
The 4 Types of Emails Programmers Receive - kpanghmc
http://www.kevinwilliampang.com/2010/03/12/the-4-types-of-emails-programmers-receive/
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blhack
I'm a sys-admin, not a programmer...for me, the "OMFG THE COMPUTERS ARE ON
FUCKING FIRE!!!!!!!" emails, which are always CC'd to at least 10 people, end
up being something stupid like

"Reset your password...that box, the one that keeps popping up telling you
that you need to reset your password, what it generally means is that your
password has expired and that YOU NEED TO RESET IT!"

My favorite is when a printer runs out of toner and I get an email saying
"Help!" (which I _loathe_ ) "we're all 'down' over here and can't get
anything! HELP! SORRY FOR BUGGING YOU!"

This drives me insane because:

A) Stop using "help", you're not 6 years old, you haven't fallen down a well

B) You know how to change the toner, there is a _stack_ of toners sitting
right next to your printer.

C) You're not "down", "everyone" is not "down"... _you_ specifically cannot
print, the printer is _telling_ you that you can't print, and it's even
_telling_ you how to fix the problem, just LOOK AT IT!

D) Saying "sorry for bugging you" has got to be one of the most obnoxious
things you could even possibly say. Stop. If you need something, just ask for
it.

Comic related: <http://newslily.com/comics/17>

Also, in some ways this: <http://newslily.com/comics/24>

~~~
Periodic
I also work largely as a sys-admin, but I do some desktop support as well.

I get a lot of vague emails. "My internet is down," is a favorite of mine, as
it could be a network outage, a local computer misconfiguration, a page being
inaccessible, or simply the user getting an error page from the site because
the URL they bookmarked doesn't exist anymore. If it's an email problem, it's
probably because they didn't read the error message.

I also loathe when people walk over to my desk and say, "I hope I'm not
interrupting you. {insert problem}". Now I've already been interrupted, so my
train of thought has been derailed (worst when programming). I then have two
choices, help the person because I am now not so busy with something else that
I can't help but reward their behavior by doing so, or brush them off and try
to get back on track with my previous task and risk being a bit of a jerk in
the process.

Either way, I've already lost out. I'd gladly take a vague email over a
confused user walking over to my desk.

~~~
blhack
At least you get the descriptive "internet".

Lots of times I just get "I'm locked up"...

My favorite "I'm locked up" is when somebody else logs on to the workstation
that the user normally uses. "Locked up" means "there is a different user name
in the user name field that mine!".

Another favorite is when a user types their password wrong enough times on our
iSeries system. It does something called "varying off" (disabling the terminal
until I re-enable it)...so they keep trying... _at all the rest of the
terminals_. Pretty effective denial of service attack if you ask me!

I remember one user who was furious with me because he had worked for the
company for over a year, and WHY THE HELL HADN'T I SET HIM UP WITH AN
EMAIL!!!?!?!

I had...the trouble was that he had to click the icon (which is on his
desktop, and on his start menu) labeled "email". Oh joy!

Also, don't get me wrong, I love my job :), sometimes the users screw up, but
it's generally pretty low-impact :).

------
Deestan
This is how _we_ handle those emails:

Reply to _The Vague Email_ option A: This might be one of the 8 reported
errors in your version, does any of the following apply to your situation
(link-to-bug-tickets)? Please check if upgrading to version+1 beta (link)
fixes the problem. If not, please if possible provide an exact step-by-step
reproduction recipe, as described on <http://somewhere/how-to-report-errors>.

Reply to _The Vague Email_ option B: This is not a known error, and XYZ works
for me. Please if possible provide an exact step-by-step reproduction recipe,
as described on <http://somewhere/how-to-report-errors>.

Reply to _The End of the World Email_ : None. This is always more political
than technical, so the department leader gets to handle these ... people.

Reply to _The Red Herring Email_ : Yes, it is working. Can you please give
details as described on as described on <http://somewhere/how-to-report-
errors> ?

Reply to _The Ideal Email_ : Thank you for the detailed report. We will start
working on this issue immediately/next tuesday/next month. You can try
workaround ZYX or download version+1 beta in the meantime. If the problem
becomes urgent, please let us know.

~~~
ghfdrvtsyup
I find that for each of these e-mails, I make a decision about what to do
based on who the user is. Some users are much more careful about writing an
'End of the world' e-mail than others and should be handled accordingly.

------
thwarted
_The End of the World Email -- URGENT!!! System is down! NONE of our users can
do XYZ! Please advise!!!11!_

I'd love to get one that actually said "advise". I usually get "please
advice".

~~~
waterlesscloud
"Please advise" is one of my pet peeves. It's almost always a passive-
aggressive code word.

~~~
thwarted
At least they're using the correct word. "please advice" makes no sense.

------
javery
Or what about the:

"My brother/brother in law/uncle is a plumber/chiropractor/architect and all
the software they have sucks! How about they tell you what they want, you
build it, and we can cut you in for 20%"

~~~
presidentender
My favorite in that vein was a complaint about the quality of... CattleMax, a
software package for tracking cows. It's a frontend for a database with fewer
than ten tables. Somewhere in eastern MT are a couple of ranchers who'll be
rich, if they can just get someone to write, support, and advertise this
software in exchange for 10% of the net profits. Unfortunately, I am not that
someone.

------
jrschulz
Actually, one of our customers started writing "Thank you!" e-mails one or two
weeks ago. I guess my boss managed to convince her that twenty hours of
support per day is _not_ the norm.

------
javajones
I find I can get more of the last kind of emails when I'm working with one or
two folks who appreciate knowing how to get their issues solved. i.e. I train
the folks I work with on how to help me help them. It takes time and there are
usually only a handful of people who will do this, the rest will continue to
do what they always do. But every little bit helps. My biggest satisfaction
comes when new employees learn from my favorite few without me having to teach
them. :)

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ja27
"We've been having this [really easy to diagnose and solve] problem and
haven't been able to use your product for 3 days."

"I'm in the middle of doing a demo at [big prospect] and had [obscure problem]
when doing [something nobody's tested]."

"Why didn't we do [proposed solution that was argued at length for weeks
before choosing the current one]?"

"Thanks to [list of everyone except the guy that really did all the work] for
working so hard on this release."

------
dkarl
"My computer is messed up. It keeps saying X."

"It's right, believe it."

"Umm... really? Hey, that worked!"

------
Semiapies
I will say that I'm glad to have a few clients who'll throw me something like
the Ideal Email.

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dbz
I do a lot of free coding for people, and my most favorite email is "YOU
CHEATED ME AND GAVE ME A BROKEN SCRIPT!" because they didn't understand how to
use it.

I've almost never gotten the 4th and best type of email =/

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VBprogrammer
I only count 3 types of email, I have yet to spot an example of the 'ideal
email' in the wild!

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callmeed
You forgot the 5th one:

"We're sorry to say we couldn't accept your proposal for funding."

------
mcantor
Sadly, we hapless programmers are the only ones who will ever read this blog
post.

