Why is it?

There’s a certain subset of techies who think because they speak a certain language, everyone else must. And that everyone else has the tools they have and know how to use them.

I point out and give screen shots of an issue that I’m told doesn’t exist and then they say, oh yeah… I can replicate that — you should approach it with XYZ. And then give incorrect links and useless information on top of jargon that means nothing to your average joe. And then there is the feel of “don’t call us, we’ll call you…maybe.” Actually, I know just enough to be dangerous and it was all babble to me. Imagine if a person seeing support was unfamiliar with these kinds of things? Absurd.

And you call yourself a “happiness engineer”?

This is why I dislike trying to help those kinds of people fix their bugs and why I would rather just vent.

This is after someone admitted there was a bug that was in the code that is no longer optional to roll back and beyond my ability to fix. Then they kept telling me to go back to the old code option. Only after I show them it is not an option anymore do they then throw gooply-gop at me that is supposed to temporarily fix it. Which, if I had the setup they have, might have worked [I openly doubt it, though]. But I don’t have that kind of access and I’m not interested in opening up that kind of security hole on my site. The icing is when they referenced the page on how to use the bugged part of the effin plugin as if THAT is the fix? Really? Are you trolling me?

Gemini fixed helped me temporarily “roll it back”, not in over a week, but in less than 15 minutes with a handful of meaningful instructions. And without the technobabble blow-off.

Seriously, this is the kind of crap is the reason helpdesk people have a reputation for being the helplessdesk people. It happens enough that this is the expected norm and why people cringe when they need to call or email support.

/rant


8 responses to “Why is it?”

  1. chrisnelson61 Avatar

    Any kind of ‘techno-speak’ is clearly there to say ‘I’m better than you at this’ (in all areas of life); plus, half the time, these folks are quoting from a pre-written script, probably on minimum wage, and almost certainly know less than you!
    But yes, I don’t appreciate the fact that things are changed with no way back because they an ‘improvement’.

    1. michael raven Avatar

      Similar to what I told Veselin, I don’t agree with a customer that I forgot to add espresso to their espresso based drink and then point to the espresso machine, give them jargon on how to fix it and then tell them to use the cup they just pointed out is missing the espresso and say: or I might get to it eventually, maybe, might they want to step outside for an indeterminate amount of time until I decide if it will get done?

      No one would be happy about that, even if it was a “free” drink.

      1. chrisnelson61 Avatar

        🤣🤣 Mind you, free coffee…🤣
        Agreed, not all are like that, and I have experienced both ends of the spectrum…but stereotypes arise for a reason.

        1. michael raven Avatar

          Exactly.

          As I tell my kids, if everyone just followed the Bill and Ted Philosophy, things would be much better — So they should practice it whenever and wherever they can.

          “Be excellent to each another”.

          https://youtu.be/rph_1DODXDU?si=NbCRDuSFRDSSC39V

  2. Veselin Avatar

    Sorry this happened to you, Michael. Although, I’m a regular engineer, not a happiness one, I’ve done enough support work to know that we sometimes don’t understand the problem correctly and in that case, the words don’t matter.

    1. michael raven Avatar

      I’ve had good support over the years and had bad support. This was the second kind that offers sage advice that’s wrong and then tells you they have closed out the ticket without verifying a resolution.

      I know not everyone is like that, but there’s enough that it becomes the trope of support services.

      I was content on waiting patiently for it to be fixed. They could have left it at that. That’s where it was before a different support person decided they wanted to close out my open ticket without making sure it was resolved to my satisfaction.

      Instead, it felt like a blowoff.

      I used to cut hair for a living. You don’t push a client out of the chair when they say their fringe is crooked because your wanting to move on. Not do you give them scissors and comb, and tell them to fix it themselves.

      Thanks for your sympathy. I appreciate it.

  3. lyndhurstlaura Avatar

    I went through several so-called ‘happiness engineers’ at WordPress when I couldn’t sign in on my laptop. Even though I told them the measures I’d taken before having recourse to them they still tried to get me to do those things – do they even read the emails? At last I got a no-nonsense woman who told me how to switch off the two-factor authentication and then try – it worked! She then told me I could try it switched on again later, if I wanted. That was it; no techno-speak, just down-to-earth advice in a language (English) I understood. I wish they could clone her and roll her out to every industry on the planet; even if it took human jobs, those humans don’t deserve to have them if they can’t do them properly. 🙁

    1. michael raven Avatar

      It was sad that the first person assigned to the problem understood me perfectly and spoke human. It was the person looking to close out tickets that went to jargon-land when I pointed out their “fix” wasn’t possible. At no point did I suggest I did any meaningful coding (nor that I wanted to, I was just pointing out a pretty big functionality bug in their code).

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