Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Accountability sinks

aworkinglibrary.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–316 of 316 posts

Re: Accountability sinks

#311

Post by gregmac »

eru wrote: post #126
gregmac wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just switched ISPs, and the new one has one of the most obnoxious phone processes I've ever interacted with. I go through the usual hoops: press 1 for English, "we detected an account linked to the number you're calling from, is that that you're calling about?" ... Press 1 for support, press 1 for Internet, "no outages detected in your area. Most problems can be solved by rebooting your modem. Press 1 if you want t…

> Also, rebooting is offensive to me as a programmer. Kernel updates and memory leaks are the only reason you need to reboot. How absolutely shitty is modem firmware that the ISP actually spent the time to build this reboot system out??(Never mind that I personally don't feel like I've ever had a modem/isp actually problem solved by rebooting) Why is rebooting offensive to you? State is hard; resetting your system to…

It's a sign of bad code.

Yeah state is hard, but "else" statements are a thing. Even if a state is not "expected" if the system can represent it, it should be treated as possible.

Crash if you have to, but don't do unexpected things or just stop executing.

Re: Accountability sinks

#312

Post by 7bit »

ilumanty wrote: post #297
rougka wrote: post #64

I remember experiencing this in one of the German airports/airlines and having that exact thought. It was this fully automated airport, where the checkin is self serviced and you only interact with computers. Eventually, when I inserted my boarding pass I had a printed piece of paper back that said that they had to change my seat from aisle to midseat I then tried to find someone to talk to the entire way, but comput…

The experience is quite similar with DHL when you have a non-standard question. The chatbot is utterly useless and there is no way to contact a human being if you're not a business customer.

There is a way, but it is difficult. Most companies don't want you to call. Operators cost a ton of money. And what choice do you have really? Choose a different parcel service? All others are worse.

Re: Accountability sinks

#314

Post by valval »

atoav wrote: post #138
nh2 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is somewhat rubbish. I arrived at the train station in the night after 6 hours train journey. German Railways app shows there will be my final leg train in 45 minutes. I wait in the cold at night, sitting in the station building because it's warmer there. 5 minutes before departure I go on the platform. The local display shows no train, even though the all still shows it. I waited for nothing. Syncing the app…

And the root of all that? Privatization.

Communism is the answer!

Re: Accountability sinks

#315

Post by valval »

nh2 wrote: post #132
rougka wrote: post #64

I remember experiencing this in one of the German airports/airlines and having that exact thought. It was this fully automated airport, where the checkin is self serviced and you only interact with computers. Eventually, when I inserted my boarding pass I had a printed piece of paper back that said that they had to change my seat from aisle to midseat I then tried to find someone to talk to the entire way, but comput…

Germany is somewhat rubbish. I arrived at the train station in the night after 6 hours train journey. German Railways app shows there will be my final leg train in 45 minutes. I wait in the cold at night, sitting in the station building because it's warmer there. 5 minutes before departure I go on the platform. The local display shows no train, even though the all still shows it. I waited for nothing. Syncing the app…

I used to work with German people (I’m Finnish) and despite being pleasant people, simple things took a long time. It was always something to do with the responsible person not being available, perhaps on holiday or sick leave, and it wasn’t possible for anyone else to take over their responsibilities.

I got the feeling that papers were being pushed around from desk to desk until a vacant desk came along and progress stalled.

In the same job, I worked with Americans. Very nice people and super easy to get along with. Always friendly and with a healthy sense of humor. A certain lightness of heart was always present even when dealing with urgent or negative matters. Only thing was that they made a lot of mistakes that often didn’t seem accidental — I saw a bit of negligence, along the lines of “if someone took just one look at this, they’d be able to tell in seconds what’s wrong”.

Re: Accountability sinks

#316

Post by seec »

L-four wrote: post #294
seec wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is still a meaningful difference. Businesses usually need to have some profit even if minimum so they will run leaner for the same output because of efficiency. I agree that there are many big businesses bureaucracies but they tend to be in areas closely linked to the state/government because of heavy regulation: banks and insurance for example. They tend to survive despite their terrible efficiency because it…

A business only needs to make a profit efficiency is not required or desirable.

You need to have profit to make it worthwhile but the question is how much is actually desirable from a society standpoint.

At some point profit extraction at the cost of everything else is undesirable...

Post reply on HN