11 ms·

It's My Monitor

• opengears 3y ago
  I do not fully get it. So because the support person was able to explain the contents of the monitor manual the angry client was calmed?
  • Lacerda69 3y ago
    customers huh? can't live with em can't live without them
  • robinduckett 3y ago
    No, probably because the bossman the ”partner” rang up told him to calm down and that it wasn’t worth his job to scream at contractors.
  • freetime2 3y ago
    > I had no idea at the time that people in the workplace would or could speak to co-workers like that and not apologise. It was enlightening! This was the main takeaway for me.
    • chrisco255 3y ago
      I think this type of abusive behavior used to be way more common in all work places.
  • quickthrower2 3y ago
    Emotions eh!
• billybuckwheat 3y ago
  You can be sure that partner, even if he had the monitor's user manual, wouldn't have read it. He would have immediately called support to send someone up to explain all the buttons and whatnot to him.
• matheusmoreira 3y ago
  As someone who reads and keeps every instruction manual, I understand where the customer is coming from. I don't think the abuse is warranted but I understand.
  • influx 3y ago
    Agreed, obviously doesn’t merit yelling at the tech, but they could have taped the manual to the monitor for those who wanted it.
    • ansible 3y ago
      Yes. If the PC support folks don't need the manual, just send it along with the monitor to the end user. Why did they need to throw the manuals away so fast?
• baz00 3y ago
  This does not surprise me in the slightest. I got a whole diatribe and stream of insults when a user complained that we’d epoxied the USB holes in his desktop PC because he couldn’t bring his music in on a USB stick. This was an airgapped network in a defence installation. They weren’t even allowed to bring in any personal possessions.
  • NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    I recommend joining a local choral group. Singing your own music can definitely quell the desire to amass and carry around gobs of pre-recorded crap.
    • baz00 3y ago
      I play the piano. That does it for me :)
      • block_dagger 3y ago
        Me too but I still love listening to gobs of music on Spotify.
    • jamiek88 3y ago
      Ugh. You’re one of those choral members looking down their noses at ‘popular music’. One of the many reasons I left and the groups fail to attract new members.
      • thereticent 3y ago
        GP was being sarcastic, right? And you, too, right?
        • baz00 3y ago
          He's just damaged by that lot. I had an ex girlfriend who was one of them. I annoyed her by playing black metal all the time instead.
• forinti 3y ago
  I once got a dressing down for clearing someone's browser history. Instead of using bookmarks, this person relied on the browser's history.
  • euiq 3y ago
    Now this I can understand—why would you do that?!
  • function_seven 3y ago
    I rely on my browsing history all the time. I don’t always know to bookmark a page the first I visit, oftentimes realizing its importance or utility much later. I think that’s something you should ask before doing. Cache and cookies aren’t as important, but history is useful.
    • NikolaNovak 3y ago
      >>Cache and cookies aren’t as important, but history is useful. If I were to clear my wife's cache and cookies, it would predictably lead to the biggest marital disturbance we had in our 10 years together.
    • deredede 3y ago
      Cache may not be that important (although I believe that nowadays clearing the cache also clears the local storage, so the same would apply) but there are sites that use long-lived cookies to deliver a personalized experience without needing to log in which you would irredeemably break by clearing the cookies.
      • em-bee 3y ago
        clearing the cache should not clear localstorage. it should be treated like cookies. in settings firefox has two categories for clearing data: 1: cookies and site data (which includes localstorage) and 2: cached web content history is managed in a different section of the settings.
    • recursive 3y ago
• arrow7000 3y ago
  Okay? Not sure what the point of this post is
  • sammyteee 3y ago
    Huh? It's just a story being told lol. Do you comment this on everything you come across on the internet? What's the point in anything?
  • pacifika 3y ago
    Interesting anecdote related to the field of computer engineering.
  • helpfulContrib 3y ago
    The point is, sometimes you need a manager to keep the authoritarians and the servile classes, suitably lubricated. This guy pissed off someone who should know better, and eventually - thanks to middle management - did. There are class lessons in the narrative. Still relevant.
