3 ms·

> Trying to find someone at HWC who could show an iota of free-will and thinking was hilarious and impossible. Since this is such a common pattern when interac

> Trying to find someone at HWC who could show an iota of free-will and thinking was hilarious and impossible. Since this is such a common pattern when interacting with any kind of customer support I'm interested in exploring why this is. The solution seems trivial enough. Write down the customer id, date, time and what was pre-approved on a piece of paper. Then when the computer comes back up, enter it into the system. Maybe the call handlers were just lazy and thought they could use the outage as a break. But you would think that bickering with customers on the phone is a lot more draining and annoying than just keeping business flowing. Maybe the software didn't allow recording events that had already happened, like the date and time field wasn't editable. Did the developers think that their system was infallible and would never go down? Or did they ask the domain experts if they should make this provision, and it was rejected? If so, what was the motivation of the domain experts? Did they think that their developers and IT infrastructure was infallible? Or did they not trust the call handlers enough to make the date and time field editable? Or do they take delight in finding loopholes where they can shirk their contractual obligations?

Arrath 4y ago
I bet it boils down to an intersection of a number of issues. > The solution seems trivial enough. Maybe so, but that is the usual trap, isn't it? Us armchair experts can expound to no end from the outside. > Write down the customer id, date, time and what was pre-approved on a piece of paper. Then when the computer comes back up, enter it into the system. I imagine that the typical phone-drone has no authority to provide such an authorization, and with the system down they have no avenue to pursue one. No trail through the system, no audits, etc. > Did the developers think that their system was infallible and would never go down? Surely not, but the developers knowing their system is fallible is a long way from management acknowledging that reality, and drafting policy to account for outages. Allowing, e.g., for manual pre-auth procedures. > If so, what was the motivation of the domain experts? [...] Or do they take delight in finding loopholes where they can shirk their contractual obligations? Or do they get tired of dealing with bureaucratic red tape, scope changes, approval processes, etc. etc. and just ship the product the customer asked for, despite shortcomings in the spec, and call it a day so they can gtfo?
b3morales 4y ago
The company came pretty close to getting away with "our systems are down so we can't pay you". I'm sure there were far more policy holders during that time that didn't pursue arbitration than those that did. So why wouldn't they just shrug and try to blow it off? On balance it likely made them money.

Arrath 4y ago

I bet it boils down to an intersection of a number of issues. > The solution seems trivial enough. Maybe so, but that is the usual trap, isn't it? Us armchair experts can expound to no end from the outside. > Write down the customer id, date, time and what was pre-approved on a piece of paper. Then when the computer comes back up, enter it into the system. I imagine that the typical phone-drone has no authority to provide such an authorization, and with the system down they have no avenue to pursue one. No trail through the system, no audits, etc. > Did the developers think that their system was infallible and would never go down? Surely not, but the developers knowing their system is fallible is a long way from management acknowledging that reality, and drafting policy to account for outages. Allowing, e.g., for manual pre-auth procedures. > If so, what was the motivation of the domain experts? [...] Or do they take delight in finding loopholes where they can shirk their contractual obligations? Or do they get tired of dealing with bureaucratic red tape, scope changes, approval processes, etc. etc. and just ship the product the customer asked for, despite shortcomings in the spec, and call it a day so they can gtfo?

b3morales 4y ago

The company came pretty close to getting away with "our systems are down so we can't pay you". I'm sure there were far more policy holders during that time that didn't pursue arbitration than those that did. So why wouldn't they just shrug and try to blow it off? On balance it likely made them money.