can imagine all kinds of scenarios where what you say is just not true or irrelevant and out of the control of the sales person, yet the harm of the prank still falls upon the sales person. Maybe the sales person replaced someone who got sick at the last minute. Maybe the sales person's incompetent manager put them there without giving them time to prepare. Maybe the person whose job it was to prepare the sales person was bad at _their_ job, or didn't have sufficient time, etc. Maybe their incompetent manager isn't as forgiving as you are and will fire them because of this incident. Maybe power-cycling the device caused the presenters settings they needed for the presentation to be wiped as well. Maybe this is a junior sales person who hoped for a promotion after this presentation. > But one conclusion I have from this thread is that Hacker News has lost its way My conclusion is that a lot of people lack empathy or the imagination to think beyond their own experience. But I guess that's not really surprising in this sector which apparently still lacks a lot of self-reflection around the common social problems associated with it. I'm just happy there's enough people here that do have empathy.
tomxor 5y ago
>> the sales guy yelled at me; "WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!?" > At this point OP could have explained what they did [...] The sales guy could also have been less accusative and instead embrace their curiosity as a customer... It was an opportunity to invite the onlookers who were already interested in what the author had coaxed the display into doing to learn more about the machine. I can imagine a younger version of myself also reacting a bit negatively to such an exclamation after having a harmless investigation of a machine. Unfortunately it tends to be the reaction of ignorant and uninquisitive people.
- relix 5y ago
  Or it's a natural immediate reaction of a normal person in distress who wasn't prepared for an outsider to come sabotage their presentation and made them look incompetent in front of an audience while they're already stressed out. Leave it up to engineers to expect everyone (else) to be the paragon of virtue rational homo sapiens sapiens with all the wisdom and maturity.
  - tomxor 5y ago
    > Leave it up to engineers to expect everyone (else) to be the paragon of virtue rational homo sapiens sapiens with all the wisdom and maturity. So i guess we are in agreement :D The sales person was neither wise or rational. They were acting on the emotion of a singular thought, selling shit.

by relix 5y ago

jacquesm 5y ago

I've been on the receiving side of such pranks in tradeshows, it's part of the interaction. You put up gear for the general public to mess with, you have to calculate this in. Firato, the annual CAD/CAM show for the metal working industry, The Hannover Messe (which used to be the largest IT show in Europe) the building equipment trade shows. Put enough gear in front of enough people (especially nerds) and pranks will happen. As far as I can see this was a harmless prank because a powercycle fixed the issue. If he had reprogrammed it to the point that it was bricked for the duration of the trade show that would be a different matter.

nmstoker 5y ago
Glad to hear that are people that get the environment and norms at these kind of events. Presenting a control freak attitude around public interaction hardly seems like it would win over many customers, so this kind of thing is par for the course and reacting well to the unexpected (including pranks) is part of the skillset.
relix 5y ago
I agree that you probably should be prepared to handle such scenarios. I don't agree that this is a good reason that doing such a prank is harmless. The sales person might not have been prepared. They may have been having a bad day already. They may not be confident that power cycling would have solved the issue and thus may have been extremely stressed out going forward, ruining an (important?) presentation. Probably I'm reading too much into a casual retelling now, but from what I can read: The fact the sales person was panicking should've been an indicator for OP to help him out. At that point OP should've empathised with the sales person instead of make things worse. It's not because "Oh you should know how to fix this" may be true, that it's not a dick move to throw a fellow human in distress under the bus.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  > The sales person might not have been prepared. But: they should have been. If you don't know the gear you are demoing you are a minder, not a sales person. > They may not be confident that power cycling would have solved the issue and thus may have been extremely stressed out going forward, ruining an (important?) presentation. Important presentations don't happen at the front of a booth, they happen in the back behind the partition. > The fact the sales person was panicking should've been an indicator for OP to help him out. At that point OP should've empathised with the sales person instead of make things worse. Fair enough. But: suits that don't know their stuff have no place on a tradeshow floor. I recall walking up to a guy at a Tek booth and asking him about their new storage scopes, he proceeded to take the thing apart on the spot and show me what the guts looked like resulting in a very long term relationship. That's the kind of person you want to man a booth displaying spectrum analyzers, not someone who apparently doesn't even know how to program it and what bits get stored in which part of the machine. > It's not because "Oh you should know how to fix this" may be true, that it's not a dick move to throw a fellow human in distress under the bus. I think that's exaggerating a bit. Throwing a fellow human being in distress under the bus is a far cry from "I put my name on your device and you will have to powercycle it to get rid of that". But one conclusion I have from this thread is that Hacker News has lots its way, and that Hackers are not really welcome here anymore. Hackers showing up (empty) suits is about as old as it gets. Food for thought.
  - relix 5y ago
    You make so many assumptions about the sales person it's as if they're an NPC for you. I can imagine all kinds of scenarios where what you say is just not true or irrelevant and out of the control of the sales person, yet the harm of the prank still falls upon the sales person. Maybe the sales person replaced someone who got sick at the last minute. Maybe the sales person's incompetent manager put them there without giving them time to prepare. Maybe the person whose job it was to prepare the sales person was bad at _their_ job, or didn't have sufficient time, etc. Maybe their incompetent manager isn't as forgiving as you are and will fire them because of this incident. Maybe power-cycling the device caused the presenters settings they needed for the presentation to be wiped as well. Maybe this is a junior sales person who hoped for a promotion after this presentation. > But one conclusion I have from this thread is that Hacker News has lost its way My conclusion is that a lot of people lack empathy or the imagination to think beyond their own experience. But I guess that's not really surprising in this sector which apparently still lacks a lot of self-reflection around the common social problems associated with it. I'm just happy there's enough people here that do have empathy.

tomxor 5y ago

>> the sales guy yelled at me; "WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!?" > At this point OP could have explained what they did [...] The sales guy could also have been less accusative and instead embrace their curiosity as a customer... It was an opportunity to invite the onlookers who were already interested in what the author had coaxed the display into doing to learn more about the machine. I can imagine a younger version of myself also reacting a bit negatively to such an exclamation after having a harmless investigation of a machine. Unfortunately it tends to be the reaction of ignorant and uninquisitive people.

relix 5y ago
Or it's a natural immediate reaction of a normal person in distress who wasn't prepared for an outsider to come sabotage their presentation and made them look incompetent in front of an audience while they're already stressed out. Leave it up to engineers to expect everyone (else) to be the paragon of virtue rational homo sapiens sapiens with all the wisdom and maturity.
- tomxor 5y ago
  > Leave it up to engineers to expect everyone (else) to be the paragon of virtue rational homo sapiens sapiens with all the wisdom and maturity. So i guess we are in agreement :D The sales person was neither wise or rational. They were acting on the emotion of a singular thought, selling shit.