The Drone Whisperer

Getting anything done in many larger companies is nearly impossible. In the worst environments, accomplishment requires special skills--the extraordinary patience and perspective required to relate to and influence desired outcomes from the drones who function as a productivity resistance movement. I am that drone whisperer.

[dronewhisperer]

Customer Disservice (an H&R Block Bonus Feature)

After purchasing the retail (physical CD) version of H&R Block At Home tax preparation software, I discovered that my CD-ROM drive is not longer recognized by my ancient laptop. I am planning to buy a new laptop very soon, so I don't want to spend money troubleshooting that problem, and I discovered this while at a location with much faster download speeds than I have at home. Since I went out to buy the software only because my download speeds are so bad, I was thinking that a quick solution to this problem would be to leverage the product code provided with the physical software package to authenticate (i.e., avoid having to pay again for) the package if I just downloaded it using the fast connection from the cafe. You would think this would be simple to navigate, but no such luck, as this transcript of my online chat session illustrates.

Intro: Welcome to H&R Block At Home technical support. Please wait while we find a technical support agent to assist you. You have been connected to Drone.

Drone: Hello victim, welcome to H&R Block's At Home Live Chat Support! Please hold a moment while I review the information you've submitted to us.

Drone: I would be happy to research this for you.

Me: OK. Does that mean hang on for a few minutes, or do you mean it will take a while?

Drone: I have your answer right now.

(... long pause ...)

Drone: The best thing I can tell you is to take the product back to the retail store that you bought it from and get a refund and then purchase the software online, because we can not verify that you made the purchase at the retail store.

Drone: I apologize for the inconvenience.

Me: Why can you not verify I made the purchase at a retail store? I have the physical product in front of me--and the receipt.

Drone: I can not see that you have these thing in front of you.

Me: I can send you pictures.

Drone: There is no way to prove that you made these purchases.

Me: You are going to become famous when I blog about H&R Block's inability to deal with such a simple problem.

Drone: I gave you the solution to the issue.

Me: If I have to go return this product, I will NOT be downloading H&R Block's product.

Drone: I apologize for the inconvenience.

Me: I hope you enjoyed this job. It will end very soon.

Drone: Okay.

Note that out of respect for the privacy of the H&R Block drone, I have removed references to his/her real name. Otherwise, this is a verbatim transcript of our real chat.

[dronewhisperer]

Prisons Should be This Secure

Me: I'm having trouble resetting my password.

DroneDesk: What is happening?

Me: It is asking me for the answer to my secret question.

DroneDesk: That's normal.

Me: I understand that, but it is not telling me what question I am answering.

DroneDesk: It is your secret question.

Me: Right, but in the real world, this kind of authentication challenge includes THE QUESTION.

DroneDesk: If it did that, it wouldn't be your secret question.

Me: This is effectively a second password I have to remember every 90 days when I go through this password reset process.

DroneDesk: I see what you mean. Would you like to create a new secret question answer?

[dronewhisperer]

You Must Submit a Ticket

Me: Now that you have our requirements, can you connect our development box to the enterprise widget?

Drone: You must submit a RemeDrone ticket.

Me: Gee, RemeDrone is pretty picky. What are the key things the ticket needs to contain for this kind of request?

Drone: The key highlights of your requirements.

Me: Aren't there specific fields which must be populated?

Drone: Yes.

Me: Which ones?

Drone: The fields which summarize your requirements.

Me: Couldn't this have already be done by now?

Drone: You must submit a ticket.

Me: Let's take a different approach. Is there a template you can point me to for this kind of ticket?

Drone: I don't know if we have one. I'll see if I can find someone who has a template.

Me: We've been having this exchange for 3 days now. Wouldn't it have been more efficient to just connect us to the widget?

Drone: You must submit a ticket.

[dronewhisperer]

We Need a PowerPoint for That

Me: Ready for lunch?

Drone: Need to prepare a deck.

Me: Can it wait until after lunch?

Drone: It is for lunch.

Me: You are doing a lunch presentation?

Drone: No. Our senior VP wants to fully understand our plans for lunch.

[dronewhisperer]

You Must Specify Your Requirements

Developer: Please create an empty database schema for us on system A.

Drone: What ratio of data to log space do you want?

Developer: Your standard default values are fine.

Drone: We don't have any standards or defaults for that.

Developer: OK. What do you recommend?

Drone: We don't have recommendations. You need to specify your requirements.

Developer: Aren't you a database administrator? Shouldn't you be able to recommend some basic guidelines here?

Drone: I am a DBA, but you need to specify your requirements.

Developer: Um...OK. Let's go with 100 GB data and 20 GB for logs.

Drone: You don't have that much space available.

Developer: We have 120 GB allocated for our database.

Drone: Yes, but you can't use all of it.

Developer: OK. How much can we use?

Drone: You must specify your requirements.

[dronewhisperer]

How may I stop you?

Me: Please grant my developers access to our new enterprise widget.

Drone: Not until they get trained.

Me: OK, let's get them trained.

Drone: Not until we understand your system design.

Me: We need to see how the widget works before we can think about design.

Drone: Not until they are trained.

[dronewhisperer]

Guess which definition applies? (From Dictionary.com)