    • H8crilA 3y ago
      How did he piss him off exactly? All I see here is a mentally sick (but mostly functional) manager/partner. It is a good story to remind ourselves how deranged some individuals are. And yeah, knowing how to handle the crazies is useful.
      • helpfulContrib 3y ago
        The guy wanted the manual, because he felt he needed to read the manual - but when it was explained to him that the junior IT guy would help him with whatever he needed, it calmed him down. Its a generational thing. You may not feel it these days but there were indeed periods of computer evolution where it was, kind of important to read the manual. And, also, help the older generation get used to the new things.
      • themadturk 3y ago
        Partners are owners. In law and financial fields, they are often very knowledgable and experts in their fields and know little about things like computers. When I started computerizing a law firm in the early 90s, the only technology attorneys knew how to use was the telephone and the dictation machine -- and their automobiles, of course, which some attorneys used as a comparison for how they wanted their PCs to work. Especially for older attorneys, computers and such were frightening (many attorneys had never touched a typewriter), and I think this accounts for a lot of these kinds of reactions. Many people in power are used to having their whims catered to, to having others support them -- the junior attorneys, secretaries, paralegals, word processing operators, accounting staff, etc.
• lawgimenez 3y ago
  Around 2010 I started my career in a barely functioning software dev company. For some reason, my boss thinks it was a good idea to welcome our newly hired intern to the company by setting him up with two CRT monitors side by side. So dual CRT monitors. Everyone was already using dual Samsung LCD monitors. Until now, I still can’t believe how ridiculous that setup was.
• fmajid 3y ago
  The first thing I do when I get any equipment is record the serial number, purchase price and date in a spreadsheet. Second thing is to download the PDF manual, and in the rare cases one is not available online, scan then recycle the paper manual. If I ever become world leader, one of the first things I’ll order is for every product to be engraved or printed with a QR code leading to the specs and manual.
  • tomjen3 3y ago
    What do you use to scan the books? Edit: am apparently unable to type today.
    • maccard 3y ago
      The Google app on Android does a remarkably good job of image to pdf and text extraction.
    • fmajid 3y ago
      Usually a Fujitsu ScanSnap document scanner after unstapling the manual and slitting the binding fold with a paper knife. Also scanner phone apps like Readdle Scanner Pro work very well for thick cardboard that won't feed through a scanner (I do have flatbeds but it's usually too much trouble to unpack them into my tiny home office).
  • GuB-42 3y ago
    The article is about the 90s, internet access was not a given scanners were expensive, QR codes as we know them didn't exist, and you may not have had a second computer to read the manual explaining why the first computer didn't work. Also, manuals meant something. Nowadays paper manuals included with products are mostly legal stuff about all the things you can't do and limits on warranty. Maybe a quick start guide. But the actual manual is often not included.
  • theandrewbailey 3y ago
    That QR code will only work until the website gets redesigned, probably with the next fad.js
• helpfulContrib 3y ago
  It is 1989. I'm a newly minted ops whelp, granted the task of maintaining the thousands of miles of RS232 spread around the campus of this particular establishment, about 2000 terminals in all. Lots and lots of terminal boards, lots and lots of tone debugging in the wee hours. My boss calls me in, tells me I'm getting upgraded to the PC team. PC's are these new-fangled terminals that we will, eventually, get everyone switched over to .. but first we start with the execs. Take their terminals, set up their new PC's, get them logged in for the first time. I proceed to the nastiest exec first - even then, I knew one had to solve the gnarly problems first - as there'd be hell if some other underling got the upgrade first, of course. At least, I thought. 20 minutes of burned fingers amid measured cussing at the prior install teams lack of proper stripping methodology, and I get the PC booted up, the TERM.EXE started, and everything configured to take over the old Hazeltines job, which sits by the door ready to be carted away into an amber fugue .. In comes Mr. Nasty Exec, who immediately recoils at the PC blob on his desk. "What's that? I'm not getting that yet. Do everyone else first!" Oh, crap, I'd already sort of changed the connectors. Under the desk I go, off he storms across the barren cubical wasteland, his hoffs and guffaws somehow visible in the khaki haze. Alright, I get it all re-Hazeltined, PC sits on the cart. What to do... In comes Mr Nasty, who has by now seen what the new PC can do. "I want both the old and the new, you can do that can't you Computer Genius Kid?" Meh. Always get your boss involved when the work order changes, kids.
