Job: cashier
Item doesn’t scan
Customer: “That means it’s free, right?”
🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
Only about 4 weeks in as a cashier and I’ve heard this enough to last me a lifetime.
“Do this as a temporary measure. We will code it properly later” —> code that is hackish and will never be replaced.
“We need you to do this one time because of someBullshit” —> congratulations, your team had to do this thing outside of your specialty, even though there exists a team dedicated to it, and now we’re just going to make you do it over and over again (despite, again, a whole team dedicated to that existing).
You should tell them this is not 'Nam. There are rules.
These are older lessons and I’m generally pretty effective at pushing back on those now. I’m not a manager, though, so I can be overruled.
Do this as a temporary measure. We will code it properly later
I’m always blown away whenever someone says that they like some language or framework because it’s “great for prototyping.”
Like, what magical fairyland software company do you work at where your prototypes are not immediately put into production as soon as they kind of start to work?
Back from my IS analyst/reporting days…
Sends email asking for report. “Terminations from last year”. I run it and send. The next day they reply…
Them: “are these from last calendar year or last fiscal years?”
Me: “Calendar”
Them: “I needed the last fiscal year”
Me THEN WHY DIDNT YOU FUCKING SAY LAST FISCAL YEAR!?!?!
It’ll probably be something super obvious and I’ll feel silly for asking, but “IS”?
Information Systems
Worked IT .
Everything is working
“Why do we even pay you guys ?”
Something is broken
“Why do we even pay you guys?”
We send out a monthly internal newsletter to management summarizing what we did that month in layman’s terms.
We also include info about major security breaches, hacks or system failures that affected other companies along with a short explanation about why it didn’t affect us.
It still goes over the head of management, but it gives them the feeling we’re smart, on top of things, and important.IT PR good managers do to sell the team and keep them off the block when layoffs happen because of say poor investment decisions like commercial real estate as that market plummets
I was gonna say “I worked desktop support for years…so pretty much everything” 😂
This is why I became a Linux admin.
I can’t imagine. Must be so aggravating.
As a software dev.
Client: we need feature by end of quarter.
Me: cool, what do you expect it to do, do you have any requirements?
Client: …I haven’t gotten a requirements doc for a feature in 15 years.
I’d settle for a paragraph of description.
But guys, if we use agile then we don’t need requirements! We just make something and then the customers tell us if we are on the right track, we just get to iTeRaTe
“X is down/broke.” No, Kelly, the internet isn’t “down.” You typed the URL wrong in your browser.
People will state it like the entire company has lost internet connectivity, or an entire department cannot access files or run a certain program, when actually, only a single user is having a problem.
Also people not knowing the difference between log out, restart, and shutdown. Even after explaining it to them.
I can’t really sympathise with you here. You’re clearly an IT guy, so the difference between log out, restart and shut down is as natural to you as breathing. For the average person is not that intuitive. For many people the computer is “on” when they press the power button and enter their username and password. And the blurring of the distinction is increased by most people having a smartphone where just lifting it up to your face wakes it up and logs you in (technically) at the same time.
I know you’re explaining it to them, but if that’s not something that they live and breathe, they’re just going to forget the explanation. I’m a molecular biologist, so to me the differences between genome, transcriptome and proteome are bleeding obvious, but I have a colleague who’s not a scientist but needs to become familiar with these terms. I explained them to her last week in an meeting that lasted an hour, but this week I had to do that again. She’s not stupid, it’s just all very abstract to her.
I’m mean, it’s literally in the name. These are not concepts that require a degree to understand, much less an hour long meeting.
Logout means ending your user session, restart means your computer turns off and then comes back on, and shutdown means it turns off and stays off.
The buttons are all in the start menu, they are clearly marked, and these concepts have existed for 30 years at least.
It’s like driving a car for decades and not knowing what the difference between reverse, drive, and neutral are.
I still think your promoting the view of “this is obvious to me so it should be obvious to everyone”. Even your explanation would be confusing for someone who’s not an IT guy - what does it mean “end my user session?” People rarely go to the start menu to deal with their computers’ “on-ness”, they just press the hardware button that has an incomplete circle with a line on top or often no marking or label at all. Or they close the lid and that makes them think of their laptop as “off”.
If people too stupid to use computer, their computer license should be revoked, because they clearly cheated on the test
People should know basic concepts about tools without which they can’t do any part of their job.
Your colleague will learn this terminology at some point. I’m sure her job isn’t litterally juggling these three terms all day every day, otherwise I’d expect her to already have come in with that knowledge too.
