Battle of Wits with the Unarmed
Scene: techs preparing new laptops for sales force. One sales guy, a real dinosaur who is utterly computer clueless, is having his files and email and so forth moved.
Salesasaur: "Now, you guys make sure to bring over my screensaver, y'hear?"
Me: "I'll see what we can do. Hey [other tech], is that screensaver just a .scr file?"
OT: "Nope. It's got all kinds of settings and stuff. Maybe it's freeware?"
Me: "I'll check." *google-google-google*
Google: "WARNING! THIS IS SPYWARE! MALWARE! RUN AWAY SCREAMING! DON'T CONNECT TO ME FROM YOUR NETWORK! I'M SCARED!AAAAAAHHHH!!!"
Me: "Ooooohhhh-kaaaay.... Salesasaur, we can't put that screensaver on your new computer. It's malware."
Salesasaur: "I don't care. Just put it on there."
Me: "No. Do you know what 'spyware' is?"
Salesasaur: "No. I don't really care about that stuff. I just like the butterflies [on the screensaver]."
Me: [thumbnail sketch of the concept of spyware]
Salesasaur: "Well, I don't care! I've been using it for 5 years!! Just put it on there, already!"
Me: "No. I won't. You've been transmitting your personal information, slowing down your computer, and opening up our networks to bullshit viruses and identity thieves for five years! Because _you_ won't learn how to use the tools required for your job, _I_ have to do a shitload more work and clean our network since you so kindly brought a massively infected machine to our main office and just plugged the damn thing in. _I_ don't care if you "like the butterflies". I don't care if you like licking tires because they taste good: it's still not hygienic. Now, I'm removing your ability to install new programs onto _our_ computer, setting up some extra anti-virus and anti-spyware software scans that you can't turn off onto that shiny new laptop you'll never learn how to use, and basically keeping _you_ from shooting _us_ in the foot ever again. And if you complain, I'm revoking your rights to use our email server. Don't fuck with me today, Salesasaur. You're totally in the wrong, and I'm totally in the right, and besides, I'm leaving the company in two weeks, so I'd LOVE to go talk to our boss. Now: Walk away. I'm tired of your crap."
Salesasaur: *flabberghasted* "....I- I- I-"
Me: "You, WHAT?! You want to apologize to me for having to support your sorry ass? You want to apologize for your extremely poor judgment? You want to tell me how a man with absolutely no understanding of computers and no desire to understand them decided to sell enterprise grade software? You're sorry for treating the techs like they were your employees and not your peers? You, WHAT, exactly? WALK. AWAY. NOW."
Salesasaur walks away.
Later I went to the boss and he agreed with me 100%.
Damn that felt good.
Salesasaur: "Now, you guys make sure to bring over my screensaver, y'hear?"
Me: "I'll see what we can do. Hey [other tech], is that screensaver just a .scr file?"
OT: "Nope. It's got all kinds of settings and stuff. Maybe it's freeware?"
Me: "I'll check." *google-google-google*
Google: "WARNING! THIS IS SPYWARE! MALWARE! RUN AWAY SCREAMING! DON'T CONNECT TO ME FROM YOUR NETWORK! I'M SCARED!AAAAAAHHHH!!!"
Me: "Ooooohhhh-kaaaay.... Salesasaur, we can't put that screensaver on your new computer. It's malware."
Salesasaur: "I don't care. Just put it on there."
Me: "No. Do you know what 'spyware' is?"
Salesasaur: "No. I don't really care about that stuff. I just like the butterflies [on the screensaver]."
Me: [thumbnail sketch of the concept of spyware]
Salesasaur: "Well, I don't care! I've been using it for 5 years!! Just put it on there, already!"
Me: "No. I won't. You've been transmitting your personal information, slowing down your computer, and opening up our networks to bullshit viruses and identity thieves for five years! Because _you_ won't learn how to use the tools required for your job, _I_ have to do a shitload more work and clean our network since you so kindly brought a massively infected machine to our main office and just plugged the damn thing in. _I_ don't care if you "like the butterflies". I don't care if you like licking tires because they taste good: it's still not hygienic. Now, I'm removing your ability to install new programs onto _our_ computer, setting up some extra anti-virus and anti-spyware software scans that you can't turn off onto that shiny new laptop you'll never learn how to use, and basically keeping _you_ from shooting _us_ in the foot ever again. And if you complain, I'm revoking your rights to use our email server. Don't fuck with me today, Salesasaur. You're totally in the wrong, and I'm totally in the right, and besides, I'm leaving the company in two weeks, so I'd LOVE to go talk to our boss. Now: Walk away. I'm tired of your crap."
Salesasaur: *flabberghasted* "....I- I- I-"
Me: "You, WHAT?! You want to apologize to me for having to support your sorry ass? You want to apologize for your extremely poor judgment? You want to tell me how a man with absolutely no understanding of computers and no desire to understand them decided to sell enterprise grade software? You're sorry for treating the techs like they were your employees and not your peers? You, WHAT, exactly? WALK. AWAY. NOW."
Salesasaur walks away.
Later I went to the boss and he agreed with me 100%.
Damn that felt good.