  • teekert 3y ago
    Nice story. I feel, there are times for taking initiative, being a go-getter. Then there are times when work is work, and if anything l, you train your fine motor skills and be content with that.
    • helpfulContrib 3y ago
      >fine motor skills I've got muscle-memory for DB9 and DB25, I can twist pairs for RJ45 in my dawn hours, I have scars with many more tales behind them, but I'm so happy to have put it all behind me now ... ;) (Now I'm the grumpy guy who doesn't wanna change web frameworks every gronk season..)
• korijn 3y ago
  I guess the thing that stands out to me is that this story shows the value of managers. John is obviously more experienced in dealing with emotional people (we are all that person sometimes).
  • lambdaba 3y ago
    I was expecting this to be the conclusion at first, this ability to empathize and stay calm regardless of the other person's demeanor is a superpower.
  • freetime2 3y ago
    Or maybe the angry partner only listened to John because he is also a partner. There was probably nothing the author could have said to placate him, being a lowly tech in the unfortunate position of having to tell a partner something they didn’t want to hear. But hearing the same explanation from someone he considered a peer was apparently enough to satisfy him. In other words, this shows the importance of titles.
    • korijn 3y ago
      For some, this is indeed crucial. But there are plenty of people who are receptive to effective communication regardless of title.
  • quickthrower2 3y ago
    Another possibility. This happens alot. The partner gets one of these calls a week and has become ept at handling it.
• ankaAr 3y ago
  In the 90's my dad had a tech support/service company. Small one, less than 10 employees. Fixing monitors was an every day task. One day a petroleum engineer came with his monitor (from the company he was working) to fix it. After 1 or 2 days it was fixed and they came to get it back. After few hours the engineer called very angry. -it is not my monitor! -oh, it cannot be -it is not! -is this brand and model? -yes -read me the service tag at the back -this -it is your monitor sir. -is not and I want my monitor back -sir, it is your monitor -no! So he came back with his monitor. It was his monitor, the technicians tested it again. -sir, this is your monitor. -no, I had a completely different background, and different programs, it is not my monitor -wait, what? The technicians called the it department and told them the situation. While the monitor was in service, IT used that free time to update his computer. The engineer leave my dad's place not 100% convinced If you are that engineer, the story is still alive 25 years later. Thank you.
  • Loggias 3y ago
    [flagged]
  • prox 3y ago
    Ah what a great story, reminds me of the webguy vs salesdude video. If you don’t know what that is, look it up :)
    • BogdanPetre 3y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRGljemfwUE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRGljemfwUE
      • streakfix 3y ago
        Psyonix implemented the vehicles in original Halo game after which they made supersonic acrobatic rocket powered battle cars followed by rocket league.
        • prox 3y ago
• NikolaNovak 3y ago
  I was a techie for 25 years and my response to this story would be predictable - combination of chuckle, sympathy, and outrage. And I still feel all of those. But now I've been in the management/client-facing role for a while, and my burning question is: 1. WHAT did the person say over the phone to calm them down? 2. Could the author of the article have said it with same results? Because I'm learning that as much fun as it is to understand and hack computers, it's also fun to understand and 'hack' people (something all my mentors have been telling me for 20 years but I've only recently been able to hear). For example (and the fun here is in guessing and hypothesizing:) -- rather than listening to tirade, could the author have said something like "Oh, we have found it is far less efficient for partner level people to go through obscure manuals themselves; my team and I have gone through them and I can give you a customized review of the key features relevant to you that will be far more respectful of your and companies' time" ? (is it cheeky? Of course! Winning question is would it accomplish the same or similar result? Was there a winning game strategy for author other than escalating?)
