this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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Old Man Yells at Cloud

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So I tied a Tamagotchi to my belt, which was the style at the time

Are you a tech enthusiast who also kind-of hates current tech trends? This community is a place to share your gripes with modern technologies, tech-bro culture, "AI the everything", etc.

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And if you're assuming the software vendor I'm dealing with was the lowest bidder, you are correct.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

After my third "per my previous email..." or "I've asked thrice for documentation regarding..." I realize I need to basically scrap the whole response and start over.

Working with FOSS software has set extremely high expectations that vendors cannot seem to meet. Like, all these projects are built by unpaid volunteers and have amazing documentation. We're paying you a lot of money - what's your excuse?

๐Ÿ˜†

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 12 hours ago

Here's the thing, people who suck at what they do are usually either

A. Stupid

B. Overworked

C. Under-qualified

D. Under-compensated

It doesn't matter which one(s) of those apply to them, your interactions with them should be adjusted the same regardless of why they suck. Limit all emails, all requests, and all questions to one topic only. Don't try to get answers to 3 different things because it's not going to happen. Address one subject, and only move onto the next after you have resolved that subject. Trying to do anything else is an exercise in futility.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

EXACTLY! I mean I'm coming from a sysadmin side, but I've definitely been spoilt by all the manpages, flexibility, stability, etc of foss. It's insane how some vendors can ship a product with pretty much no logging and call it a day.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

That's where I'm at: sysadmin side of things. We spent 2 weeks going back and forth on an issue with the reporting component that was only solved by a Zoom meeting. The culprit was a missing config key/value, and they had the gall to say "oh, you should have had that configuration option set; this isn't our fault."

And I pointed to the documentation they gave us regarding that:

Like, the config is an uncommented JSON file with no defaults/examples whatsoever. There is literally no way for us to know what key/values are valid because none of it is documented. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. lol

At least our project manager was on my side and fought them to not charge us for that "support" call.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 11 hours ago

My god. Per-call charges should really cease existing. If it'a number of support calls that's making you money and not the product - your product sucks.