Snarky Mark

[Dips]

When I came in Mark was muttering about a caller. The guy had a 7-year-old version of our software which came on a bunch of floppy disks. He had just purchased a brand new computer, monitor and printer and new version of Office.

He was having trouble loading the 7-year-old version of our software on his brand new computer with a brand new version of Office. Perhaps because, seven years ago, we didn't have the foresight to make that version Vista compatible.

Mark bit his tongue about people who spend thousands buying the latest of everything except our software and expect us to work miracles for them (for free, of course). He sent the guy to Carl to see if there was any way we could make it work.

While Mark was muttering the guy called back and got Mark again. I only heard Mark's side of the conversation.

"OK. If that's what Carl told you, then the only thing we can do is sell you an update to the latest version for $300 plus $10 for shipping. It's Vista compatible."

...

"Fine. I can sell you the latest version for $300 plus $9 for shipping."

...

"I'm sorry we don't sell older versions."

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"You got to use it for seven years without having to purchase an update. I consider that getting your money's worth."

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"I'm sorry. We don't have any discounts."

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"So what kind of a discount did you get on that brand new computer system?"

That was when I realized I need to obey Rule #1 when I listen to Mark on the phone.

Luckily it went completely over the guy's head. I guess the guy's going to pester the dealer who sold him the brand new computer system to sell him the update to our software for a discount. I doubt he'll get one, but he's welcome to try.

[ahanix1989]

"Well sir, you could always spend $80, and buy a copy of Windows XP and downgrade to that to run the older version"

[IT Grunt]

Heh.. I've dealt with that around here a lot. One of the engineers, now retired, had a thing for dBase IV and loved to write stuff in it, and once the plant manager saw how 'amazing' they were, made people start to use his apps. Fast forward to 10 years later. PC's are faster, PC's are now using Windows 2000 or XP, people are running on networks, and, SURPRISE! A lot of these dBase apps started to have problems, yet the guy continued to defend them as 'state of the art', and would always try to point out what you could do with it, like it was so unique. I had fun pointing out how you could do the same thing, often times more efficiently, with modern programming languages and databases.

Once I managed to convince the users of the apps to let me replace them with something that was much more maintainable, they ran a whole lot better. Part of that was because the other guy, when faced with a problem with something he wrote, would just say 'well that's how it is', to cover the fact that he probably didn't know how to fix it. One of the reasons I like to say, you let me do my job, and I'll let you do yours.