  • seer 3y ago
    An angry neighbor rings on our “apartment turned office” door - we were an early stage startup. The guy is red faced, shouting profusely how someone had parked at his designated spot AGAIN. This goes on a while, until I understand what’s going on - I parked at his place, as I thought we were entitled to it from the apartment, apparently in error. Well the guy was expecting to meet resistance I guess, he was all geared up for a confrontation. I immediately apologized said that I didn’t know (which was true) and will not happen again. The guy relaxed like magic, just calmed down immediately. And then started apologizing to me, and telling how “its alright from time to time” etc. It was really bizarre transformation to witness. I attributed it to balkan culture generally being confrontational, so that when I just apologized, the situation the guy ended up at was not one he expected and he had to actually rethink his position. Or something like that. And this is a pattern I’ve used in other almost violent confrontations to dissolve them. If you’re able to convince the other party that they are actually understood, then communication can happen.
    • hobs 3y ago
• abridgett 3y ago
  I've only seen this behaviour once. Someone very publicly shouted at and then privately apologised to. Needless to say the shouter lost any respect I had for them - firstly for blaming without facts, secondly for being so pathetic they didn't make a public apology. The victim in this case went up in my estimation and us now a very successful team leader.
• weinzierl 3y ago
  Around the time glossy displays became fashionable a colleague of mine got a new laptop from work. He opened it and there was a huge scratch across the display. So he went to his boss and asked if he could send the laptop back, because of the damaged display. He sent it in, got it back after a while, but the scratch was still there, so he sent it in again. A couple of days latter he was called into the bosses office to pick up the fixed laptop again. Boss gave it to him and casually remarked that he'd better check if the display was OK this the. Colleague opened it right there and - big surprise - the scratch was sure still there. After he'd stopped cussing, while his boss was silently looking at him, boss - still without saying a word - tore away the protective film, which just happened to have a big crease across the screen, to reveal a flawless glossy surface.
  • euroderf 3y ago
    I hope this made it into an episode of Office Space or something.
• steveBK123 3y ago
  I've not worked in tech support exactly, but dev on internal apps that we also run the ops for. These types of users beyond the morals/niceness issue just seem plain stupid. The most intelligent manipulative users I observed were the ones who do the exact opposite - chew out the boss regularly, but are absolute saints to the lower level "doers". They engender good will with the people actually doing the ops work, often end up getting them to go the extra mile. Plus they shell shock the boss enough that the ops people are given the priority to work on their issues.
  • matanyall 3y ago
    Are you saying that the opposite of the OP story is the ideal?
  • em-bee 3y ago
    chew out the boss regularly, but are absolute saints to the lower level "doers". i don't think that is manipulative, unless it is extreme. this is the behavior that you want. treat your subordinates with respect and move problems that you can't fix on your own up the chain. the thing is, if every level works that way then you don't usually need to chew out your boss, nor need your subordinates chew out you.
• croisillon 3y ago
  i too have this story from the dark ages of computing, when my colleague asked how to make a pdf from an excel file. i told them to choose the menu item "print", then choose the PDF-program as a printer and then click on "print". they walk away immediately, come back, grumble at the computer... i ask what's wrong "nothing, nothing, tell me again: print, PDF-program and then print, correct?", they walk away again and finally come back "i found nothing at the printer, where is my PDF !?" mind you, it was 2022
  • kevin_nisbet 3y ago
    lol I've had this exact same occur multiple times... basically every time we have staff turnover in our condo office no one knows how to print to pdf... so every year or two I have to show someone how to do it, including up to 2022. My pet peeve is that even in 2023 I still receive scans of printouts from accountants. They print out their reports to add cover sheets and add pages, and then scan it back in to deliver as a financial statement.
    • ryandrake 3y ago
      Great example of terrible software UX that we just put up with. I want to save this file onto my filesystem as a PDF file. Why the hell do I need to choose “Print” to do this?? If you are a developer, you might know the reason, but as an end user, this is baffling and totally unexpected. Just put “PDF” as another option in File->Export, where it makes the most sense to an end user. Or, even better, developers, just use the “Save” function, not “Export”. Why we have to separate “Export” from “Save” is another terrible UX that only makes sense to developers.
      • Aldipower 3y ago
        There were reasons for it even developers didn't understand. PDF is actually Adobe PDF and you had to use the Adobe PDF Creator to create PDFs. To be able to save to PDF by a 3rd party application would have meant licenses fees to Adobe. So some clever guys came up to "misuse" a printer library for PDF creation... Today in Libre Office, of course you find a button to _save_ directly to PDF. Not sure about MS Office though.
