Shibboleths that get you past the initial script stage • Hacker News Board

Re: Shibboleths that get you past the initial script stage

#121

Post by teddyh » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

gnufx wrote: post #92

jordansmithnz wrote: post #50

I’ve given thought in the past to some sort of ‘support reputation system’. After calling tech support, they’d rate your manner and how capable you seemed, and this would feed through into your future calls (e.g. calling an ISP with a genuine + very technical question might mean you go straight to the highest tier of tech support next time you call). It would save time for tech support workers too; no need to vet ver…

Once upon a time when we'd ring up support for Sun, SGI, etc., they did know that, for instance, they could just send a new part to swap ourselves when we said it was broken. (That was after GEC, at least, no longer actually had an office on site.)

In the old days, yes we had service contracts for the machines, but it was essentially a joke. That was a way of getting parts after the expert hackers from the AI lab fixed the problem. Because if you let the field-service person fix it it would take them days, and you didn't want to do that, you wanted it to work. So, the people who knew how to do those things would just go and fix it quickly, and since they were ten times as competent as any field service person, they could do a much better job. And then they would have the ruined boards, they would just leave them there and tell the field service person “take these back and bring us some new ones”.

— Richard Stallman, 30 October 1986

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-kth.html

Re: Shibboleths that get you past the initial script stage

#122

Post by mike_hock » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #67

I've found that pretending to know someone's profession, or one related to it, is generally a very bad approach. It's easily seen through, at which point you're worse off than before. Instead, what I do with members of other professions is try to impress on them that I do not know their business but respect its complexity and our roles within the scenario. Whether it's a doctor or a plumber or even a computer technic…

To some extent that was what the suggestions were about, though.

Installing an IDE just to have the icon to show for it is a stupid hack that'll stop working once people see through the charade.

OTOH, running the test suite and showing the failing tests or, if they pass, explaining very precisely what misbehavior you're seeing and how you reproduced it, is actually helpful.

Be helpful to the extent of your competence but honest about its limits. Trying to bullshit when you clearly have no clue makes you annoying to work with, but so does being a noob who doesn't even try to understand what's going on and just wants someone else to do all the work.

Re: Shibboleths that get you past the initial script stage

#123

Post by driverdan » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 5:23 PM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #67

I've found that pretending to know someone's profession, or one related to it, is generally a very bad approach. It's easily seen through, at which point you're worse off than before. Instead, what I do with members of other professions is try to impress on them that I do not know their business but respect its complexity and our roles within the scenario. Whether it's a doctor or a plumber or even a computer technic…

I agree with your general sentiment but having basic knowledge and knowing some terminology can get you farther.

It's like going to a foreign country and making an effort to speak their language. Even if you're bad at it and end up having a conversation in your native language they'll respect you for the effort.

You wouldn't see a doctor and pretend to also be one but understanding some basic terminology and diagnostic procedure will help.

Re: Shibboleths that get you past the initial script stage

#124

Post by hprotagonist » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 5:26 PM UTC

leipert wrote: post #99

hprotagonist wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while presumably if you have gone to the trouble of learning Dutch, you'd know how to pronounce "Scheveningen". It’s actually hard to do. This is a good choice of shibboleth. I’d propose “squirrel” as an english word to find german speakers. Famously, pacific theater allied forces occasionally used “lollapalooza” as a shibboleth, also for fairly obvious reasons.

Ha. That is nice, because Eichhörnchen ( squirrel ) is also a hard one in German.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FRD4uq1mVw

both ways :)

Re: Shibboleths that get you past the initial script stage

#125

Post by gist » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 5:33 PM UTC

fortran77 wrote: post #103

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #81

Many of these are equivalent to demanding to speak to the manager in order to get what you want. That can backfire quickly if you’re not careful. > Present as if you are collecting a paper trail. Prominent indicia of this include notebooks, organized files, and repeatedly asking for specific names, dates, and citations for authority “for my notes.” I worked at a smaller company where any semi-threatening support requ…

Right. And what really backfires is threatening to sue. In a company large enough to have a legal department, they'll hand you over to it, and basically nothing will get fixed. They'll record your complaints, dates, and times, and stop interacting with you.

