Working with people

[mars822.livejournal.com]

So Corporate, now some huge mega-conglomerate over on Holland, announces to one of my clients that they are dropping another data circuit into their site and that it should be connected to their network. No explanations, no reason, certainly no technical details. The client immediately calls me to manage the process. Then the fun begins. I try for DAYS to get these people to give me ANY useful information...I'd be happy with a friggin' default gateway for the firewall I'm going to put in front of the managed router, but I get nothing but increasingly rude questions about WHY I want this info. Apparently "so I can configure the firewall" doesn't translate well into Hollandaise (that's a joke). My point? This is what was waiting for me this morning:

Michael,

The brief text of #co-worker gives a lot of clarification.

The questions so far tend to: ‘Please send me the design documents of the car’ (in order to find the ashtray)’. The real functional question is ‘Can you please tell me where to find the ashtray’.

Will you please contact Sven. He is able to tell you the functions of #corporate network.

Then, provide me the remaining functional questions and I will pass them to #ISP.

But first, send both Sven and me the complete drawing of the #my client network. We will use this as a guideline to discuss the questions.

Nice huh? Thanks for all the help. I guess we'll just let that circuit sit there, unused, until you can manage to get your head out of your Netherland-regions (another joke). Until then, no packets for you.

End rant.

Xposted to my journal

Not about my users for once...

[amynnah.livejournal.com]

( This time, I was a user. :) But trust me, there's a happy ending. )

TL;DR: Just because Time Warner sucks doesn't mean their employees do. And I've learned what not to do to Tech Support from my users. ;)