People's Understanding of Internet and E-mail

[Allen]

I can understand people getting annoyed the gereal stupiduty and annoyance, but in all honesty, I like dealing with people like that. I like the feeling of helping people with their problems, regardless of how incompetant they are with computers.

The biggest problem I have in my current position is that I don't work in IT for a company, I work in an outsourced helpdesk which deals with many large companies all over the UK and I personally deal with 4 contracts so can get calls regarding 4 different systems with multiple different types of computer, till, connections, networks etc etc... It can even get a little confusing for us at times!

On top of that one of our contacts has around 2 to 3 thousand people around the UK who run their own businesses and call us demanding to get everything fixed in minutes over the phone, regardless of whether we can fix it or not. It is quite amusing when people say "can't you send someone here to fix it?" and we reply "not really, no... you're based in Scotland and we're down in London!".

[Jay]

Sounds like a miss advertised service to me

[Allen]

Sounds like a miss advertised service to me

Was that in response to me?

[Jay]

yes, just that if you have client asking for you to send people down to them they must not be aware of the limitations of the service.

[Allen]

yes, just that if you have client asking for you to send people down to them they must not be aware of the limitations of the service.

Oh they're aware alright... but they still demand it.

The contract in question is for a company that sells tills and till software. They provide the hardware, peripherals and software on the till and we provide telephone support for the software. We do help out with hardware issues over the phone when it's something that can be fixed by dialling onto the til (i.e. driver issues etc) but if it's an actual hardware fault they will either need to return it under warranty or pay for on site repairs, like with most other hardware you might buy.

So it's not miss advertised, it's people trying to get something for nothing by either not understanding it or trying it on.

[Jay]

Sounds like you support Micros/Fildeio....could be wrong though as I think they may be in Ireland.

[Allen]

Close, but no cigar.

We have a contract on our team that uses that system, but we only support their networks. Another team in our company support it though I think.

:edit: They don't support Fidelio, they have contact with the Fidelio service desk.

[Jay]

Its a nightmare.

[Allen]

Haha, I hear the stories... Opera is one of their systems, isn't it? I think Travelodge use that.

[Jay]

Yes that is their newish system that took over from Fidelio. Fidelio was DOS based! The cost is out of this world! and its so complex with a central interface server that all the software connects to so it can talk to the PBX, Key card encoders, Mini Bar system, phones etc etc

One problem is the entire system falls to its knees because all the systems relying on each other to run properly. It can be really hard to get it up and running after a small crash of any of the interfaces.

One of the worst things about the old Fidelio system was that records could become locked by idiots who just used the quick exit in Windows ( the X at the top right ) and didn't log out. As soon as some one else tried to access that record... boom, a full reindex was needed to unlock the records. This could take a wile and needed every one to be logged out. Of course half way through the reindex you would get some moron logging back in and kicking the reindex out. Their was no way to block people logging back in so if they didn't get the message to stay logged out or a remote used loggedin it would block the reindexing of the database. I think it was called "findexing"

It was so bad Fidelio would struggle with it, I had to rewrite part of the front end myself because the post code system, that was supposed to work, didn't. This was due to a typo in the code. Fidelio actually took the code of me when I had finished! It was like open source that you paid for! lol

Their Micros tilling system was no better.

[Allen]

Oooh, sounds like fun. So glad I don't deal with Opera myself, I hear our other team saying what a pain it is....

So you never actually worked for them, but they bought the code off you? Nice work if you can get it!

[Jay]

No... they took the code from me.

[Betty_Swallocks]

I like the feeling of helping people with their problems, regardless of how incompetant they are with computers.

Oh, I do too. I don't have a problem with people who don't know or just don't understand about computers.

It's the people who think that they are in some way superior to me BECAUSE they deliberately choose to not know anything and make a big deal about announcing it. I love putting them (politely) in their place.

[Agent]

No... they took the code from me.

Did you release it under a licence which allowed them to do so? Did they have permission?

It's the people who think that they are in some way superior to me BECAUSE they deliberately choose to not know anything and make a big deal about announcing it. I love putting them (politely) in their place.

Its shocking when you get these people at college/uni, never mind the workplace!

[Jay]

I had to ask permission to modify their code I assumed that it was their property whatever I did with it?