start of a new year

Well, the new year has come. We celebrated with a party at the weekend - hall packed with people and not a drop of booze anywhere. Fruit, rice, vegetable stew, bread, juices, tea and coffee, and cakes. Then music performed live by some talented young people.
That was the New Year party for members of the Baha'i Faith and their friends in Nottingham. New Year's day itself (March 21 in the Gregorian calendar) was a day for visiting the sick and elderly, hospitality and making new friends.

When a support team can make things worse

I have just had a bad experience with a support team. My query has taken over a week to resolve, and even then it was I who found the answer. Each time I sent in a question, it was answered by a different person. None of them answered the question I had asked. Instead they said it was a programming question and I should learn programming, or that the answer was in the FAQ that they kindly attached to their reply. (Needless to say, I had already read the FAQ and found that it was factually incorrect). They 'helpfully' offered suggestions covering questions on a completely different topic, or simply said that their support did not cover my question.

If as a computer programmer with decades of experience in user support I struggle with their help desk (no I am not going to shame the company), then I shudder to think what less experienced users are feeling. Is it any wonder that companies suffer high rates of "churn" when they put inexperienced staff on the support centre.

Business managers will come to realise that they need to have technically competent staff.

I just hope it is a long time before I have to call them again, and the staff have had a modicum of training in that time.

sharing the load

(or, not everyone can be expert at everything)

I began my career in computing by learning FOCAL, and then BASIC, FORTRAN and COBOL. Later on it was pascal and Delphi, then C and Perl. Now I am brushing up my skills in Java (first looked at about 7 years ago) and particularly threads. One of the comments in the book I am reading struck me, and got me thinking about 'sharing the load'. It is not just applicable to a multi-processor computer or a collection of computers. We people need, I think, to make use of this idea also.

No one can be an expert in everything, and no one person can cope with all the demands modern life puts on us. We have to learn to share. Call on our support network. (What do you mean, you don't have one?) In these days of world encircling communications, you may get help from someone thousands of miles away, even someone you have not met.

Social networking websites are great for keeping in touch with friends, and the open source model of software development means we can share work with others.

"God loves those who work together in groups" - Baha'i Faith