At one point, I had to explain to my dad that we’re paying for internet access, not for all servers to be available and sufficiently fast. He was not happy about that.
Yes but you see if I close the lid, then it’s off. And that’s why my system has an up time of 208 hours.
208 hours.
Those are rookie numbers. I’ve had users that didn’t ever shut down. A power outage was the only relief that poor system got.
It’s frustrating when you know there’s a huge gap between your comprehension and theirs, but they think you’re the idiot.
Ive already said it on another comment here, and i no long work support so im a user myself now but, FUCK USERS!
I work retail. People walk up to me like I’m a robot.
“Duck tape??” They just… Bark at me. I have gotten to the point that I refuse to tell them where something is until they treat me like a human being and ask a very simple question, “where’s duck tape?”
You’re gonna hate me for this but since it’s your job you might want to learn it’s “duct” tape.
There is such a thing as duck tape though, It’s a brand of duct tape
But that’s not what the customer asked for.
Not what they asked for. Duck tape is a brand, and is in my department. Duct tape is in plumbing which also does HVAC products, and is actual foil tape with a peel off backing, actually used for ductwork.
Makes me think of this guy.
“I’m trying to identify a source of truth”
I think that’s better than one department (with the clout to do so) going “this is going to be our source of truth” while completely unprepared for what it means.
They literally spent over a year in talks with the whole rest of the damn company about what that would mean and what level of responsibility that would entail, delayed the go live multiple months multiple times… and they still can’t do fucking basic data validation.
Leading and trailing spaces. Names randomly in all caps.
Oh, there’s a shit ton built off the requirement that this field is one of these options? Surprise, we silently added another option without telling anyone, after we agreed in planning that option was invalid. Not our fault, your fault for building shit based off the idea this was a source of truth and we actually took requirements seriously.
Why is everyone coming to us to correct this data? Why can’t you just correct it downstream like you used to? What do you mean we were warned? I wasn’t paying attention during that meeting that you held specifically to warn me about this in advance because I was too busy ignoring all the other warnings people were telling me!
What do you mean that the thing you warned us would be consistently be delayed until next day because of how our source of truth works can’t be done on demand on the same day? Huh, we signed off on it being okay, along with every other relevant department?
It’s supposed to be a good practice … in theory. In practice nobody knows what exists and who’s in charge of what and there’s exceptions and exceptions to exceptions.
Speaking for software engineering perspective. I see in other comment you’re doing process engineering, I assume the term is used in a similar way
Wait, do you work at my company?
What’s your job?
Process Manager
I googled “identify a source of truth” and was treated to a plethora of buzzwordy tweets and articles worthy of Deepak Chopra.
I’m so sorry.
Let’s put a pin in it, and we can circle back when we have more bandwidth. Hopefully it’s not too heavy a lift.
Oh Ffs kill me I hate this nonsense.
I used to work with enterprise customers at a SaaS company, and still have a lot of anger in how corporate types use this fluffy language. I think my “favorite” example of this jargon is “Please Advise.”, which basically just means “What the fuck?!”
Hopefully it’s not too heavy a lift.
Well, that’s a new one (assuming it’s not referring to a physical object) to me
As someone who had to work on syncing multiple databases of customer and order data this was actually very important for me to know. Turned out that it could vary on a field by field basis and could also depend on the type of customer and where they came from.
To sync up our new and shiny SAP CRM with several Access databases and our customer-facing software I ended up writing a script that would collect all data field by field with varying hierarchies and writing it back out to everything. Worked surprisingly well.
Is Access still in use?
I’m certain the access database living in a broom closet that someone setup 20 years ago is still going strong at my last job. It was also fed by mainframe dumps, I’m super glad I never had to go anywhere near the thing personally, different department and it was explicit that they owned it.
Access will probably be the laat thing to die before the heat death of the universe.
Even after things inappropriately hosted in Excel? Lol
Oh, yeah, forgot that.
“Can we integrate AI into this app?”
“Can you do a browser version of this high-end VR training application?” somehow makes a browser version “Why isn’t this running on my iPhone 3GS?!”
To be fair, WebXR does make VR stuff possible in a browser. But I guess that wasn’t what they wanted.
I think their point was that it’s just never gonna run on a phone that came out in 2009.
“That’s literally the first sentence in my email”
See counterargument tho I’ve had multiple cashiers try to scan a thing that wasn’t in the system and just throw it in my cart so it DOES happen. Lmao
What I do is find a similar item that costs less and use that for that item.
