"there’s a very stable, slowly growing base of physical keyboard users and most of them are really highly ranked officers"
So, he points out that the keyboard users are the demographic with the least growth potential AND the least staying potential, and he thinks that's a positive?
I've had the same thing happen with phone support. The problem originates with the user's lack of computer skills/awareness/knowledge, not the support technology. But, hey, if more users understood computers, a lot more of us would be flipping burgers or pushing mops for a living, so there's that.
New Tools should be chosen because they fit the process.
I prefer to choose new tools to improve the process. Moving from phone support to live chat support, but ignoring the possible integration of remote access through the live chat system because the phone system didn't do that is just silly.
Mind you, there are a lot of silly support providers out there.
"Mr VP, would you consider it acceptable to be on the phone and not reply back within 10 seconds? Or 10 seconds of dead air being transmitted?"
Where I'm at, the phone system (VOIP) has reports that are sufficiently detailed to show whether or not an internal call went to voicemail, and how long calls take. This means that we get hammered on the phone response times, no matter how many calls we are trying to field at once.
Oh yes! I suspect some outfits want to ditch live chat simply because transcripts make it too easy to point out where their "tech" (a.k.a. their script) dropped the ball. You could always record the tech support call, but where I live you have to notify the other parties of the call that you are doing so, and one of the sketchier companies I've dealt with have flat-out refused to continue the call when I tell them that (this despite the "this call may be monitored and recorded for quality assurance purposes" disclaimer that is played to you while you're getting connected to support.) I don't know why they think that helps: nothing like a couple recorded tech support hangups to cut the legs out from under whichever manager went to bat for that vendor (what SLA?), and suddenly the other solution (the one that didn't have a college buddy of the manager working sales) becomes THE solution.
On top of regional accents and my aging ears, I frequently encounter problems with the quality of phone calls. It's either too loud (I shouldn't have to hold the phone a foot away from my ear) or too distorted (from the headset microphone seemingly placed between the cheek and gums).
Also, a lot of headset microphones, while useful for hands-free talking, don't have their noise cancellation properly tuned for the amount of background noise (a.k.a. the rest of the call center's chatter). As a result, what I tell the "analyst" (there's a euphemism for you) is often cut off, which is frequently attributed to "oh, you have a bad microphone/connection". Yeah, it's MY phone, which worked fine for the other dozen calls I've made today.
Temporary file storage was fine, as long as it made it to the server before the user left for the day. Generally it only took one "reminder" morning of realizing that wasn't the same workstation box as one was using yesterday (a.k.a. panic) for the forgetful ones to get on board.
Hopefully this includes the use of roaming profiles
Oh my goodness, yes! There would have been riots otherwise. The moves also gave us the opportunity to catch people with passwords written down. (Something that was a "one warning, then fired" violation.)
That is one of the best ways I've found to encourage reluctant users to store their files on a fileserver. Explicitly telling people that their workstation hard drives are considered expendable and interchangeable does quite a bit to overcome the "but it's MY computer" mindset that persists for some users (even the ones from after the time of nigh-omnipresent LANs). Also, moving workstations from desk to desk as part of "regular computer maintenance" will flush out the remaining laggards (that was one the best things I've ever seen a CIO think up.)
I've done tech support for an attorney who works in employment issues, and he loves finding comments like yours in emails during the discovery phase. It's entertaining to watch a middle-aged man jump out of his chair to dance around, fist pump and yell "Cha-ching!"
Your post points out why (in a pragmatic way) more women are needed in management: it makes it hard for bad female employees to claim sexist treatment when they are justifiably written up or otherwise disciplined (or, "counselled", as some HR departments like to say).
Personal anecdote (my cool story, bro): At a previous job of mine, I had the experience of a new manager coming in after I had been there for a year. She was the first female manager for that unit, and she was tough. A compliment from her for good work consisted of a quick nod, but screwing up got you chewed out. It was a bit of an adjustment for me from my previous manager, but since I did a decent enough job, I didn't have much trouble. The substandard programmer who skated by under the previous manager because she was hypersensitive to criticism and he was afraid of a lawsuit was gone. Quickly. About a week after that, the guy who capitalized on having gone to the same college as the previous manager instead of debugging code was gone, too. The order was critical, it turned out. It was hard for the guy to claim sexism when the employee fired before him was female.
About the "previous job" part: When the project I was working on was completed, and the pink slips started landing, the new manager gave me a glowing letter of recommendation. She wasn't effusive with praise in the normal course of operations, but she was efficient and appreciated employees that generated minimal drama. That showed in the letter.
An excellent example of the mindset that gets escorted out of the building, clutching at pink slip and a cardboard box full of its possessions, sputtering, "W-what did I do?"
Slashdot Mirror
Any anachronistic dialogue in Mad Men can be explained simply:
Don Draper was way ahead of his time.
I agree. A cross-platform secure app would address both security concerns & BYOD.
FTFA, Heins remarks:
"there’s a very stable, slowly growing base of physical keyboard users and most of them are really highly ranked officers"
So, he points out that the keyboard users are the demographic with the least growth potential AND the least staying potential, and he thinks that's a positive?
Yes, it was definitely just trolls from /g/ (is "trolls from /g/" a redundancy?), not anyone else, and certainly not me. ;^)
How are Finn and Jake, by the way.
