Making Lemonade

Life's been dumping bushels of lemons on me but something good may yet come of it. $SverigeInsCo is staffed with fuckwits and lots of them. They spared no expense to get India's not-quite-finest to build a version of $OurBigApp for them. No expense over $12/day for the entire 43-member team, I'm guessing.

While I've resolved two other major problems, one of which based on a network architecture so insane that even my technotard girlfriend would twig, there's a weird IE-based problem which has been dogging them -- and me -- for a full month now.

I need to see the problem in action and work on it directly. We've tried Web conferences. First they couldn't connect. Then when they could connect they couldn't repro on the connected machine. They escalated the ticket again. Conference scheduling was difficult and their Technical Account Representative (TAR) started making the Hajj to the CubeDesk of Hate each day for progress reports. We finally got a conference running and they were able to demonstrate the problem. And as I tried to then take a look at the machine, I noticed it was a Citrix session.

They, and therefore I, have no direct access to the Citrix Server. Pointless. Another escalation. More phone tag and attempts to set appointments which culminated in today's festivities. It started with Sara-the-not-so-incompetent being outside her native India at the company's HQ in Uppsala. She couldn't make today's scheduled conference but Anna would take care of it. I sent the conf details to Anna and added them to the ticket. I even called on-time; she wasn't connected.


Anna: OK please do the needful to be explaining to me how we are to progress this.
REC: Go to Webconf-dot-$MegaCorp-dot-com.
Anna: Webconf. OK. I am typing this but there is nothing happening.
REC: It's Webconf-dot-$MegaCorp-dot-com. Give the full address.
Anna: I am trying to type but there is nothing happening.
REC: Are you in Internet Exploder?
Anna: No, I am in the ticket.
REC: Open a new IE session and go to Webconf-dot-$MegaCorp-dot-com.
Anna: OK, I am opening IE. The address is conf, yes?
REC: No, Webconf-dot-$MegaCorp-dot-com.
Anna: OK, Webconf then what?

Thank fuck for the mute button.

REC: Dot-$MegaCorp-dot-com.
Anna: But we are using $BigCorp software! It should must be $Bigcorp.
REC: No, Webconf-dot-$MegaCorp-dot-com.
Anna: $Megacorp... dot... org?
REC: Dot com.
Anna: OK I am going to a page.
REC: Good.
Anna: And now what is the conference number please?

{redacted: three full minutes of explanations over a fucking 8-digit conf number.}

Anna: And I have now put the password but it will not let me continue because of another field.
REC: What other field?
Anna: It is asking me for the name.
REC: And what's your name?
Anna: My name is Anna.
REC: Then type "Anna" in there. Or type "XXX". It doesn't matter.
Anna: Are you sure this should not be the password a second time for security?
REC: Fairly certain, yes.
Anna: Perhaps I will give it the password anyway, but it is not hiding the password.
REC: That's because a field called "Name" is for your name, not for a password.
Anna: OK I will attempt what you are saying but this is most curious.

And time passed. And she still couldn't manage to log in. Fifteen more wasted minutes with a fucktard who couldn't find the Windows Start button if her screen resolution was 48x.36.

I told her to call Sara and sort this out and went off for a smoke where I regaled a couple of the cooler $MegaCorp cow-orkers with this sad tale. On the way to the smoking room I ran into $SverigeInsCo's TAR and told him in no uncertain terms what fuckwits his customers are. He nodded in agreement. "Just send my ass to fucking Uppsala and I'll resolve this problem inside two hours." Not likely with our cost-saving travel restrictions.

"OK. I'll talk to the big boss." Huh? SRSLY?! "They're very intent to get the problems resolved." Which means they'd be willing to pick up my flight, hotel, expenses and per diem. Hells yeah! I should know Today or Monday.

I went through this once back in the $BigCorp days. A customer in Scotchlandia was having trouble and had stated they wanted me and the other guy working on it to come up. Like idiots we continued staying late and resolved the problem at 9:30 the night before we would have otherwise been expected to fly. I'm not blowing the chance again. I told the TAR to get me at least two days to be safe and make sure they precede or proceed a weekend. They may tell me to get an open ticket and keep me there to be on-hand to resolve other problems quickly.

Root Cause for this problem? No fucking idea, probably Windows-based. But for once the completely incompetent fuckwits may have made my week a bit nicer. Lutefisk, anyone?