Human to Human Interface Systems Failure
Dec. 10th, 2002 05:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tugrikYes, another rant today. But this one is a bit less harsh. Two events, in particular.
The first is a simple co-worker rant that other tech-support types could probably relate to. Being a small shop, now and then I need to do tech support for the engineers here to help share the load. I don't mind it, usually. Most fall at respectfully opposite ends of the scale: clueful folks that just need to be pointed in the right direction and they 'get it'... and admitted non-cluefuls that would like to be shown what to do, or let you fix it for them. Either are cool. My problem is that we got a new person who's in one of the more particularly annoying spectral-bands inbetween.
He knows just enough to be dangerous.
Like many not-so-bright people, he thinks he's incredibly smart. Therefore he gets indignant when you try to step-by-step him through, as he thinks you're "talking down to him". He gets pissy when you give him high level suggestions instead, responding with phrases like "how do you expect me to know how to do THAT?", only to get upset again when I walk him through the individual steps. The most annoying part, though, and the one that puts me on edge: He arbitrarily leaps forwards in the middle of a procedure without telling you, and never does it right. You're telling him steps 1, 2, 3, then 4... and then he comes back with some completely out of place error which shows he's lept to step 8, but only after making terribly bad decisions for most of the steps before that. Couple this with his utter inability to read back what's on his screen (he 'translates' things into his own versions of the errors/messages, and seems unable to scan for specific words when asked), and it's like trying to write a zen koan on a grain of rice using a dried-up laundry marker while wearing oven-mitts.
Ahem. Anyways.
The more recent one was just a few hours ago, at lunch. I have a car-alarm I've not used in a year because my remote and spare remote both finally broke beyond repair. The alarm is just fine otherwise. I'd not replaced them 'cause the alarm manufacturer (Clifford) went out of business. A quip on a website let me know they've returned from the dead, bought by a bigger company, and all I needed to do was plod on down to my local car-stereo dealer and pick one up.
While I was there, I saw a rather amazing toy... a rear-view mirror replacement that had a thinfilm TFT monitor below the glass. Right now my reverse-camera turns on when I back up, showing on the pop-out display -- but the display has to be powered up, folded out, and in the right mode. As the controller for the monitor takes 45 seconds to boot, I'm usually already backed out of whatever tough spot I'm in, with much grumblings and twistings about, before it's even online. This in-mirror display is instantly ready, and made my geek side perk up ears and go 'ooOOoo...'.
I diverted from my remote-buying mission and inquired about the mirror. It's not as ouchy-priced as I thought, but it came as part of a big package with a switcher, camera, and everything. I don't need all that, though -- just the display. The controller for it, however, has a slew of input/output connectors, all unlabelled, and the shelf display unit was tucked away where the wiring couldn't be seen. This was the point when I made the misguided attempt to ask the human behind the counter for more information.
What followed was an extremely frustrating 15-minute long negotiation. Not a conversation -- a negotiation. All my time was spent trying to get a few simple tech and setup questions answered, while the salesmonkey proceeded to utterly ignore that and try to sell me anything he could. We had a huuuge gap in communications here. At the core of it was this problem:
All I wanted was technical specifications and pricing. What does this component do? What are its limits? What will I pay to acquire one?
All he wanted to do was sell me a system, installed, set up the way he knew how -- no questions, no modifications, no adaptations. His way or the highway.
Obviously, I chose the highway. This annoying little interaction (and others scarily like it at other car-stereo shops) simply reminded me how much the car-stereo industry has failed to adapt to modern high-tech consumers. It's a failure to interface properly between the market and its consumers -- at least for my particular segment of the consumer side.
