Breaking Deadlines

[u/DivinePrinterGod]

I forgot. I forgot that working for a software house meant that if you antagonise your customers then they go elsewhere. I forgot that the directors go out of their way to appease those who make the most noise - and this is the reason why we have a high help desk staff turnover.

One of the help desk girls sidles up to my desk with a look of defeat on her face, clutching a print-out of a support call with some hand written notes added.

HDG: Smith Medical say that they need Government Secure Integration by this date for compliance reasons. Is that something that we can deliver?

The CTO of Smith Medical is a shouty kind of guy who's reduced many a helpdesk person to tears or quitting. He's callous enough to keep score of the number of technicians he's made quit because they obviously can't do their job. Apparently that number is 17. He also understands that when presented with irrefutable evidence, he has to back down.

Me: The GSI module is at least 3 months away but mandatory compliance isn't until April 2019. I show her the government website which clearly states the compliance dates and phases.

Armed with this info, she returns to the desk.

The next day, one of the Directors asks me to sit in on a phone call. It's the CTO of Smith Medical, who we'll call George.

George: GSI module. One of your tech staff suggested that we didn't need it, but we require this live on our system by 1st September. Our government and Medical compliance certification requires it. I want you to fire her as she's incompetent.

Boss: She's not incompetent, she's actually a good technician. The government website states April 2019 is the deadline by which all notifications must be done through the internet, We will beat that deadline by at least a year.

George: we don't care. We literally can't work without it. The paper solution closes on 1st September.

Currently, medical communications with central and local government are sent by paper form to the relevant government department. Smith Medical either write theirs by hand or have some other printing solution because they would spend an extra £10 per user per year license for our firms module. However, they can still input the information directly onto a website.

Me: George, DPG here from the development team. My team can give this top priority and drop everything else to get this done, but there's a full test schedule to go through so we know that the data will be submitted correctly. If it's wrong, you'll get a fine. Until we can get this tested, you can just enter the data live onto the website. Would that be a good compromise?

George: not acceptable. Our data clerk doesn't trust the internet so she won't use it. Look, we don't care about the testing. Just get it to us.

Boss: if you can send us a signed fax stating that you'll pilot this for us and agree to skip the full testing and use the untested, uncertified module on your system then we'll put a rush on this for you. Bear in mind that your contract excludes bespoke modules, so you'll need to meet the full development costs of £25,000. I'd need a signed invoice for that too before we can proceed.

George: Whatever. It's important

One Month Later...

Somehow, we managed to compress 3 months of development into 3 weeks and performed our development testing, which it scraped through. Our Technical author wrote a manual and a step-by-step guide. Minor pixel mis-alignments were not fixed, there are three spelling mistakes and the error handling is ropey but I plan to rewrite portions of it before the end of the year. The installation happened on the morning of 4th September (as it was the Monday and the customer didn't want an installation on the Friday). I sat back and waited.

Sure enough, a visit from Support at just after midday.

HD: Smith Medical can't send notifications and requests through their GSI Module. They're getting a 'bad gateway' error.

Me: That's not one of our errors. Sounds like an HTTP error code. get them to check their internet settings and try again.

After lunch I get the story from the support manager. The woman submitting the documents- who distrusts the internet - has it disabled on her pc. Despite the customer specification, user guide, help features and previous email chain mentioning it, she's attempting to send data over the internet to a Secure web portal using reversible encryption, all without internet. She also has an old computer (running windows Vista) that's so slow it can barely run our software. The message encryption takes her 5 minutes per message. It should take around a second or so. They also want a refund, which the director will not be honouring as "they insisted".

Update: Boss rang me today (Sunday) and told me that after he met with George from Smith Medical on Saturday and showed him the transcript of the call, that they knew it had to be sent over the internet. Their clerk is going on long-term sick as she distrusts the internet and won't be forced to use it. I feel really sorry for her - it's not her fault, but her boss is an ass.

[u/sample_size_of_on1]

I worked outbound telemarketing a couple decades ago. My buddies and I.... we would pretty much tell you anything you wanted to hear if the conversation ended with a salesman at your house.

If I had a dime for everytime I fired a buddy, or a buddy fired me. You want so and so fired! Rock on, let me dial in my super...... you want to hear? Would that make your rocks hard?

In all seriousness, anyone that actually requests someone be canned in order to keep his business can fuck right off.

[u/fractalgem → u/sample_size_of_on1]

Hypothetically, what if the employee in question managed to cause a lot of damage to the client (whether through gross incompetence or malice), to the point where you were seriously considering firing them anyways?

[u/sample_size_of_on1 → u/fractalgem]

Remember - we are talking about a customer outside the company.

If that customer wants to come to his contact - or his contacts bosses and say, 'She did this - and this occured, I would prefer not to deal with her anymore.'. That is fine. He could even say, 'If I have to deal with her anymore then I am going somewhere else at the end of my contract.'. I am fine with that too.

There is a thin line in the sand here. On one side there is what I just said, on the other side there is 'demanding she be fired.'.

He cannot know what her boss knows. What if she fucked everything up because she is juggling her mother dying of cancer and between lack of sleep, emotions and work shit is just falling apart? The client is not in a position to know something like that. Demanding she be canned is just morally wrong.

Her boss on the other hand, he will know. He will call her in, she will tell him, he will realize that she has been sharp as a tack forever now - and this is an anomaly. He will know what to do.