Gentle reminder, irony-wise, for those of you who have not yet internalized my resume:
I've written about fifty manuals, hardware and software. I was manager of technical publications at Sun Microsystems for nine years, where I supervised a group of nearly fifty technical writers and was responsible for the production of a few hundred technical manuals each year. I've been manager of technical publications or information architecture of (depending on how you count) 3 or 4 Silicon Valley companies. I've ghostwritten books on how to manage software development. So as you can imagine, as a manager of technical publications I'm spent years in close working relationships with managers of technical support. My three children (now ages 31, 28, 23) all knew the meaning of "RTFM" before their fifth birthdays. In our household, we *always* RTFM. OR at any rate, *I* RTFM, unless it's past 10 PM, I'm tired, my wife is frustrated, and I was in the middle of doing something else when she reached her limit & called me to come downstairs to help her. So yes, we always RTFM out of personal and professional pride. But we are fallible. And sometimes, !!surprise!! the manual sucks! And sometimes !!double-surprise!! technical support sucks. As a matter of policy, for whatever it may say about me, I'll deal with anybody on the other end of the line, whatever their accent, for help with a television or a video player or anything like that. But when it comes to my mortgage, I won't talk to anybody who isn't talking to me from an office in the continental USA. If I get somebody in India, I ask to be transferred to somebody in USA. I'm happy to put up with cultural friction-loss on matters of no real importance (like DVD players), but when it comes to my mortgage, I draw the line. jrs On Jan 29, 2012, at 9:44 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote: > Let us put it this way. Bangalore or not, tech support does have to follow a > script so you, and they, know for sure that troubleshooting step X was done. > > And yes, whatever it is, is usually documented in the manual or online > -- > srs (blackberry) > From: John Sundman <[email protected]> > Sender: [email protected] > Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:28:09 -0500 > To: <[email protected]> > ReplyTo: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [silk] What is the greatest human invention? > > Three nights ago, for some reason, our 3-month-old DVD player stopped > communicating with our television, into which it was plugged. The audio > worked but the video didn't. > > After trying to figure out what was wrong and re-connecting cables and > rebooting, etc, for fifteen minutes or so, I called the 800 number listed on > a sticker on the machine and was soon connected to a nice woman, who, by her > voice, seemed pretty young to me, who told me her name was "Jenny." She had a > peculiar accent, which to my non-linguistically-trained ears I would describe > as 2 parts American Television, 2 parts Kate Middleton, and 6 parts Hindi. (I > don't recall if I asked her if she was in Bangalore. I usually do, because > the question interests me. I've probably asked this questions ten times, with > "yes" being the answer 6 times, "I can't talk about that" being the answer > twice, and a hangup/disconnect being the answer twice. > > After leading me through ten minutes of useless exercises (which I had > already done) such as powering on and off, etc, Jenny said, "Now, here's what > we're going to do. Hold down the 'Stop' button for ten seconds. " Sure > enough, that worked, and within another minute my wife was watching her Jane > Eyre DVD. (Why "Jenny" couldn't have listened to me when I told her I had > already rebooted, etc, saved me ten minutes and just told me to hold down the > stop button for ten seconds (thereby saving me ten minutes of time & > frustration) is not too hard to fathom. She's paid to follow a script, and > she follows it. Facts don't concern her. (Nor should they, I guess, at the > minimal wage she's presumably paid)). > > The best part of the whole encounter was when 'Jenny' helpfully and politely > explained that the whole "hold down the stop button for ten seconds" business > was explained on page 26 of the manual that shipped with the machine I had > bought, so that if this problem ever came up again I could just turn to that > instead of calling the help line. > > Regards, > > > jrs > > > > > > On Jan 29, 2012, at 3:02 PM, Heather Madrone wrote: > >> Wait. You have actually had success in recent years with a call to a support >> center? >
