A point well missed...

In a given day my responsibilities include the following:

1. Accurately answer questions via email.
2. When no emails are present, surf the web.
3. Should the web prove to be uninteresting, scotch tape my eyelids open and nap.
4. After napping avoid doing the following:

A. Starting fires.
B. Shouting obscenities.
C. Flinging poop.
D. Propositioning the hot chick in HR and getting suspended… again.
E. None of tne of the above.

People seem to misconstrue the meaning of “accurately” in aforementioned, completely non-fictitious, job duties; they seem to think accuracy means, “The answer I want to hear” not “The truth.” As a result of this exceedingly common misconception I get yelled at a lot.

An example of this misconception happened recently. I received an email from one of our large partners requesting network design assistance, now I’m a product specialist and in no way obligated to provide network designs to our partners, that’s why they get paid in big burlap bags with dollar signs on them and I get paid in expired frosty coupons from Wendy’s.

This partner wanted to create a configuration which would allow him to utilize internet connections at two separate sites, how this is accomplished isn’t important the important thing is this partner wanted to do this with equipment which is incapable of this function. I told him this and explained to him how to design his network to do this with existing equipment. This was last week.

This morning I received a new case from this partner attempting to reach a different engineer asking the nearly the same question. Providing the same, though rephrased, answer and politely explaining again how to configure his equipment to do what he wanted I sent off the return email. This partner must have been completely with out other work because five minutes later I received another response.

“You’ve completely missed the point,” then my oh so dense partner goes on to explain again in a different way that he wants this specific device to do something which is not only impossible because the product he wants can not perform this operation; but because no device in this category of products, industry wide, can do what he wants done.

My good partner, I am afraid it is you who has missed the point; you can not get me to confirm incorrect information so you have a basis on which to return products you, for total lack of your own research, incorrectly purchased in the first place. So the moral of the story, “no” does not mean try harder, it means “no and if you ask me again I will use a high-powered pneumatic staple gun to attach your scrotum to the back side of your head.