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As a solo developer, I decided to offer phone support

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Re: As a solo developer, I decided to offer phone support

#111

Post by dangerlibrary »

crispyambulance wrote: post #110
kqr wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the brain mode for 'developer' is VERY different from the brain mode for 'support agent'. This is something I can have trouble with even personally. I have noticed that when I get home from a long day of cold, analytical problem-solving, I mbrain bad at shifting my brain to empathetically listen and provide emotional support for my wifes problems.

The daily transition from work to home is difficult for many couples and this problem has existed since forever, but it has _nothing_ to do with "being analytical" at work and then having to "be empathetic" at home. It doesn't matter what your job is or if you're a husband or a wife, there's a period of time after coming home from work that is beset with opportunities for arguments. Lots of people experience this, no…

> "it has _nothing_ to do with "being analytical" at work and then having to "be empathetic" at home."

[citation needed]

I doubt you (or anyone, for that matter) can make such a claim with scientific rigor. You are responding to a statement of someone's personal experience - for them, it very well may have something to do with switching from an analytical, critical state to a more empathetic one.

Re: As a solo developer, I decided to offer phone support

#112

Post by slfnflctd »

lwansbrough wrote: post #108
PetahNZ wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer, a backend app developer for that matter, I still don't know an easy way to do this. I would either sync it to my Google Drive, or fire up a local FTP server on my phone to do it.

> fire up a local FTP server on my phone to do i I see you’re an Android user! Simple joke, don’t get flame baited. I’m sure there is something similar on Android but on iOS all you have to do is AirDrop to your computer. Takes 2 seconds.

What if your computer is a PC? ducks

Re: As a solo developer, I decided to offer phone support

#113

Post by iDemonix »

hindsightbias wrote: post #51
whalesalad wrote: post #13

Working at the Apple Store as a sales person has helped me IMMENSELY in my career, not only in terms of understanding how human beings approach technology but from a sales standpoint as well. In the first startup I was a part of, every single member of the 3 person team did email support for our school teacher userbase. Do it. Everyone needs to do it. Doing this kind of work is very grounding and humbling. When you b…

I remember a Myers-Briggs-ish consultant taking 40 devs in a room and putting all the INTP/J types on one side and the 3 or 4 of us in the middle or other side and the hanging jaws when he pointed to us and said "Those people are all your CUSTOMERS!"

My jaw would be hanging if a company thought Myerrs Briggs was anything other than garbage.

Re: As a solo developer, I decided to offer phone support

#114

Post by fapjacks »

dangerlibrary wrote: post #111
crispyambulance wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The daily transition from work to home is difficult for many couples and this problem has existed since forever, but it has _nothing_ to do with "being analytical" at work and then having to "be empathetic" at home. It doesn't matter what your job is or if you're a husband or a wife, there's a period of time after coming home from work that is beset with opportunities for arguments. Lots of people experience this, no…

> "it has _nothing_ to do with "being analytical" at work and then having to "be empathetic" at home." [citation needed] I doubt you (or anyone, for that matter) can make such a claim with scientific rigor. You are responding to a statement of someone's personal experience - for them, it very well may have something to do with switching from an analytical, critical state to a more empathetic one.

For my part, I recognized after I got married that I was coming home and applying the same mental model I used at work in conversations with my wife: I was there exclusively to solve problems. My wife just wanted me to listen while she told me about her day. This definitely increased the surface area for arguments, because in my years I've found that generally, wives want you to shut up and listen and empathize with what they're complaining about, and not rattling off "answers" to the problems. I did have to train myself to adapt to the transition. It did cause problems specifically because of the mental model I brought home from work.

Re: As a solo developer, I decided to offer phone support

#115

Post by cdubzzz »

doomlaser wrote: post #105
cdubzzz wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What clone? I was involved with Quinn on OS X back in the day until we got a C&D from The Tetris Company.

Descender http://web.archive.org/web/20081225163958/http://www.sloppyd...

Nice, looks like it was around about same time as Quinn - https://web.archive.org/web/20110805131134/http://www.simonh...

Did you ever hear from TTC?

Re: As a solo developer, I decided to offer phone support

#116

Post by dhimes »

fapjacks wrote: post #114
dangerlibrary wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "it has _nothing_ to do with "being analytical" at work and then having to "be empathetic" at home." [citation needed] I doubt you (or anyone, for that matter) can make such a claim with scientific rigor. You are responding to a statement of someone's personal experience - for them, it very well may have something to do with switching from an analytical, critical state to a more empathetic one.