• jamdav16 3y ago
  Guess I've encountered the opposite. I started a job as a software engineer, first day. The engineering team mostly use Macbooks, my manager asked if I preferred Mac or Windows. I said mac. I got my Mac, but needed IT helpdesk to set it up (VPN, admin access etc...). I got told there was no ticketing system and for me to drop it off at the helpdesk instead. I did that, but was promptly told that 'Macbooks are hard to set up, so f off...' (yes, he swore at me). I left stunned back to my manager, he followed up with head of IT and that guy was ordered to apologise to me and was reprimanded. Safe to say I had my Macbook set up within minutes by someone else. Not a great first day.
  • Jaygles 3y ago
    When I started my current job, they asked me Mac or PC laptop and I said Mac. A couple days later a PC arrives. When I'm on the call with the IT guy to get things set up I mentioned I requested a Mac but PC is fine too and he said he never heard about my choice. Later I find out someone else on the team had the exact same experience, and we found out the preference WAS communicated. We've long since gotten a new IT guy and I'll probably switch to Mac when my current machine gets to three years old.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• moron4hire 3y ago
  Established accounting firm and shouty partners. This was Deloitte, wasn't it?
  • kjs3 3y ago
    I can assure you that Deloitte has absolutely zero exclusivity to that description.
    • moron4hire 3y ago
      Yeah, it was just the large accounting firm where I got shouted at for no reason by a partner.
• perryizgr8 3y ago
  I get the anger tbh. Just give me any documentation and accessories, cables that came with the device. There's no need to expend effort on getting rid of thousands of manuals when you can just give each manual to the end users along with the monitor, probably in the same box it shipped.
  • lowbloodsugar 3y ago
    But but you can’t allow the plebs to have their own manuals!!!!
• EMM_386 3y ago
  Many ages ago, at my first software engineering job, I was tasked with building a new replacement system for an aging platform. I decided to write this in the new-thing at the time, C# and .Net. I managed to put together the overall framework, architect a SQL database for it, and after a bit of time had a working replacement for the most important parts of what it was replacing. While discussing the next steps, the owner of the company mentions he just sold one already to one of the largest clients using the old system. I found that rather surprising, as he made no mention of announcing it let alone starting to sell it, and it wasn't ready to be sold, but here we were. We go to meet with this company to discuss specifics, and one of the questions they ask is "exactly how much bandwidth is utilized when we do X? We have Y employees and want to know exactly how much it uses if they were to be using it at the same time". Now, I wrote this thing to be as performant as I could, but at no point up to now did I have time to run specific performance metrics on it such as how much bandwidth was being used by every specific piece of functionality. It wasn't even an announced product, as far as I knew. My boss turns and just stares at me. So I answered honestly, said I didn't have the exact numbers, and I can get back to them, but I felt that their current setup should be more than sufficient. Meeting ends, we get back to the car, and he is suddenly irate. "Don't ever, ever tell a client you don't know something! How could you do that? That made us look like we don't even understand our own product! You know what you do in that situation? Make up a number that works! You never say you don't know! Unbelievable!" I'm not in sales. I got dragged into this meeting out of nowhere only to get chewed out for not properly fielding a question, about a product that I didn't know we were selling, that I couldn't possibly have expected to answer at that point.
  • oaiey 3y ago
    Sales! They know everything and sell every feature of the product. Even if the product does not have the feature or cannot be understood.
  • patrickmay 3y ago
    I used to work in technical sales and had the opposite interaction. The salesman told me "The customer knows I'm the sales guy. They automatically don't trust me. You're the technologist, make them trust you."
• ooterness 3y ago
  I worked tech support for a while. My favorite monitor-related story goes like this: User calls, says his PC stopped turning on. I arrive, ask him to demonstrate the problem. Screen is black. He presses the power button on the PC and the one on the monitor. Wait a minute. Screen is still black. Try both buttons again, just for good measure, screen is still black. Turns out the monitor was on but the PC was off.
  • ryandrake 3y ago
    The distinction between the PC being off and the monitor being off is one that is still lost on people, and it’s understandable. End users should not have to separate these things in their minds. Why would you want one off but the other on, besides use cases that HN commenters will surely list that are only relevant to power users? Just have one fucking power switch. Apple has largely solved this with their external displays, and the laptop industry has also solved this. Yet the PC world is still full of monitors with separate power switches that just confuse.
