Not Enough Information

I deal with a company on a fairly regular basis.  When I call in about any issue, we open a trouble ticket and I’m given the ticket number.  They have a Quality Assurance team, and before I go bad mouthing them know that I think having a good QA team is awesome and more companies should do it, however… their QA team will call and based on whatever report they are looking at will ask if a) I’ve been contacted, b) my problem is being resolved, or c) if I was satisfied with the completed work.  I have no problem with this at all, and as I said, I wish more companies would do it.  The problem I have is that the QA team is not given enough information.

They call and say, “Hi! I’m [insert name] from [company X] and I’m calling in reference to ticket number [ticket number]…” and then they ask their question.  Given that at any one time I may have three to five tickets open with them my first question is always, “And what is this ticket in reference to?”  They never know because they aren’t given that information.  They get contact info and a ticket number, that’s it.  I could always look it up myself, since I keep my own notes, but I’m not always at my PC when they call.  This company also has a website where I can view my open tickets and add details.  Only, all I can see is the original ticket and the latest update.  This means if there have been multiple updates to the ticket, I cannot see anything but the last one.  The last one is usually the most useless too.

  1. [original problem] Stuff is broken, please fix it.
  2. Assigned to dept A
  3. Researched, found errors in logs that indicated dept B is actually needed
  4. Assigned to dept B
  5. Resolved source of log errors, item still not functioning
  6. Assigned to dept A
  7. Trouble appears to be on external lines
  8. Assigned to contractor Z
  9. Z found damage, repaired
  10. Assigned to dept A

After the above series of events, I go to the website and can only see:

  1. [original problem] Stuff is broken, please fix it.
  2. Assigned to dept A

which is pretty unhelpful and looks like they’ve done nothing at all.  Why have a customer viewable ticket if you are going to have it be that useless?

All in all, this is something I run into all over the place.  So many people want to control information because they feel like controlling the information gives them the upper hand… which it does, but it also often slows things down.  Or worse, they’ve been told to never admit fault, ever, and so they hide all those details so they can do some hand waving and things will be magically fixed without ever telling the customers that a problem actually existed.  It is just so frustrating…

Mindgames

I cannot help but think of gaming applications when I see stuff like this.  Imagine playing an MMO using only your mind…

Help Haiti, Get Games

I saw this first from Raph, then Lum, and lastly Tesh, and I couldn’t ignore it anymore.  A $20 donation through DriveThruRPG gets you $1,481.31 worth of gaming stuff.  I have a healthy interest in games and game design, and just like most writers will tell aspiring writers that the best thing to do is read, most game designers will tell you that the best thing to do is play games.  If you don’t have $20 to give, they’ll take and match any $5 and $10 donations.  But hey, why not just go for $20 and get the free stuff?

Stuff on the Net XVI

Over at Critical Hits, you can find an old D&D commercial, circa 1983. I think the worst part of this is not that I owned that version of the game in 1983, or that I still play D&D today… but that I recognize the early acting work of Alan Ruck and Jami Gertz.

Documentary: Spiders on Drugs.

I couple of lightsaber fights: Old favorite, One with more story.

Are you a muslim woman with a desire to surf? Well, now you can without violating muslim law!

Oh… and HBO is going to be making Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire into a TV show. Oh, yeah.

Stuff on the Net XIII

All the moving and stuff, and I just haven’t found the time to be creative, so here are a ton of links to stuff…

This story I find hilarious. Think of it at a community/government version of “Hey you kids! Get off of my lawn!”

Over at F13.net, schild and ookii posted a couple of interesting videos that exhibit some cool gaming stuff.

The internet is finally explained.

There is a band named OK Go. The songs are catchy, but its the music videos that got me hooked. You should watch “A Million Ways” and “Here It Goes Again“.

The US Army just might be letting someone build a theme park based on them.

World of Warcraft is on MySpace, but I don’t think I’m going to be friends with him.

Dragon*Con is coming in September. I’m going.

My website is kinda pretty.

People who dress up in costume and pretend to be superheroes = funny.

Don’t like real news? Get the same news with a fantasy world slant.

And that’s all for now…

Stuff on the Net XII

Want to know what really happens in chat rooms? The Parlor. (Not Safe For Work)

One of my favorite Reno 911 sketches.

The Last Saskatchewan Pirate.

Rollin’ with Bob Saget. (Not Safe For Work)

Your ears you keep and I’ll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish. Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out, “Dear God! What is that thing,” will echo in your perfect ears. That is what to the pain means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever.

Stuff on the Net IX

10 Things I Hate About Commandments.

The Dragon*Con guest list is shaping up nicely. Richard Hatch is going to be there (no surprise).

Okay, fine, I’m going to link to something E3 related… Scott Jennings went and had a run in with Paris Hilton’s security. She was there whoring her new video game (which I’m sure she was totally involved in the design of), only she couldn’t remember the right name of it. And surprisingly, even though she was whoring at E3, she didn’t actually look completely like one.

It’s an old game, but needing something to tide me over until the return of Prison Break in the fall, Prison Tycoon. I wonder if they include all the aspects of real prison…