Just charge them for bananas. 4011. Everything is bananas if it doesn’t scan.
Doesn’t that mess with your inventory numbers?
Sure does! But when I’ve got a line of paying customers, “shrink” is not too high a priority for me.
I do make an effort to find the right item. We have a “cashier book” in the POS system that I can look stuff up in. Unfortunately it’s not very robust when it comes to acceptable search terms, so if I can’t find it after a few attempts, and the item is under $10, I just want to get the customer on their way.
This was a latex loofah at a Safeway grocery store. Good luck finding something similar. Maybe a sponge from the kitchen aisle?
“Are you guys still serving breakfast?”
It ended 5 hours ago! It’s 3 in the afternoon and breakfast hours are clearly posted on the sign. What do you think??
me: “it’s all in the same fridge, right? and surely they must know that their lunch options are shite, so it’d be reasonable to assume they’d stretch breakfast a few extra timezones…”
Whats this movie called again!? Love it but its been a while.
Falling Down
Falling Down
Thats the ticket! Thanks! Gonna have to go sailing and watch it again!
Job: Software Dev
Internal stakeholder or C-Suite: presents nebulous idea for workflow/product/feature with no actual end goal
“We have a CRITICAL need for this product. It will REVOLUTIONIZE everything we do here. The stakes could not be higher. THIS MUST BE COMPLETED ASAP”
My boss: Okay. We will move heaven and Earth to get this done for you.
Me: Works 60 hours a week for two months to ensure the new product is successful
Also me: checking usage statistics six months later…last used by me during go live testing
I hate my life.
“We’re in code freeze, so no more changes are to be committed until release! Also, the management needs this change to be fast-tracked to be included with the release, so let’s make it happen, people!”
I just read your comment to my husband and he said, “Every fucking month! Oh my fucking god.” (He’s a DBA.)
I’m in testing and almost ever fucking week I’m trying to QA a release cycle while they’re pushing three last minute features and fucking with the backend, meaning all the frontend stuff I’ve already tested needs done again.
Yep.
When someone doesn’t understand a process and asks “can’t you just do XYZ?” Usually management. “Just” is actually a 2 week project and tons of hours and trouble shooting
Can’t you automate around this edge case that we told you during planning could never happen due to controls on our end?
That’s easier for us than sticking to our word.
What do you mean that it was a key requirement of your design, like you told us in advance?
I’m currently in a software development project which was handed over to a different department with little software development expertise, and fucking hell, I hear this so often.
Can’t you just run the tests against against a database like normal? Why do you need to automate the setup of this database? (I do not know what “normal” means, they did not elaborate.)
Can’t you just switch over all the code to go directly against the database rather than also supporting in-memory.
And then five minutes later: Can’t you just hook up the database connection where we need it and use in-memory for the rest?Like, I’m trying to appreciate the critical questions, because hey, maybe there is something I’m missing. But always this “just”, and them being dissatisfied when you tell them it doesn’t make sense or would be more work, that’s what kills me.
Developer I used to work with had a policy where if anyone said “just do something”, they were now the sole person responsible for implementing it.
“Just redo the front end in react”. “Cool. Thanks for volunteering”
Job: tech support/warranty.
*spare part for repair gets delayed by delivery company by 1 working day (super specific part air post to another country) *
*Item ordered online arrives damaged by courier *
*Out of warranty product is not covered anymore by warranty (suprised pikachu) *
Customer: I did not expect this from a reputable company, like yours. I expect a refund, compensation and a kiss on the ass cheeks from your CEO. Also I will post this on social media and nobody will buy your product, because I am so important and have god like influence and power so better get me free stuff.
Where I used to work, the 1-star reviews were always about the company not accepting returns under certain conditions, even if the policy is clearly stated in the receipt and posted on signs at the registers.
While I agree with the sentiment, return policies on receipts is a pet peeve of mine. On registers is fine. Even better if they also post it at the entrances. But if it’s only on the receipts, and you can’t read the policy until after you’ve made the purchase, then it’s a fundamental power imbalance between the consumer and supplier.
This policy was specifically about live plants.
If you buy something and change your mind right then, you’ll get your refund.
If it’s a perennial shrub or tree, it falls under warranty for a full year from date of purchase, as long as there was no obvious neglect on the part of the customer.
But still they would come in 14 months later and get upset if they don’t get a refund, then leave a negative review about it.
