The Awkward Silence

User: "I can't get in to X."
Me: "Do you mean you just need to *use* X, or to *change* X?"
User: "Just need to use it."
Me: "Ticket closed: There's no permission to use X, go ahead."
User: "Ticket Re-opened: I still can't get in." *Attaches screenshot of Y login error*
Me: "Wait, so we're not talking about X, you can't log in to Y? What credentials are you using?"
User: "Normal login" (I'm assuming Active Directory. Y is a public-facing system.)

Tinkeringbell

XD Some clients... I have three support tickets to go through rn, I'll keep you updated ;)

Sarov

Bird died!?

Tinkeringbell

1:44 PM

@Sarov I saw some people doing Halloween avatars. I wanted one too :D

Sarov

So you killed the bird?? Wow.

Tinkeringbell

I'm not known for taking half measures, generally :)

Sarov

Nor being kind to birds, apparently!

Tinkeringbell

Of course not... nasty creatures, birds. Shit on everything.

Sarov

Why did you have one as your avatar then??

Tinkeringbell

1:59 PM

Freudian slip.

Sarov

Hah.

Sarov

2:11 PM

Freud really should've gotten better shoes.

Tinkeringbell

2:42 PM

He really should've.

2 hours later…

Sarov

4:33 PM

(1 month ago)
User: "It's not showing the value A"
[User adds value B (I'm assuming this happened)]
[We test, cannot reproduce]
Us: "What are you talking about? It's showing value A."
User: "Ticket Closed: Weird."
(today)
User: "It's not showing value A!"
Us: "Well crap, this time it really isn't working"
[Find bug where value A will only show up if value B exists]

2 hours later…

Sarov

6:22 PM

@Tinkeringbell You never kept me updated!

1 hour later…

Tinkeringbell

7:34 PM

@Sarov Shame on me! I was ushered into a restaurant to celebrate mom's birthday XD

But it was three times:

Client: this data quality check is saying our data is wrong mysteriously

Me: it's not

;)

I'm still waiting to hear back from 1 guy that had two tickets pending, I got an out of office reply from the other

Sarov

7:48 PM

The data isn't wrong, or the data check isn't saying it's wrong?

Tinkeringbell

It's not mysteriously going off ... It's fully explainable and doing exactly what it needs to do!

Sarov

Aah.

"I have an error message telling me I need to push this button, what do I do?!?!?"

Tinkeringbell

Well to be fair, our error messages don't say how to solve things. That's one of my pet peeves the company doesn't want to fix: we have a FAQ where each error can be referenced and users can find the reason for the error and how to solve it... But they don't want to just put that in the error message :/

(it would perhaps make for unwieldy long messages though..)

Sarov

So?

Tinkeringbell

So I keep getting tickets like this and referring people to the FAQ, and earning my money that way ;)

If they don't change the messages, they will keep having to pay me to handle those tickets :P

Sarov

8:01 PM

No, I mean,

> (it would perhaps make for unwieldy long messages though..)

So?

Tinkeringbell

8:12 PM

That's the main argument against not doing it, and I do agree it may get long

It's not like there's a database field size restriction or anything though

Sarov

'Long' is relative.

(Provided it's not so much info that the information density causes a black hole and destroys the planet. Then it's probably an objectively long error message.)

Tinkeringbell

In this case, it would mean at least three paragraphs + a short 'error message'. Something like:
short error: This cable isn't connected to anything
first paragraph: explanation of how to check for unconnected cables manually (we have a 'zoom to' button but sometimes things look connected but actually aren't because they're e.g. on the wrong map layer in the drawing, so edge cases like that go in here too)
second paragraph: quotes from standards and rulebooks, explaining that cables always need to be connected, and the list of things they can be connected to. If you leave this out, contract…

Sarov

Do you at least provide *some* idea?
Like:
Error: The cable isn't connected to anything. See [error code G3TG00D](myurl/errors#g3tg00d) for more information.

?

Or just something useless like "ERROR G3TG00D"?

Tinkeringbell

8:32 PM

It's error 0001: cable not connected to anything

Sarov

At the very least I'd suggest adding a
"See [here](myurl/errors#0001) for more information."
:P

Tinkeringbell

I agree...

Others don't :P

Sarov

So make them!

Tinkeringbell