For my part, I recognized after I got married that I was coming home and applying the same mental model I used at work in conversations with my wife: I was there exclusively to solve problems. My wife just wanted me to listen while she told me about her day. This definitely increased the surface area for arguments, because in my years I've found that generally, wives want you to shut up and listen and empathize with…

It took me a long time to get this right too. I came across this amusing page and realized I wasn't a bad person, because there is a lot of truth to this.

specifically, #39:

http://showcase.netins.net/web/tash/rules/rules.html

Re: As a solo developer, I decided to offer phone support

#117

Post by ep103 »

PetahNZ wrote: post #81
danso wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or if you can't switch jobs just yet, and you have time to kill at an Apple store, sit in on one of their daily tech sessions. I once went with my mom to the "Basics: iPad" session and couldn't believe how basic the topics were in the description [0]. But the attendees had even more fundamental issues than could be covered, such as file management, e.g. how to move a photo from the iPad to their home desktop hooked t…

As a developer, a backend app developer for that matter, I still don't know an easy way to do this. I would either sync it to my Google Drive, or fire up a local FTP server on my phone to do it.

email it : )

Re: As a solo developer, I decided to offer phone support

#118

Post by heartbreak »

danso wrote: post #41
whalesalad wrote: post #13

Working at the Apple Store as a sales person has helped me IMMENSELY in my career, not only in terms of understanding how human beings approach technology but from a sales standpoint as well. In the first startup I was a part of, every single member of the 3 person team did email support for our school teacher userbase. Do it. Everyone needs to do it. Doing this kind of work is very grounding and humbling. When you b…

Or if you can't switch jobs just yet, and you have time to kill at an Apple store, sit in on one of their daily tech sessions. I once went with my mom to the "Basics: iPad" session and couldn't believe how basic the topics were in the description [0]. But the attendees had even more fundamental issues than could be covered, such as file management, e.g. how to move a photo from the iPad to their home desktop hooked t…

I don't personally have a wireless printer (mine is networked though), but I've noticed that all of my non-techie relatives have bought a $50 HP in the last 2 years, and somehow they all have it hooked up to WiFi as the only connection. The printers must also implement AirPrint, because they show up on my Grandma's iPhone when she tells an email to print.

Printing photos directly from an iPhone was solved for everyone else and I barely even noticed it happening because I still print from my laptop.

Re: As a solo developer, I decided to offer phone support

#120

Post by snuxoll »

whalesalad wrote: post #13

Working at the Apple Store as a sales person has helped me IMMENSELY in my career, not only in terms of understanding how human beings approach technology but from a sales standpoint as well. In the first startup I was a part of, every single member of the 3 person team did email support for our school teacher userbase. Do it. Everyone needs to do it. Doing this kind of work is very grounding and humbling. When you b…

I spent 4 years working customer support, technical support and service desk gigs before I got a chance to enter software development (and now DevOps). As much a slog as these jobs could be at times, the soft skills and years of practice walking anyone from a total novice through a power-user through a problem has been invaluable.

I don’t call people users anymore, every employee at my company that I support is a customer of mine - I’ve learned over the years that the vocabulary change can really affect how you interact with people. My team writes internal LOB applications, we’re a medical billing company and not some hip startup; when you call every employee in the company “user” there’s a certain level of animosity (unconsciously best case) - they USE what you provide, it’s the same reason I’ve grown to hate the term “consumer”. A customer is someone you have a relationship with, respect and trust go both ways - ultimately the goal is to have a mutually beneficial relationship.

Being human even I have moments where my level of empathy drops below acceptable levels, when people keep reanimating dead tickets with unrelated issues I can get a little curt (don’t do that, now I’m going to send this to the service desk since development doesn’t work with the spam filter) - but overall I really enjoy the relationships I’ve built with everyone I support. When I get 20 tickets in the morning because a critical application is down I’m not racing because we’re losing $10,000 a minute or to meet an SLA - it’s there’s over 800 people, many of whom I know individually, who are relying on me to get it working again so they can get back to work (and for a production-focused company we have a shockingly low turnover rate, our employees generally love what they do).

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