    • simoncion 3y ago
      > Why would you want one off but the other on, besides use cases that HN commenters will surely list that are only relevant to power users? I like having my monitor off because of this one weird quirk that OSX seems to have. Specifically, the machine unfailingly wakes itself up from sleep every ~60 minutes to do something, and then puts itself back to sleep shortly thereafter. When I'm trying to put _myself_ to sleep (and keep myself asleep), I don't want a bright-ass monitor briefly blazing across my room for no good goddamn reason.
      • jamiek88 3y ago
        Hmmm. That sounds like a bug. That’s not expected behavior and doesn’t happen to me. Are you hdmi or DisplayPort?
        • tigen 3y ago
• RecycledEle 3y ago
  When I was a teenager, I added extra cables in my PC case everywhere they fit. My idea was that if/when I added something, I would already have the cable. I probably spent $100 mail ordering the cables from sellers in Computer Shopper. I am not saying this made sense, but it probably made as much sense as RGB fans do today. I had to take it in for some repair that I could not figure out, and the service tech "stole" all my spare cables. I recall being unhappy, but I do not remember the details. I do know the tech refused to give me back all my cables.
• nickdothutton 3y ago
  At a previous company, a startup, we made and sold Firewall software which was installed on either Sun hardware (Solaris/SPARC) or Compaq (NT/x86). A sales guy returned from a customer meeting proud to have made a sale. His customer loved the Sun hardware, it was so well put together in those days compared to the “Pee Cee”, but he had only Windows sysadmins. So our sales guy sold him a Firewall on SPARC hardware running NT, which the company then asked me to deliver. Thanks BillJ, wherever you are.
• MarkusWandel 3y ago
  I once got borderline threatened (the owner of the computer was a lawyer) for changing a PC's screen resolution from 800x600 to 1024x768 (the monitor was a 17" CRT) as part of something else I was sorting out (voluntarily/socially, not as a job). Needless to say I didn't argue the point, I just got my ass over there and changed it back to 800x600. Luckily(?) I hadn't touched the stack of "toolbars" in the Internet Explorer window...
• firefoxd 3y ago
  When I was 11, i was the official tech support in the embassy of X in Y... (too embarrassing). The secretary had to redesign the template for official documents every day. No two documents ever looked the same. At least once a week the computer failed to boot and I had to reinstall win 95. One evening I stayed in the office until the end of the day, teaching her formatting tricks in office 97. When we were done, she didn't save the file. Instead, she reached for the wall and yanked the power cable. She gathered her purse, handed me 5 (currency). She didn't understand the concept of saving files, or shutting down.
  • andai 3y ago
    Maybe she grew up with a Canon Cat!
  • SoftTalker 3y ago
    If she started on DOS, there was no concept of "shutting down." At the end of the day you just flipped the big red paddle switch on the side or front of the PC case. Not saving? If she learned her secretarial duties using a typewriter, there was no saving. Once the document was scrolled out of the typewriter, that page was done. I could see someone like that using the computer the same way. Type the letter or document, print it, done.
    • johnchristopher 3y ago
      > If she started on DOS, there was no concept of "shutting down." At the end of the day you just flipped the big red paddle switch on the side or front of the PC case. But... but... I diligently parked the disk every time !
      • NikkiA 3y ago
        I think my first HDD, a 130MB drive, had automatic parking. It was a feature from so early on, that I never really though much about it except on university XTs, which were almost always just left on and walked away from, anyway
    • 3y ago
• Const-me 3y ago
  I believe that providing technical support is a crucial skill for a developer. If someone cannot assist a single user in resolving their issue, I question their ability to create effective documentation that reduces the occurrence of perplexing problems for inexperienced users. Furthermore, they are less likely to design a user experience (UX) that tries to avoid unnecessary complications and strange issues.
  • lolinder 3y ago
    Depending on how large the organization is, software developers may not be doing any documenting or UX designing.
