My Day Job

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My Day Job

(Administrator) 2011-12-19, 19:18 #61

Member since May 2011 · 2173 posts · Location: Brisbane
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In reply to post ID 3724

So I don't know if I was ever closer to standing up, saying I quit and walking out the door as I was this afternoon.

Our customer portal, for customers who have already given us money and are looking for installation software or codes, is a disaster. It's ugly, has a dozen fonts, four colour schemes,and three confusing menus. On one page.

I'm a computer guy and I overlooked the Login here, dummy! like four times. I would never have guessed where to go to find licenses. It's a needless series of dumbass hoops which I've raged about before, and it sort of pisses me off.

So I brought it up with the new manager today. He defended the site at first, saying that it was all done by the clipart queen when she wasn't busy poisoning orphans or whatever, and she didn't really have time to just re-do massive parts of the site, and it's just not feasible to have random people just make changes, 'cause then who would own it? he asked me. Who would be responsible for maintaining it? As if no one at all was preferable!

Who would own it? I dunno, how about the entire company that kinda has this as our customer-facing image? What does this say, we're ugly and we don't give a shit?

And then he dropped the bomb that nearly made me quit:

This site isn't designed to make our customers happy. It's designed to make us happy. It's complicated and confusing and full of extra links so that customers spend more money.

I was floored. I said "This is the existing customer portal, right? For customers who have already given us money."

"Yes, that's right. We want them to give us more."

Now, I'm sort of paraphrasing, but that's more or less what he said. We, as a company, design confusing websites for our existing customers so that they have a hard time getting their shit done, 'cause it might entice them to spend more money.

I do not want to work here anymore.

BLEARGH

(Administrator) 2011-12-20, 14:26 #62

Member since May 2011 · 2173 posts · Location: Brisbane
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When you identify a problem in our software, corporate loyalism prevents anyone from admitting that perhaps you're right, there's a problem.

And in the unlikely event you manage to get someone to admit there's a problem, the effort of convincing them that maybe it should be fixed is herculean.

The question they always ask, in order to demonstrate their complete inability to recognize the reason the company exists in the first place as well as blow you off, is who's going to pay for it?

In some screens, ALT-S to save your work. In some screens it's automatically saved, and you ALT-C to close it. In others, it's F10. Sometimes it's ALT-X to exit. Sometimes the icon's on the left, sometimes the right, sometimes the middle. There are four different icons for exit/close/quit/save, and they're used for other things too. I've been using it for seven years, and I still hit the wrong one all the time.

The day I say that one of our customers should pay more money just so we can fix stupid shit that even monkeys can recognize is retarded is the day I want you, dear reader, to hit me in the head with your favourite gardening implement.

No one pays attention.

Customer pays good money to upgrade from Abandonware to CurrentProduct, and is sent instructions to update CurrentProduct to the newest CurrentProduct. They're not even remotely similar instructions, they're utterly and totally useless.

In effect, they say "Click on auto-update, and wait!"

That feature doesn't exist in Abandonware. This is a huge, significant upgrade. The process is not difficult, but is made massively more complicated by the bullshit hoop-jumping they have to do, and is made much more frustrating by inattentive bullshit upgrade instructions.

Way to waste the customer's time.

The new manager just laughed. "That's probably the first time a customer actually read the instructions and followed them!"

To which I replied "Yeah, and the instructions were fucking wrong."

UPDATE: This customer managed to log in to their account via our bullshit customer portal only to find their license file was apparently created in 1969, has obviously expired, and the invoice they paid for last week has had no effect on their status.

Of course not. Taking money and not delivering has been our MO for the last decade.

Bonus fact: Our software produces data files that are so broken it can't load them. When I asked the programmers about it, they confirmed that yes, it's useless, and no, there are no plans to fix it.

BLEARGH

This post was edited 3 times, last on 2011-12-20, 15:09 by NFG.

(Administrator) 2011-12-21, 08:40 #63

Member since May 2011 · 2173 posts · Location: Brisbane
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So that customer waiting for their license update? Shit just got insane down here.

I received two emails from the staff in Overseas Land last night. Both of them said they have no procedure in place to handle this sort of upgrade, and are waiting for instructions from the new manager down here.

So I go and tell him that Alice and Jane are waiting for his instructions.

Him: 'why?'
Me: 'they don't know what to do.'
Him: 'who?'
Me: 'Alice and Jane.'
Him: 'why?'
Me: Because they're waiting for you.
Him: 'Who is?'
Me: Alice and Jane!?
Him: 'there is no they!'

WTF is going on!?

I so wish I could say I was joking or exaggerating, but that's pretty much verbatim. I just grabbed my coffee cup and headed for the kitchen. I'm done here.

I told my wife, and she says "Did he go insane? There's a good hospital near there."

Before that conversation, I was 15 mins late getting here. I had to go to the old office and turn off some gear, and I had to put fuel in my bike.

I get here and get lectured.

Be here at 8! Do your job!

My job is sales. Specifically, phone sales.

...THE FUCKING PHONES ARE DEAD. AGAIN. What would I be doing here 15 minutes earlier!?

NOTHING.

BLEARGH

(Administrator) 2011-12-21, 11:11 #64

Member since May 2011 · 2173 posts · Location: Brisbane
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I have just submitted my resignation letter. I sent it to everyone, there's no going back.

Seconds later the receptionist in Head Office emails me to say she's finally added me to her address book.

Somehow that seems fitting.

BLEARGH

(Administrator) 2012-01-24, 08:34 #65

Member since May 2011 · 2173 posts · Location: Brisbane
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I don't need to be there for the insanity to happen.

Before I quit, the Xmas holiday was only three days long, instead of the 2 weeks we and most of the non-retail part of Australia enjoy. I argued against this, saying that none of our customers, existing or potential, would have decision-making staff on hand or interested in us for these two weeks and we'd be wasting our time coming to work. I was, of course, told that I was wrong.

I heard from a little birdy that the new manager was complaining about the fact that, after the three day holiday, he couldn't get anyone on the phone and was wasting his time. The little birdy asked him "So, you weren't listening to us at all were you?"

I just heard that a remaining staffer, after riding his motorbike 35km in the pouring rain to get to the new office early for a meeting, no one was available to help him get into the meeting 'cause everyone who knew what to do was in a meeting.

BLEARGH

(Administrator) 2012-02-01, 22:38 #66

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The new manager, whose life apparently revolves around sales, and who seems to consider himself the ultimate salesman, was overheard on the phone complaining to head office that it's totally different in Australia, and he is completely stonewalled by everyone he cold-calls.

Yeah, um, I think we told you that would happen.

Apparently since I left there hasn't been one single sale. Actually, there was one: the abandonware product they tried to sabotage for us. It is to laugh. Hehe.

I didn't get my final pay slip, so I emailed and asked for it. The new manager was apparently confused by my non-work email address. "Who is this?" he asked, as if dozens of other people have quit and he couldn't be sure who was asking.

Nope, I'm the only one. It's probably from me.

One of the guys still at the office is making instructional videos. He's cranking them out and making them look nice, and is getting great feedback from other staff. "But doesn't it take so much longer to do them this way? We need to make a certain quantity of videos, a monthly quota. We don't actually expect anyone to watch them."

Whew, I was worried he was wasting his time.

BLEARGH

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