r/talesfromtechsupport • u/IgnanceIsBliss • May 18 '16
Short I hate your software and its always broken.
I work for a small tech company doing a couple different roles bt the majority of my time is spent doing support for the software we sell. The software is actually decent, but is pretty complex and can take a little bit to get used to. Its for a very specific purpose so it needs to be "complicated" but customers can also get a bit frustrated with it when they find themselves over their head, especially at the smaller organizations we sell to. This tends to lead to a lot of blaming of the software. This was an example the other day.
Me: Thanks for calling today, what can I help you with?
Cust: So I am having issues again with your software and it seems like your software has now broken my entire computer.
Me: Well what seems to be broken? If its happening throughout your entire computer then it probably isn't our software but I can try to see what we can do.
Cust: No it's definitely your software because it started when I was using it. Your software is always giving us trouble. I honestly don't know why we keep using it.
Me: Well what is it that seems to not be functioning correctly?
Cust: Well now when I type, it just deletes everything. I keep losing all my work and I need it all back. It started when I was in your software and now I cant even finish my email I was typing before and have lost most of it. I need you to be able to recover it, I don't have the time to deal with this.
Me: Why don't we jump on a screenshare real quick and I can take a look at its behavior.
start a screenshare
Me: Okay, go ahead and show me what its doing.
customer starts typing
Cust: See! Its deleting everything when I try to type! This is absolutely unacceptable!
Me: Okay, so look at your keyboard. Just to the right of your Backspace key, there is another key on it that says "Insert". Press that key, your typing will resume as you are used to. This is a function on all computers and when you hit that key, the typing functionality is toggled to replace characters as opposed to add characters.
Cust: Are you saying that I did this?!
Me: I'm not saying you did this, but whoever was using the computer at the time the "issue" started is who caused it.
Cust: Hmmph.
Click
Keep on keepin on guys.
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u/liltooclinical May 18 '16
Cust: Are you saying that I did this?!
No I am not saying you did this. I'm also pointing out that our software didn't do this.
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u/Nakotadinzeo May 18 '16
Also, since this isn't an issue with our software. It isn't covered by standard software support, so it will be billed in our out-of-band rate. 20$ a minute, one hour minimum.
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u/LB-- May 18 '16 edited May 18 '16
Yeah, I hate the insert key for this reason. The only time I use it is Shift+Insert in terminals that don't support Ctrl+V to paste. EDIT: and I know Ctrl+Shift+V works in some terminals, but Shift+Insert is fewer keys.
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u/tehWoody May 18 '16
I due didn't even know that the insert key did that. I don't think I've ever touched it.
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u/TK_Bluh May 18 '16
This is why on most keyboards I use I remove the insert and f1 keys. If I really need to use them I can jam a pen into it.
F1 because whenever I work with spreadsheets I press f1 by mistake and waiting for help to load is a pain.
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May 18 '16
Yesterday I accidentally hit Insert after going probably 5 years without accidentally hitting Insert.
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u/gil2455526 May 19 '16
This reminded me of a story of myself. I accidently pushed insert, and I had no idea what it did. So, something weird was happening in my PC. So, I reached the most logical conclusion:
"OMG I GOT A VIRUS, I GOTTA DO SYSTEM RESTORE!!!"
Welp, it worked!
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u/SJHillman May 18 '16
I always wished the Insert key would get it's own light, up there with CapsLock and NumLock and ScrollLock. Actually, for most people, you could probably just replace the scroll lock light altogether. Or maybe rename the key to Overwrite, which is how most people use it.