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Accountability sinks

(aworkinglibrary.com)
493 points l0b0 | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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rougka ◴[] No.41893123[source]
I remember experiencing this in one of the German airports/airlines and having that exact thought.

It was this fully automated airport, where the checkin is self serviced and you only interact with computers.

Eventually, when I inserted my boarding pass I had a printed piece of paper back that said that they had to change my seat from aisle to midseat

I then tried to find someone to talk to the entire way, but computers can only interact in the way the UI was designed, and no programmer accounted or cared for my scenario

The ground attendant couldn't have done anything of course because it wasn't part of the scope of her job, and this was the part of germany where nice was not one of their stereotypes.

Eventually I got a survey a week later about a different leg of the flight, so could I really complain there? that one was fine? I had a paranoid wonder if that was intentional

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m463 ◴[] No.41893293[source]
Many businesses build walls around themselves like this.

Hiding the customer service number. Making an FAQ that is missing the common but time-consuming questions. Chatbots instead of people.

I remember when amazon sent me a package once, said it was delivered, but it was nowhere to be found. There was no way to get help. They did have an FAQ at the time that said to check in the bushes.

What was annoying was the search auto-complete had many variations of "package not found says delivered"

Now, it is a little more filled out but still.

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gregmac ◴[] No.41893383[source]
I just switched ISPs, and the new one has one of the most obnoxious phone processes I've ever interacted with.

I go through the usual hoops: press 1 for English, "we detected an account linked to the number you're calling from, is that that you're calling about?" ... Press 1 for support, press 1 for Internet, "no outages detected in your area. Most problems can be solved by rebooting your modem. Press 1 if you want to try rebooting." (Pause)... "thank you for your call click"

First off, rebooting doesn't solve my problem. But I guess I have to try anyway?

So I call back, this time I do pick to reboot, and get "your modem will reboot in the next few minutes, and could take up to 10 minutes to come online. If things still aren't working, try our online support chat"

So, basically there doesn't seem to be any phone technical support (with a human), at all.

Also, rebooting is offensive to me as a programmer. Kernel updates and memory leaks are the only reason you need to reboot. How absolutely shitty is modem firmware that the ISP actually spent the time to build this reboot system out??(Never mind that I personally don't feel like I've ever had a modem/isp actually problem solved by rebooting)

Made me wonder if I should have switched.

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1. yetihehe ◴[] No.41893667[source]
> (Never mind that I personally don't feel like I've ever had a modem/isp actually problem solved by rebooting)

I had problems solved several times by rebooting modem. One time it was "reboot modem and access point in proper order", me naively rebooting them both at the same time didn't help, only phone support solved this problem.

> Also, rebooting is offensive to me as a programmer.

Hmm, I might be desensitivised from too much programming in erlang. It's implied that your program will encounter bugs or strange data and parts WILL be restarted, better account for that and plan on what to do on restart of each small part at the start of writing your program.

> So, basically there doesn't seem to be any phone technical support (with a human), at all.

Because it's cheaper. Those who don't have support can offer lower prices. When people search for trinkets, they only have information about what is supported, there is no good information about quality of device and support, high price also not always means better support. SO they just go for lower price and hope not to suffer too much.

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2. eru ◴[] No.41893837[source]
Yes, see also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40212967