"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
news:4b68c440$1@news.povray.org...
> Jim Henderson wrote:
> > I'm sure there's a hole in his wall where he has been
hitting his head
> > repeatedly the past couple of months.
>
> My favorite was
>
> "Your email server is down.  It's not my computer, because
when I telnet to
> port 25, I get no connection. Is your server down?"
>
> "I can't help you with that, but I can help you reinstall
your email client."
>
> "That has nothing to do with it if your server is down.
Can *you* get to the
> server?"
>
> "No, but that might be due to any number of r easons."

I must have talked to the same guy a few years back. He
wanted me to reset all my usenet news groups and I kept
saying their server must be down... I won...

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
> > I'm sure there's a hole in his wall where he has been hitting his head
> > repeatedly the past couple of months.
>
> My favorite was
>
> "Your email server is down.  It's not my computer, because when I telnet to
> port 25, I get no connection. Is your server down?"
>
> "I can't help you with that, but I can help you reinstall your email client."
>
> "That has nothing to do with it if your server is down. Can *you* get to the
> server?"
>
> "No, but that might be due to any number of r easons."

yes, the main reason is that people don't like to read and thus they don't
educate themselves and thus get dumb like this.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Now that the IT Director is gone, I'm going to make a serious attempt to
> get permission to take my disaster recovery plan home with me.
> (Obviously, being written as part of my job, my employer owns the IP for
> that, so I need written permission to disclose it outside the company.)
> I think it's a damn fine piece of writing - and I have the likes of
> Roche and Pfizer agreeing with me.

Well, I think you should change the text so it doesn't actually explain the 
specific case of your company. You get to publish your writing but not the 
details of your company's backup system. Randomize some numbers, for a start 
:P

As for the writing, what you need is for its copyright to be owned by you 
and not your employer. I have no idea how hard it'd be to convince them of 
that, though.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> fantastic features this software has but doesn't actually say... what...
>> it... does! >_<
> 
> I like the ones that say "use this feature just like the way it was three
> versions ago, only with a new name!"
> 
> Sort of like if POV 3.6 was documented in terms of differences from POV
> 3.1.

Try iPhone jailbreaking. Websites telling you about the new releases of 
yellowsn0w, blackra1n, pwnagetool, etc and not telling you what they DO!

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson wrote:
> I love working at home for this reason - far fewer distractions.

I don't have a job, but I can tell you that for me, "working"* from home 
doesn't mean less distractions. My mom has the radio on all day, my dad 
sometimes works from home (<5 meters away from me) and talks loudly on the 
phone.

(* open source stuff)

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:10:53 -0300, Nicolas Alvarez wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I love working at home for this reason - far fewer distractions.
> 
> I don't have a job, but I can tell you that for me, "working"* from home
> doesn't mean less distractions. My mom has the radio on all day, my dad
> sometimes works from home (<5 meters away from me) and talks loudly on
> the phone.

Yeah, it's definitely not for everyone - if I had small children around 
the house, it wouldn't work for me either.  It does help, though, that I 
have noise-canceling headphones that I can put on when things are a bit 
busier than usual.  Just put some tunes on and dive in.  I sometimes lose 
track of time, though, when I do that.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:11:32 -0800, DungBeatle wrote:

> "Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote in message
> news:4b68b0dd$1@news.povray.org...
>> On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:36:15 -0800, DungBeatle wrote:
>>
>> > He hasn't spoken to me in over a year now.
>>
>> That must make the job - and performance reviews -
> interesting (to say
>> the least).--Jim
> 
> Very, no reviews for two years now and I don't expect one this year. It
> doesn't really matter, I don't respect his opinion anyway... :)

Oh, I've had bosses like that as well, but it's always useful to at least 
pretend when bonuses or pay raises are involved. :-)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:17:36 -0800, DungBeatle wrote:

> "Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote in message
> news:4b68b240$1@news.povray.org...
>> I convinced him to tell me anyways, and promised not to
> tell anyone from
>> the organization who asked how I got help.  But it was one
> of the
>> stranger support conversations I've ever had.--Jim
> 
> That was pretty cool of him. The last time I called my ISP for support I
> finally said that the fix for my problem will take the right person less
> than one minute to correct it, find that person. Until then, I would not
> shotgun any changes... The right guy called me back the next day, 30
> seconds... Bingo!

Yeah, another reason why I stick with my ISP; I could do faster with 
cable, but the service terms for Comcast are not really to my benefit; my 
ISP basically agreed that their TOS were "we lease you a pipe; what you 
do with it is your business as long as it isn't illegal or disrupting 
other customers".

One of the *best* companies I've ever worked with for support is 
Bindview.  I could pick up the phone and be talking to a breathing person 
within 5 minutes.  What's more, the person had deep knowledge of the 
product, could understand what I wanted no matter how complex my request 
was, and if s/he didn't know the answer, they'd call back within 30 
minutes with an answer from the developer.  Every single time, without 
fail.

And if the need I had wasn't in the product, there was a better than 50% 
chance that it was entered in as an enhancement request for the next 
product release - which we would get at no charge, and probably would be 
within the next 6 months at the most.

Pricey product, but it paid for itself in 6 months.....

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:07:08 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Kevin Wampler <wam### [at] uwashingtonedu> wrote:
>> In addition, some places explicitly forbid the support people from
>> exercising much creativity in their answers, but instead force them to
>> select from a bank of pre-designed template answers.  So it might even
>> be the case that the person knows what you're asking and wants to help,
>> but couldn't because they didn't have the authority to answer it
>> properly.
> 
>   Why would they do that? Who does it benefit? Why would a company
> actively *forbid* a tech support person from giving an answer he knows
> fits the question best and instead *force* him to give an irrelevant
> answer? What for?

Because some companies are afraid of being sued if one of these 
"creative" problems causes a catastrophic failure of some sort.  It's all 
about liability and fear.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:33:03 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> "That has nothing to do with it if your server is down. Can *you* get to
> the server?"
> 
> "No, but that might be due to any number of r easons."
> 
> D'oh!

It's amazing what happens with support like this, isn't it?

Jim

Post a reply to this message