I've had the same thing happen with phone support. The problem originates with the user's lack of computer skills/awareness/knowledge, not the support technology. But, hey, if more users understood computers, a lot more of us would be flipping burgers or pushing mops for a living, so there's that.
New Tools should be chosen because they fit the process.
I prefer to choose new tools to improve the process. Moving from phone support to live chat support, but ignoring the possible integration of remote access through the live chat system because the phone system didn't do that is just silly.
Mind you, there are a lot of silly support providers out there.
Lol yeah, its inpossible to haz pore langauge skilz on teh enterwebs
FTFY... I will now go and punch myself a few times to save you the trouble.
"Mr VP, would you consider it acceptable to be on the phone and not reply back within 10 seconds? Or 10 seconds of dead air being transmitted?"
Where I'm at, the phone system (VOIP) has reports that are sufficiently detailed to show whether or not an internal call went to voicemail, and how long calls take. This means that we get hammered on the phone response times, no matter how many calls we are trying to field at once.
There is no escape.
Oh yes! I suspect some outfits want to ditch live chat simply because transcripts make it too easy to point out where their "tech" (a.k.a. their script) dropped the ball. You could always record the tech support call, but where I live you have to notify the other parties of the call that you are doing so, and one of the sketchier companies I've dealt with have flat-out refused to continue the call when I tell them that (this despite the "this call may be monitored and recorded for quality assurance purposes" disclaimer that is played to you while you're getting connected to support.) I don't know why they think that helps: nothing like a couple recorded tech support hangups to cut the legs out from under whichever manager went to bat for that vendor (what SLA?), and suddenly the other solution (the one that didn't have a college buddy of the manager working sales) becomes THE solution.
On top of regional accents and my aging ears, I frequently encounter problems with the quality of phone calls. It's either too loud (I shouldn't have to hold the phone a foot away from my ear) or too distorted (from the headset microphone seemingly placed between the cheek and gums).
Also, a lot of headset microphones, while useful for hands-free talking, don't have their noise cancellation properly tuned for the amount of background noise (a.k.a. the rest of the call center's chatter). As a result, what I tell the "analyst" (there's a euphemism for you) is often cut off, which is frequently attributed to "oh, you have a bad microphone/connection". Yeah, it's MY phone, which worked fine for the other dozen calls I've made today.
Temporary file storage was fine, as long as it made it to the server before the user left for the day. Generally it only took one "reminder" morning of realizing that wasn't the same workstation box as one was using yesterday (a.k.a. panic) for the forgetful ones to get on board.
Hopefully this includes the use of roaming profiles
Oh my goodness, yes! There would have been riots otherwise. The moves also gave us the opportunity to catch people with passwords written down. (Something that was a "one warning, then fired" violation.)
It's funny `cause it's true!
That is one of the best ways I've found to encourage reluctant users to store their files on a fileserver. Explicitly telling people that their workstation hard drives are considered expendable and interchangeable does quite a bit to overcome the "but it's MY computer" mindset that persists for some users (even the ones from after the time of nigh-omnipresent LANs). Also, moving workstations from desk to desk as part of "regular computer maintenance" will flush out the remaining laggards (that was one the best things I've ever seen a CIO think up.)
So, was I just imagining this sort of thing would make a lawyer salivate, or is that actually what is happening?
Well, you can hope to have moved on to a new job by the time the eventual lawsuit(s) hit the news.
Somewhere, a labor law attorney is locking and loading his briefcase... :-)
My thoughts exactly...
M4n, your signature compels me to post this link: http://www.cracked.com/funny-5691-vuvuzelas/
I've done tech support for an attorney who works in employment issues, and he loves finding comments like yours in emails during the discovery phase. It's entertaining to watch a middle-aged man jump out of his chair to dance around, fist pump and yell "Cha-ching!"
I go to work to get paid for what I do, not to relive the glory days of the college fraternity that I never joined.
Your post points out why (in a pragmatic way) more women are needed in management: it makes it hard for bad female employees to claim sexist treatment when they are justifiably written up or otherwise disciplined (or, "counselled", as some HR departments like to say).
Personal anecdote (my cool story, bro): At a previous job of mine, I had the experience of a new manager coming in after I had been there for a year. She was the first female manager for that unit, and she was tough. A compliment from her for good work consisted of a quick nod, but screwing up got you chewed out. It was a bit of an adjustment for me from my previous manager, but since I did a decent enough job, I didn't have much trouble. The substandard programmer who skated by under the previous manager because she was hypersensitive to criticism and he was afraid of a lawsuit was gone. Quickly. About a week after that, the guy who capitalized on having gone to the same college as the previous manager instead of debugging code was gone, too. The order was critical, it turned out. It was hard for the guy to claim sexism when the employee fired before him was female.
About the "previous job" part: When the project I was working on was completed, and the pink slips started landing, the new manager gave me a glowing letter of recommendation. She wasn't effusive with praise in the normal course of operations, but she was efficient and appreciated employees that generated minimal drama. That showed in the letter.
An excellent example of the mindset that gets escorted out of the building, clutching at pink slip and a cardboard box full of its possessions, sputtering, "W-what did I do?"
When you have 200 people standing in line waiting to get on an airplane, Voight-Kampf'ing everyone is a non-starter.
And al-Qaeda doesn't even accept replicants as members...
Somehow, I'm picturing the eye builder from Bladerunner when I think about reverse-engineered irises.
I guess someone wants us to forget Indiana Jones 4.
Mother of God... it all makes such horrible, horrible sense now...