factory recall

manning the software help(less)desk, you get to meet all sorts of people. of course we all hate the dumbass one. another would be the one who keeps saving his ass and throws you under the bus at every opportunity, to make himself look good with his management (and not get fired). we actually have one who is both.

anyway, i have another customer contact who's kinda a little slow. i think whatever he soaked up from me in the past year or so kind of drains out of him when he pees or something. he's fond of sending emails where "he can't seem to recall this" or "can't seem to figure out that" or "can't seem to remember whatever". God knows, i write up long pages of Dummies Guides and nothing seems to work for him. too bad, he seems like a nice guy. let's call him TR, for "Total Recall".

by the way, i should get paid by the page for writing Dummies Guides. $10 a page sounds nice.


just today i get an email from TR, regarding a parameter fix i suggested two days ago:
----

... this change did not work as per user's email. I've gone back and checked to make sure that the changes were made correctly. blah blah blah blah in any event, it's not working as we had anticipated. can you have a look at this and let me know?

----

i go check and come back with:

----
as per your original email, you said they wanted this in (this function).

now if they're saying another function (which we obviously did not do), can you get a screenshot?

----

so i imagine him reading my email and smiling cheerfully as he typed back (before he probably went off to the local coffee shop and had a latte):

----

I'm following up with the user now and will get back to you.

----

which is what you should have done in the first place, you mook. now let me get back to ESPN.com and stop bothering me.

i don't know, i just feel sensitive these days.



breaking update (within 90 minutes):

here's one he sent just after i clicked on "Publish Post" the first time on this:
----
how can I find out which blah blah blah associated with the following? when I check out the properties for the blah blah blah i see that the blah blah blah, but I don't know how to blah blah blah.
----

so i reply:

you need to check out this this and this and from that, it will tell you which blah blah blah are involved.

it seems more and more that the issue scope is always wider than what they initially tell you.

----

of course he replies:

i'll have a look at calculations and formulas and get back to you.
yes, I agree with you. i've addressed the issue with them that we've been having with the business giving us the wrong information or simply leaving things out of the requirements. It's partly due to various users only having partial knowledge of what the others do, so that leads to some confusion. in any event, it causes more work and frustration for us.
----

us? us?? you mean me!! it causes more work and frustration for me!! there is no us!!