• xyzelement 3y ago
  Obviously the partner is the jerk in the story but "Oh, we threw most of them away" and "I could just say ‘fuck you’ and walk out” aren't hallmarks of great support and probably contributed to the escalation of what started as a simple request for a manual. It took John (the protagonist's boss' boss) to calm the user and put them on track to express their real concern and having it resolved.
  • VincentEvans 3y ago
    John was the partner’s peer, also partner level, which is why the conversation quickly returned to civility.
  • simoncion 3y ago
    > ..."Oh, we threw most of them away" and "I could just say ‘fuck you’ and walk out” aren't hallmarks of great support... Eh? Addressing your first point, the guy asked: > I just got this monitor, where’s the manual? Which was honestly and directly answered with "We threw most of them away. We have hundreds of monitors and no need of all the manuals.". The next statement out of the guy's mouth should have been "I need a copy of the manual.", which the support fellow answers with "I'll run back and get one for you. I'll be back in a jiffy.". Instead, the guy flips the fuck out in the middle of the explanation. One might even imagine that had the guy not flipped the fuck out, the words "I can go get a copy if you like." would have rapidly followed the completion of the "How Things Are and Why They Are That Way" explanation. [0] Addressing your second point... from the fine article: > "Part of me thought, “I am a contractor here. I could just say ‘fuck you’ and walk out”, but I stood and took it." The fellow who just flipped the fuck out is absolutely not a mind-reader. Even if he was, he flipped the fuck out before this thought entered the support guy's head... so the guy would have to be a time-traveler for this thought to have triggered his tantrum. [0] As someone who both does support, and has periodic need of support assistance, the "How Things Are, Why They Are That Way, and What I (as a support guy) Can Do About It" style of conversation is my absolute favorite. It's clear, to-the-point, and informative.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• shrubble 3y ago
  Tech support proud moment: in the 1990s, walking a non-technical user through editing and then saving a config file for the product I was supporting, with him using vi and not being familiar with how it works, over the phone. The vi editor is the one that you know is always installed on every Unix system.
  • callalex 3y ago
    Surely anything with vi would also have pico or nano?
    • shrubble 3y ago
      I should have specified: in the mid-1990s, on SCO OpenServer 5.
  • svilen_dobrev 3y ago
    about 2000, my father called me one day while i was somewhere in middle of mountain.. about something going wrong, entering the BIOS-setup of his machine... and in the next 15 minutes i had to recall and imagine all them 6-7 screens of BIOS of his computer, and lead-him-"by-hand", that is, key-by-key... Luckily i had same BIOS on my machine so it was been.. familiar. While even if he was seeing all the text there, it meant nothing to him...
• w0mbat 3y ago
  Although the user should have been polite, I totally understand being annoyed that the manual was intercepted and thrown out. Users who actually read manuals are like gold. They want to learn and they want to solve their own problems if they can.
• throwarayes 3y ago
  Sadly workplace assholery is everywhere One performance review I received was a 45 minute, one-sided rant from my boss directed at me. All completely out of left field. With no ability to get a word in. It left me utterly shell shocked. Most performance reviews I’ve had are good “gives and takes”, leaving me with feedback to consider, but also offering my boss perspective too. They’re also usually not complete surprises. I’ve had to give hard feedback to subordinates myself, and I know the importance of being open and listening when giving feedback, as almost always I have an incomplete picture of their behavior and a lot to learn about what they’re going though. Trusting, dumbass me, just sat there and took this. I assumed I was the problem, that I was fundamentally broken as an employee, and wanted to just find any way to please this boss to make it all better. She used the time to tell me, - all the ways I was screwing up, without letting me ask questions, clarify, or correct anything. - that she, and only she, had the true objective perspective on and others wouldn’t tell me their thoughts about me (despite regularly giving / receiving feedback) - Make me distrust my colleagues as my boss had me thinking they were holding something back / funneling all these complaints to my boss. This pattern of communication persisted for months sadly, and it took me months to “deprogram” away from thinking she had the a true, objective view of my performance. I slept poorly this whole time. My engagement suffered and my performance plummeted. I went from a top performer in my space to becoming disengaged and feeling I could do nothing right. I went from having regular open discussions with everyone on how I could improve to having convos with only her, and closed off from my colleagues. It was as if it was intended to get me to leave, which I did given how unhealthy the environment was. Which is interesting as early on she had been so positive and supportive. I guess it all had little to do with my performance and more to do with not being seen as useful anymore, and thus discarded by her.
