Patchwork

What's the fucking point of a four-day weekend if every goddamned store is closed? Fucking Germans.

And in the Inbox is ticket x30109q00335 from "Karl".

We are exhausted with two things:
Really, Hoss? Me too. MegaCorp's way of doing business and the people it does business with. People like... you.

1)Microsoft incompatibilty
2)Functionalities being taken away.

Huh? There are Windows versions of the Gimp and Tux Racer.

Do you perhaps mean changes in Microsoft functionality whenever they fix something in their OS and the resulting need to patch our software to deal with that? What exactly do you want me to do about it? Do I have some special power to make Microsoft stop disabling shit? Tell them to cut it out yourself; You're the one handing them 50 grand a year, not me.

Microsoft is going to disable and remove shit whenever they damned well feel like it. DriveSpace. MSJVM. Progman. If you were an actual administrator and not a chimp you'd know how to deal with some of these problems.


We dont want to upgrade your software too
So you'll patch Windows but not the software running on Windows which won't run if you don't patch it? Huh? Look, every time Microsoft disables functions we have to re-write parts of our software. If they deprecate some more functions that they used to recommend as Best Practices, what the fuck do you think will happen? Either don't take the patch that will disable $OurBigApp or patch everything.


Now you say you are changing support for version 3.c.5 so what functionalities is $MegaCorp planning to discontinue on $YourBigApp version 3.c.5?
Which ones would you like us to discontinue? We aren't changing the functionality of the fucking software, you knob end, just how much we're willing to help you with it and how much we're charging you to hold your hand and fix your fuck-ups. That's why the Notice of Changes to Support for versions 3.c.x wasn't called Notice of Functionality Removal for versions 3.c.x.

We're not taking away any functionality. There are minor support changes. You have to patch our software if you install the drastic Windows patches.

And that should've been the end of it. But noooooo...

You say you don't take away functionality but $MuuxMarketServerProg is GONE! We need $MarketServerProg! Tell Microsoft to bring it back!

Tell Microsoft, huh? To bring back our software module. Which didn't go away but rather only had a very clearly documented name change due which can be found in every fucking tech journal and news site to some shitheel suing us for daring to use the name he used on his bugalicious sold-three-copies-in-1998 program which has since lain dead, the download Web page not having been updated for more than a decade.

Read the fucking docs. Patch your software. Follow the post-patch instructions and use the new name of $MarketServerProg (which is the totally unintuitive $MuuxAppServerMarket).

I need a cup of coffee which I'll get right after closing this ticket Root Cause: 17-Fuckwit . Maybe I'll get lucky and someone will walk by with some Valium. Or Haldol. Beggars can't be choosers.

Difficult Decisions

$CarCorp has run into a problem. A few problems, actually, but one requires a special patch from us which allows certain new and basic software to work with ours. Said patches are still in QA. We have a sooper-seekrit pre-release version for certain noisy and powerful customers who insist on patching today and not in two weeks, maybe three, almost certainly by August. Almost certainly.

Under pressure from Sales and Accounts our engineering department has grudgingly agreed to make the pre-release version available, but only as a TAR release. That means the customer has to have a Technical Account Rep who must be on-site for the patching since Bad Things could happen. Codswallop I say, because the overwhelming majority of our TARs are incompetent fucks with the mental acuity of cold spaghetti, but that's what Eng is demanding.

$CarCorp has no TAR. They used to have one, and I know this because it was one of the very precious few TARs who could not only find his ass with just one hand but was even capable of wiping it without assistance. So why do they have no TAR anymore? He wasn't let go for being able to do his job, it was a simple matter of cost savings.

They're trying to roll out a new workstation image for a couple thousand users worldwide and have a code freeze coming up on a date at least two weeks prior to our earliest QA release. If they don't get the temp fix, the current image will only be an interim image and they'll have to do a full month of testing again once we release.

Fair enough. That's a good business case, made even stronger by the projected cost of a second image and testing running in the neighbourhood of €500K. So what's the problem? They won't shell out €5K for a TAR to come on-site.

Fuckwits.