Exactly. I am amazed by how many people think that is the right thing to do. In most cases that will immediately get you 'turfed' (old 'House of God' expression I think) to the legal department. The people who you are dealing with then no longer have to deal with you. That is better for them, not worse. Very general pattern but what I have found to be true. It's a common newbie misconception. Think about it for a second. Why would some lower level person care that you are going to sue their company? For that matter any small business owner knows that is BS as well (where there is no legal department). Reason is they know the cost of getting legal help and the process and that it's not trivial and not going to be done it's just an empty threat by a person who is typically clueless.

There is another case also. The one of 'my (insert relative) is a lawyer'. In that case it's also an empty threat. Nobody is doing free legal work for family at least not more than a letter. Their time is what they bill for. The idea that they are going to take on major work with no outcome and not getting paid makes no sense. Are their contingency arrangements? Sure but most likely not for what someone is threatening legal action for.

Re: Shibboleths that get you past the initial script stage

#126

Post by bentcorner » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 5:35 PM UTC

egdod wrote: post #102

nkrisc wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This method works wonders for corporate tech support. They're pretty used to the "my monitor won't turn on (it's not plugged in)" type users so when you try to tell them you know what's wrong, they assume you're there former type and you have no idea what you're talking about. Instead I very clearly tell them the specific symptoms and relevant information that they would look up anyway. Recently I had a corporate ins…

I did similar recently. I emailed the support team with a screenshot of task manager showing what process it was, and I identified (with 30 seconds of googling) what product it was associated with. I like to think that saved everyone an hour of pointless fucking around.

If you're ever in this situation again, taking a performance trace is easy to do and potentially helpful for the triaging team.

wpr -start GeneralProfile

do something, or let process spin

wpr -stop foo.etl

Include foo.etl with your bug report. Be aware that it will include personal information from your machine (machine config, user paths, process names, etc.).

Re: Shibboleths that get you past the initial script stage

#127

Post by aazaa » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

> (This is partly about demeanor, above all not looking confused about the process, and partly judicious use of shibboleths. I’m occasionally surprised how few are required; it isn’t a state secret that “500mg of acetaminophen” and “a Tylenol” are the same thing.)

I can't think of a single situation in which it's a good idea to make it appear as if your medical knowledge is greater than it is. When the conversation shifts to whether your child is allergic to diphenhydramine, you'll wish you had taken a different approach.

Try honesty and interrogative-led questions instead.

Re: Shibboleths that get you past the initial script stage

#128

Post by philwelch » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 5:46 PM UTC

aguyfromnb wrote: post #31

fogetti wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “But I’m not a shareholder!” A surprising amount of Americans are shareholders in large financial institutions. Do you have an IRA? Does it invest in e.g. mutual funds? If you own a mutual fund or index fund, you are highly likely to beneficially own fractional shares of US financial institutions. Someone who owns 0.01 shares is a shareholder; welcome to the magic of capitalism. I like this guy. He has great insigh…

> I like this guy. He has great insight I'm sure customer service people and healthcare professionals love people coming on premises and throwing their weight around with exaggerations and half-truths. The people I know would put you on the bottom of the list.

His whole point is to bypass the “customer service people”.

Re: Shibboleths that get you past the initial script stage

#129

Post by cowpig » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 5:57 PM UTC

I had never seen the word "shibboleth" before reading the article about "The Real Class War" this week, and now I'm seeing it in the title of a submission days later.

It's not spiking in google trends[1], but I wonder if the usage of this word spiking in this community? Or did this twitter user read that article? Or is it just coincidence?

[1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%201-m&q=...

Re: Shibboleths that get you past the initial script stage

#130

Post by mhink » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 6:01 PM UTC

leipert wrote: post #99

hprotagonist wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while presumably if you have gone to the trouble of learning Dutch, you'd know how to pronounce "Scheveningen". It’s actually hard to do. This is a good choice of shibboleth. I’d propose “squirrel” as an english word to find german speakers. Famously, pacific theater allied forces occasionally used “lollapalooza” as a shibboleth, also for fairly obvious reasons.

Ha. That is nice, because Eichhörnchen ( squirrel ) is also a hard one in German.

The same issue exists in French, as well! "Écureuil" (squirrel) is somewhat difficult for English speakers to pronounce, and "squirrel" (écureuil) is somewhat difficult for French speakers to pronounce.