2 stupid work stories

I have notorious issues with my tickets getting held up by some tech who says “if only you would make the steps clearer to reproduce this error, it COULD have been done sooner.” Which is all bull-crap, since we report tickets with the Step 1: go here, Step 2: click this, Step 3: notice this – method, and you just can’t be much more clear than that.

Amazingly, though, we still hear it. So Monday I decided to really get on their nerves by creating screenshots of each step, complete with things circled, pointed to, and explained on each step, and adding those to a ticket along with the usual steps.

The techlead then tries it, as I assume he usually does before he assigns it out, and even makes his own note that he got the same error going a different way and details that on the ticket.

The assigned tech then notes that sometimes she can get the error and sometimes she can’t. Then puts the ticket on hold.

Next thing I know, we get it sent back to us saying the assigned tech requests that we be more specific about how we get the error.

Seriously?!?

I send it back, noting that we’d already put in written instructions as well as a screenshot click-by-click walkthrough, that the techlead had put in further instructions himself, and point out that the assigned tech’s last note says she could recreate the error “sometimes”, so she wasn’t able to note her OWN STEPS to do it?

I asked them to be more specific about what kind of specific instructions they might want, because I was all out of ideas.

It was marked as active again and assigned back to the same tech, but really… if you just don’t want to work on it, in this case, get a new excuse, because this one makes you look retarded. What does a person have to do to get fired around there?

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Also on the “duh” list…

Our site nameservers: COMPANYNAMEtools.com.

Customer registers the domain: COMPANYNAMEtool.com

Customer expects to point this domain to their site and even registers it with our domain service.

For one, I’m amazed it is even available, as why doesn’t COMPANYNAME just have it, too. Perhaps the average Joe doesn’t know your COMPANYNAME, though likely this was a goofup by a typical dim-witted customer who looked at a sign-up form that said if she registered a domain the namesever had to be set to ns1.COMPANYNAMEtools.com and instead decided to just try to register that. Probably had a lot of confusion trying to get it, until she left off the ‘s’.

For two, Mary sent it in as usual to be set up, and even adds the line “this isn’t a joke!” so she clearly noticed similarity but didn’t know what to do with it. I would think this makes us look a little dumb, since we really should have just caught this, notified the COMPANY, etc.

Can’t say we were surprised at the reply from the dns guy at COMPANYNAME when he says that domain activation is on hold pending investigation and possible action from upper management, considering that there are copyrights on COMPANYNAME.

You think? Seriously…

They probably think this is some clever individual trying to register something similar to put up a mock the COMPANY website. I don’t think they’ve met our customers. When I looked at the whois she had misspelled Realty, and listed she worked for CUSTOMER NAME Reality. Hrm, the reality of COMPANYNAME… maybe she was thinking of doing a mock site.