I had been troubleshooting for hours…
After hours of troubleshooting an issue, I realized that I couldn’t solve it myself. Not to be boastful, but I consider myself a fairly adept and qualified problem-solver. I’ve been shooting at my troubles for years. But this time, it just wasn’t meant to be. The realization dawned that I would have to stop this time sink now and raise a ticket.
If you’ve been in my position, you know the feeling that comes next. With growing dread, I logged onto the support portal. I knew I was jumping down the vendor support rabbit hole.
Sure enough, once the screen flicked on, I was met with the smiling, supportive face of…
…a BOT.
The Bot that never was!
Bots are well-intentioned, really. This one wanted to help. it had been trained with all possible scenarios, permutations and carefully curated information to resolve all possible vendor support tickets. Except mine, I guess.
It started off on the wrong foot, asking me, “Have you read this article about setting up LDAP integration?” No, I thought. My problem is object recognition. Why are we talking about LDAP?!
We started the ritualistic dance: Server version? Entered. Software version. Typed. Platform? (sigh) Yes. Blood type? WHAT? Favorite hockey team? WHY!
But I started this, so I took it upon myself to finish it.
Finally, (what felt like) a month and a half later, I was done typing in the FULL ticket issue, channelizing all my writing skills and years of experience. I double-checked and was satisfied. Shakespeare himself would’ve been proud of this piece. I clicked on ‘submit’ and was rewarded with an automatic notification with my ticket number.
Somewhere, my coding angels were hard at work.
What do you think happened then?
Caught in the Support Loop?
A day later, I got an email. It asked me for: Server version. Software version. Platform (you know the drill). Wait, did they even read the description? If yes, then why the questions? If no, then why another day’s delay?