  • justin_oaks 3y ago
    Wow, that's terrible. This reminds me of a friend who has a narcissistic spouse. The spouse's criticism, gaslighting, and projection has ruined his self-esteem. It took years and the help of therapists for him to see that he isn't the problem.
• andrew-ld 3y ago
  I worked as an apprentice at the age of 15/16 in a store where they develop software but also provide hardware support for consumer devices (phones, computers, etc.), a customer asked me if it was possible for me to cut off his phone battery with a hacksaw because it wouldn't fit in the case he was incredulous when I told him it couldn't be done and tried to explain that even trying is dangerous but he didn't want to give up, I hope he didn't try at home
• svilen_dobrev 3y ago
  199x.. a friend is working as support technician of some highly-reliable-and prohibitely-expensive boxes. One day some lady from Big-corp-xyz rings, and says that her box would restart occasionaly. Whut? Taking all the machinery for diagnostics, he goes there. Takes box out, Opens it, plugs the cables, ... a hour+ later, nothing. The thing works as expected and no amount of fiddling around would make it restart by itself. He puts it back at its place under the desk. - You sure this.. restarts? - Of course, happened twice today - Huh? Can you show how it happens? She sits on the chair, start typing some document, crosses her legs and starts shaking the upper one. And, after a while, hits the reset button with nose of her shoe. - You see? Just restared, i could not even finish the letter.. - Ahhhh. Okay. The.. location of the box is causing some.. intereference. Moving it. He moves the box to the other side of desk, where no legs can reach.. and that's it.
  • soks86 3y ago
    Brilliant. They could advise the highest courts and not lose his head with those kinds of moves.
• sanitycheck 3y ago
  I've seen deranged full-volume yelling for minutes on end, laptops being smashed into bits on desks, and a full on punch-up between middle aged men in nice suits in a fancy office. This story seems a little tame, honestly.
  • popey 3y ago
    It was only my first experience of it, to be fair :D
• m463 3y ago
  people don't admit they're wrong or apologize¹ [1] statistically
• khqc 3y ago
  Probably not the smartest idea to lead with "we threw most of them away"
• speakspokespok 3y ago
  I don't have quiet this level of story but have had a number of experiences with Sales type people that are able to talk the talk and with confidence thus fooling me into assuming they knew what they were doing. I was a SysEng back about 20 years ago and was getting a bit salty working there. It was a lot of Solaris, PG, Java and Perl. (I mention this just for personality context.) I worked closely with two specific dev teams and one day the manager of one of the dev teams mentioned a Sales Analyst type was unable to upload reports for a specific customer and would I mind looking at it. I had no idea what this person did, nor his business purpose but the guy had a cygwin terminal up and was remarkably tech coherent. I despised business types but clearly this guy had 'the right stuff' and thus I agreed to help. The issue was something like he couldn't upload files to the customer's FTPS server and I confirmed that was true. I then spent the next 2 full days learning the complicated FTPS protocols, checking firewall rules, checking PAM/LDAP perms on the prod host, on and on. I even nmap scanned the customer's server. He swore the customer used FTPS. It was Adobe so I didn't question this strange protocol choice. Finally I asked him to show me how he normally did it assuming he was a cli wiz. Nope. Cygwin had been installed by a dev trying to help, who had also told him FTPS stuff, and he'd just been parroting back everything. I was so annoyed and betrayed by this idiot I couldn't speak and it was clear he knew it: his face went red, he looked at the floor, and after a few moments he stood up and just walked away. Solving the tech issue wasn't the way to a solution. This person's answers simply reflected my questions and how I phrased them, and everything was filtered through my assumptions. I'm sure my attitude made things so much worse. I didn't chill out overnight but it was the beginning and I became very aware of the people element when working an issue. And be nice to Tech Support.
• aiunboxed 3y ago
  Not possible to ask John what he said and mention it here ?
• rekabis 3y ago
  Arrogance and entitlement tends to be directly proportional to the rarity of the job title, both within the company as well as within the industry.