I've got some ideas about the car-stereo industry in general, but I need to head off and brave rush hour to pick![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
reality_fox up from the airport... so maybe in a later entry. :)
The first is a simple co-worker rant that other tech-support types could probably relate to. Being a small shop, now and then I need to do tech support for the engineers here to help share the load. I don't mind it, usually. Most fall at respectfully opposite ends of the scale: clueful folks that just need to be pointed in the right direction and they 'get it'... and admitted non-cluefuls that would like to be shown what to do, or let you fix it for them. Either are cool. My problem is that we got a new person who's in one of the more particularly annoying spectral-bands inbetween.
He knows just enough to be dangerous.
Like many not-so-bright people, he thinks he's incredibly smart. Therefore he gets indignant when you try to step-by-step him through, as he thinks you're "talking down to him". He gets pissy when you give him high level suggestions instead, responding with phrases like "how do you expect me to know how to do THAT?", only to get upset again when I walk him through the individual steps. The most annoying part, though, and the one that puts me on edge: He arbitrarily leaps forwards in the middle of a procedure without telling you, and never does it right. You're telling him steps 1, 2, 3, then 4... and then he comes back with some completely out of place error which shows he's lept to step 8, but only after making terribly bad decisions for most of the steps before that. Couple this with his utter inability to read back what's on his screen (he 'translates' things into his own versions of the errors/messages, and seems unable to scan for specific words when asked), and it's like trying to write a zen koan on a grain of rice using a dried-up laundry marker while wearing oven-mitts.
Ahem. Anyways.
The more recent one was just a few hours ago, at lunch. I have a car-alarm I've not used in a year because my remote and spare remote both finally broke beyond repair. The alarm is just fine otherwise. I'd not replaced them 'cause the alarm manufacturer (Clifford) went out of business. A quip on a website let me know they've returned from the dead, bought by a bigger company, and all I needed to do was plod on down to my local car-stereo dealer and pick one up.
While I was there, I saw a rather amazing toy... a rear-view mirror replacement that had a thinfilm TFT monitor below the glass. Right now my reverse-camera turns on when I back up, showing on the pop-out display -- but the display has to be powered up, folded out, and in the right mode. As the controller for the monitor takes 45 seconds to boot, I'm usually already backed out of whatever tough spot I'm in, with much grumblings and twistings about, before it's even online. This in-mirror display is instantly ready, and made my geek side perk up ears and go 'ooOOoo...'.
I diverted from my remote-buying mission and inquired about the mirror. It's not as ouchy-priced as I thought, but it came as part of a big package with a switcher, camera, and everything. I don't need all that, though -- just the display. The controller for it, however, has a slew of input/output connectors, all unlabelled, and the shelf display unit was tucked away where the wiring couldn't be seen. This was the point when I made the misguided attempt to ask the human behind the counter for more information.
What followed was an extremely frustrating 15-minute long negotiation. Not a conversation -- a negotiation. All my time was spent trying to get a few simple tech and setup questions answered, while the salesmonkey proceeded to utterly ignore that and try to sell me anything he could. We had a huuuge gap in communications here. At the core of it was this problem:
All I wanted was technical specifications and pricing. What does this component do? What are its limits? What will I pay to acquire one?
All he wanted to do was sell me a system, installed, set up the way he knew how -- no questions, no modifications, no adaptations. His way or the highway.
Obviously, I chose the highway. This annoying little interaction (and others scarily like it at other car-stereo shops) simply reminded me how much the car-stereo industry has failed to adapt to modern high-tech consumers. It's a failure to interface properly between the market and its consumers -- at least for my particular segment of the consumer side.
I've got some ideas about the car-stereo industry in general, but I need to head off and brave rush hour to pick
reality_fox up from the airport... so maybe in a later entry. :)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2002-12-10 05:43 pm (UTC)They must be coming out of hibernation or something.
no subject
Date: 2002-12-10 08:44 pm (UTC)Of course, a sensible salesperson would have said something like "I'm sorry, but I really don't know anything about the way this works."
no subject
Date: 2002-12-11 09:18 pm (UTC)Most salespeople I deal with would've just made up facts and left it for the manufacturer's tech people to deal with it...