This is extracted from an SMS exchange this morning between me and the contractor on the team:
(0800 hrs) Contractor: “User R cannot launch Currenex. Gives Java error. Spoke to [Currenex] Helpdesk. Required version is 1.5. Version he has is 1.0. Error is unable to download jar file.”
(0812 hrs) My reply: “All version of Java on our systems are 1.5. No way they are 1.0. You are also IT. Do not expect me to think of all the solutions for you.”
(0820hrs) Contractor: “I have no idea about the java problem nor the appl. I am looking for solutions. Probably you can help him if I don’t find any. Thanks.”
I didn’t bother to reply further as I scream silently in frustration within myself on the office-bound MRT train. What good is she at all when she didn’t even ascertain the version of Java installed? When after more than half a year in our company, she still does not know the system environment, it makes one wonder just where the heck she’s been to all these while.
Furthermore, what solution is there to look when it is so obvious? The most basic thing to do when a Java Webstart application fail is to delete away all the cached components and download them all over again. And that information the Currenex Helpdesk would be happy to provide!
If she would put even a fraction of the time she spent on her own private phone calls [in her own native language] – allegedly important as it deals with her permanent residency in Singapore – all of these problems will be solved in 30 minutes or so. And damn this is not the first time an easy task like that she doesn’t seem enthusiastic enough to solve!
And finally, it was fixed after 2pm when the user handed over his exposure and risks to the European side. This is his feedback before he called it a day:
16:10 User R it’s all fine now mate, thanks alot
16:10 User R why can the girl not sort these things out? whenever i ask her to help me, she doesnt seem to know what i am talking about.. and u fix it in five minutes
* sigh * I don’t know to cry or laugh looking at my user’s comment.
It’s not because anyone of us is that good or superb. It’s simply we are more willing and we showed more enthusiasm in hunting for the solution and not expect it to come from a fairy god-mother or to fall from the sky like the proverbial goo lan [aka Cow’s Penis] the Hokkiens talked about.
I must really say, even a bad user is better than help that is no help at all.
SanNiang> So much for ‘foreign talent’…
Daphne Maia> -.-” >.<
i guess it’s kind of good for u too, because next to her, u look like GOD (ok, blasphemous but u know what i mean).
we need stupid people in this world (although i can’t stand them), because they make smart people like us look even better.
WAHAHAHAHAHA.
In a way … you are blessed, since there are really worse talents out that ^_^