General Consultant Discussion

Customer: We are trying to freeze inventory and it says there are unposted batches. We need you to rebuild the files so we can freeze the inventory. Me: Did you check to see if there were unposted batches in SO Invoice Data Entry? Customer: No. Me: Could you check? Customer: We don't have any unposted batches. Me: Could you humor me? Customer: OK...Um...there's an unposted batch. Thanks for your help. It's one of those days.

Are you on their Christmas cookie list or do you just charge double for stupid questions?

I would say 75% of my customers have he exact same reply. Nobody wants to listen long enough to understand that it's probably a really simple fix.

My favorite is 'Yes, all users are out. They told me they were.'

I'll have to remember the ""Humor me"" comment....

This is why no matter how many changes are done to software, where it exists or how badly we are treated, consultants will never be obsolete. Sometimes clients need us to look at their watch and tell them what time it is.

@RobertWood is very humorous.

This story can also be told from the IT side when you ask if you are logged in as an Administrator...

I don't understand why we have to literally think for people some times. They were waiting half an hour for me to call them back. I was on two support calls already. They were texting, calling, and emailing me. @JohnHoyt I'm very something.

They obviously trust you to think better than they do @RobertWood !!

It's days like this I want to move my misanthropic self into a cabin in the middle of nowhere with my books and be alone.

It's also days like this that I""m thankful for my children. They try my patience but they're lots of fun. My son Alex is learning to read. He's doing well but he gets so frustrated.

Let him read your comics.

I would but he doesn't want to. He has a few of his own. ""Reading is reading. And, as I once pointed out to a teacher who was sounding off against comics [I would have been about 11 at the time] I had the biggest vocabulary in the school, because I'd got most of my long words as a young kid from Stan Lee [Marvel Comics] -- and I knew how to spell them."" - Neil Gaiman June 2002 on his blog

Just be careful......... I remember atttending my oldest daughter's 2nd grade open house. In one part of the room were essays the students had written early in the week. I looked around but couldn't find Alyssa's. I asked her teacher if she had written one. Mrs. T responded ""oh, yes, But I didn't think I should display it tonight. Here it is"" and she let me read it. it was an essay on the birds and the bees and how babies are made. It was anatomically (and graphically) correct. She certainly didn't get the research material from either of her parents. Amazing what is available these days..........

LOL! That's funny! I'm not sure I can top that one.

So @RobertWood, did you charge the client for that assistance?

If they were an hourly customer, I would have. But they're not.

/WILLFULSTUPIDITYSURCHARGE