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Daniel
Experienced Roboteer
Joined: 30 Aug 2005
Posts: 2729
Location: Gold Coast
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letting off steam
I'm not supposed to complain about how stupid customers are while I'm here at work but if I don't vent my annoyance somehow I'll end up putting my fist through the monitor. You can ignor the rest of this thread if you want.
Bloody stupid f&%$@%# old men who can't read a f@#&$%# drawing and make me revise the same thing 3 f$#@$&# times a day. Just because you are 3 time my age doesn't mean you know more me, which is clearly not the case today.
Reading from some faxes I just recieved from the customer
On monday he wanted one part to be machined, today he doesn't. He wants me to add hidden details to a part and when I do he complains because he can't understand it and wants it removed. He wants me to flip the hidden detail line, its a freaking mirror image, whats that damn point of wasting my time, you'll just cause the dimensions to colapse. He wants me to dimension every fillet even though I clearly put R5 TYP in the middle of the page. I have to make sure the fillets leave enough room to clear a washer but he doesn't say how big the washer is. Oh, I have to remove a dimension from the drawing even though you need that dimension to make the part. Hmmmm, the 3 hours I spent drawing the hole pattens on these two parts are to removed until further notice. And this part of so large I had to draw it on an A3 sheet while all the rest went on A4 sheets and he complans that I have to increse the scale of all the item on the sheet to match the others. Well bugger off, I ain't spending 4 hours redoing a drawing because you need glasses.
This guy has to be the second worst custmer on my list now. Can't beat the dick from Standfast.
It better be friday.
This is why I build robots. Destroying stuff makes it all better.
Ok, I feel better now. Anyone else want a go?
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Fri May 19, 2006 4:00 pm |
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Spockie-Tech
Site Admin
Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 3160
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Heh, at least he told you what (he thought) was wrong. You want to try computer phone support.. about 30% of them go like this...
My computer wont let me do <xxx> !!
To which I often reply (If I'm in a sarcastic mood)
Oh, It told you to bugger off, you're not allowed to do that, did it ?
Well, No, it gave me some error message and didnt do what I wanted
What was the error message ?
I dont know !! One of those techie-sounding-errors - "Something did something or other", its not doing what I wanted though ! Whats Wrong ? I just want it fixed !
So... it actually *did* tell you what the problem was, but you didnt understand it, you didnt even try to figure it out yourself, instead you immediatetly rang me and complained that it didnt automatically understand what you wanted it to do, you didnt bother to take note of the error so you could give me a clue or two, and now I'm supposed to telepathically discover what the problem is and fix it right away ? Fine, just let me give you phone number for the psychic spiritual help line, I'm sorry we only deal with semi-*intelligent* life-forms here..
This is a good read if you like blowing off some steam at dumb customers
http://dansdata.com/pebkac.htm
and of probably interest to us EV Machine builders too..
http://dansdata.com/modularcar.htm _________________ Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people
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Fri May 19, 2006 6:11 pm |
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Knightrous
Site Admin
Joined: 15 Jun 2004
Posts: 8511
Location: NSW
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I'm currently doing contract IT work for for a local rural company who has just spent $160,000 buying a new software package (Momentum Pro).
It was only yesterday after 3 months of work that they discovered (When I gave them my tech inspection report) that around 30% of the computers were running Win 95, Win 98, Win ME and the program doesn't support that due to some crap with the terminal server using RDC... The program is to be up and running next friday...
First problem was the non-Win XP machines don't have RDC to connect to the terminal server... So we decided to install a specific version into them to get it working... Which involved 2 hours of juggling files across a network where Win 98 Machines will not share with XP machines and Win 95 will share with 98, but not 2000.... Since 95, 98, 2000 & ME al required drivers for flash drives, that was a no go, 85% of the computers didn't have working CD roms and I was left to network hop... Couldn't even get 98 or 95 to network map to the common X: drive
Second problem was exporting all the emails from the computer to the terminal server... Outlook exports them as .PST files, Outlook Express doesn't, Outlook 2003 does it in something else again... So 3 hours of juggling and f**king around, I managed to get 2.6GB of emails onto 4 computers with crude measures of patching and cutting files and bahsing them around the network...
Third problem was tracking down 15 nameless networked printers in the building... MARCO!!!.........
POLO!!!
And that concludes my exciting 10hour day @ work and 2 hours of driving _________________ https://www.halfdonethings.com/
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Fri May 19, 2006 7:35 pm |
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Valen
Experienced Roboteer
Joined: 07 Jul 2004
Posts: 4436
Location: Sydney
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TDT
dude its called linux boot disk with rdpclient on it. One instant thin client.
heck if the NIC's in the machines are any good you could network boot them and not have any media involved at all.
alternatly 32mb CF cards and adaptors are dirt cheap, linux rdpclient is free, thus total thin client cost ranges from 0 - $30(in bulk) using existing hardware.
Of course you then have to pay the microsoft licencing fees but hey, you dont need to pay for XP on the clients ;->.
If you really want to clean up, see if the program will run in linux nativly, or under wine. Run convert your server over to ubuntu (dapper drake in a few weeks, 5 year support life) run Xubuntu (*damn fast*, uses XFCE, or roll your own a bit with XDM and fluxbox. Go linux thin clients, and feel the lurve.
heh you may even be able to run XGL over the network to the "servers" with decent graphics cards.
SW cost 0 + whatever the vendor is charging *nix for the win.
drop me a line if you want more info _________________ Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets
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Sat May 20, 2006 12:16 am |
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Knightrous
Site Admin
Joined: 15 Jun 2004
Posts: 8511
Location: NSW
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At the moment, I'm just a contractor, they ask me to do something, I just do the job and collect my pay These solutions are all great, but they are not needed as the problems are solved, it's just a case of completing the rest of the work over the network.
You idea is pretty cost effective Jake, but to the company I'm working for, Saving small change is not really an issue to them. They are a large corparate company and they want a reliable, easy to maintain system and the Thin Clients are there upcoming solution to it. If a thin client goes down, they open the a draw and pull another one out and plug it in. There main Xeon server just cost them $8000 and when I suggested a better AMD Opteron based server, I was faltly told they didn't care if they save $2000.
The Thin clients also saves them calling me, me driving an hour or two to the store, trouble shooting why some old shitty 233mhz system has died, fixing it and then giving them a bill. With the Thin Client, they can just replace it, and if there is further problems, I just VNC into the terminal server and have a look. The idea of using hardware older then 3yo is a real pain in the ass to me, it just causes more problems then it's worth.
Linux based, I'd love to get a crack at setting up a linux based network for this all, except I've as much experience with Linux as I do with flying a rocket So it's no good if I cannot fix the system I've grown up with windows and until I can get more skills and a job that requires highly-focus linux skills, I'll be blissfully ignorant and stick with Windoze for now _________________ https://www.halfdonethings.com/
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Sat May 20, 2006 1:24 am |
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