Call me kooky

My biggest problem with technology is that it’s often overly stupid. For instance, to get pictures off my cellphone I have to upload them to a server, login, then download them. STUPID! I haven’t counted all the steps necessary but it’s over 5. That’s 4 too many.

People just want the content not the crap. For instance, this website is pretty stripped down. The most intensive part is that image on top. It allows you to get to the content quickly. I usualy use scribefire to make posts. Why? Because I don’t have to click a bunch of stuff in the wordpress panels to get to where I can right. I only have two categories, and I don’t really use all the other stuff so scribefire is quick and easy.

I encounter this at work too. We have some software you need for our hardware, which is fine except the software tries to do too much. The hardware itself you can buy in any store from the company that makes it, install the damned thing and be up and running in no time. But our software with our hardware has to be special and lock things down to our products. That’s fine, I understand why but christ it’s always a pain to get working because the software is trying to be too smart.

Supposedly apple products work a lot better in this respect, but I know apple likes to “lock you in” to their product line. I can go for this if everything just freaking works. When products from the same company don’t mesh it makes me very unhappy.

This whole post was spurred on by the fact I just started playing with opera mini 4. It has a pretty nice “overview” mode, the problem being it’s impossible to read and a little difficult to manage. Though it is pretty neat in use. Fortuneatly opera has a “fit to width” option which does away with the fancy stuff and makes it readable in one quick, easy, simple, step. Kudos Opera.

Yeah, I think about these things,
Phosphers

Been trying to enter a RMA for a bad drive. Just a few of the fun things I’ve dealt with so far.

• RMA timeout. Ok you don’t want people fucking around with the RMA stuff, fine. GET A LONGER TIMEOUT. I also have things to do and a timeout wipes all the RMA form information. ARRRGH.
• Drafts. You can save an RMA as a draft, but it won’t keep the information either. Stupid.
• I managed to save the timed out RMA somehow, but you can’t just list “all rma’s” you need a number. Also stupid, I should just be able to browse all current RMAs on file.
• Because of the saved RMA I ran into duplicate serial number problems. I can’t find the saved RMA! Fill out the forms AGAIN.
• Even with the RMA number I can’t find the saved RMA.
• Can’t find ARO option (advanced return). They still have it listed in the faq, it’s here somewhere.

I’ll email them, maybe I can iron all this out. GRRRRR.

Update: I wrote most of this post when I was rather pissed off, so it’s a bit sketchy…. then I forgot about it entirely. The email I did get back from seagate was obviously a form letter and had no revelance to the question I asked. Yay for shoddy customer support. I eventually got it all ironed out and got the drive RMA’d. The drive arrived and I blogged about it here.

One of the interesting aspects of my job is the scammers.  You’d be suprised how many people try to outright cheat us out of product or money.  Most of these are easy to detect.  Something just doesn’t sound right, the story has holes, or they’re pushiing for free stuff right away.  The free stuff right away is a good sign they’re trying to scam.
The best one I’ve encountered is Scarlet.  I’m not sure what her real name is because she’s used over twenty different names when talking to us.  I think of her as “scarlet” because that’s the name she used when I first talked to her.
The first time she called she was wondering when the replacement system would arrive.  So I checked and told her…. then I read the notes on file.  Holy jesus!  This person managed to scam us out of several replacement units over the years.  We’re not talking once or twice, but thirty or fourty times.  YIKES!  I put a quick note in the file that day and went about my work.
A week later I get a call.  The caller just bought a system at walmart and the accesories weren’t included in the box.  Our boxes aren’t the most secure and it’s walmart, stupid shit happens at walmart.  But something sounds a little fishy….. the story is too right.  All the necessary elements to get free stuff, but none of the sob story.  So I asked for all the contact info and the address set the sirens off.  Yup, it’s Scarlet.
So after scaming us out of the system she was now trying to scam us out of the accessories.  I politely informed her we couldn’t send anything out for free and that she had a file.  This is where she fell apart and started going on how this is the first time she ever called.  Which I knew to be a line.
I’ll give her credit though, if I hadn’t read the previous notes I probably would have sent her free accessories.  Turns out she called three times that day and got someone to send out the accessories (oops!).  That order was cancelled fast.  Checking up on it sometime later it turns out we’re trying to get the money for the replacement system from her.  I just know it ain’t gonna happen but I can imagine this going to collections.

Call me impressed,
Phosphers

If you’ve read the blog at all recently, you’ll remember the one crazy lady I got on the phone.  Sure enough, I heard about it.  But it wasn’t a bad “hear about it”, my lead had some good tips on how to better handle the situation next time.  Some of which I’ve already used.
The workforce is in flux right now, we have people leaving, people coming, and others moving but still in the same department.  On top of all this they’re trying to reconfigure the cubes so they can cram more people out on the main floor.  The slightly annoying upshot is that there’s a lot of people on the phones at any one time.  Where I was dealing with around 40 calls a day I’m down to 20 or less.  Just enough time to get bored, Phos don’t like bored.
This has worked out for me though, I managed to get today off and have had a couple early days to boot.  R and R is good!

I need more toys at my desk,
Phosphers

Due to work and all that I haven’t had much time to blog.  But I’ve got a few days off so I’m going to do the usual blog binge here.