It's just time to...

    Hello all, I have some opinions that I would like to throw out to the blog world.  Hopefully I can get all of these to fall into one cohesive thought pattern, but if not bear with me I will do my best.  I am going to call this series “It’s just time to…”  I have worked with CATI for more than 8 years now and cover a variety of roles.  From presales meetings and demonstrations, to phone in technical support, and on site consulting I have worked with our cad customers through tons of issues. From their networks and workstations, setups and installations, to training and support.

    Let’s start with a few things from the support department.  The fact is that sometimes the support tech on the other end of the phone is afraid of coming off as rude, blunt or pushy.  We do our best to understand your business, and what you are trying to do or what you are expecting from the software.   Techs are great at finding work arounds or loop holes to help get the job done.  This can be seen day in and day out on support.  I think that some of the work arounds given by techs often do a great disservice to the customer.  Yes, the fact is he will more than likely find a way to do whatever you are trying to do, but the reality of the situation is that the customer is now using work around for a function that does not, or should not be used in that way.  Many times the work around adds a magnitude of complexity. Though yes they found a way to work around or give the customer what they were looking for, the fact is that it could take much longer in the long run for the workaround than doing this the right way from the start.

Sometime the answer should be no.   Sometimes what you are trying to do really is a bad idea.  Sometimes the answer the customer gets they may not like.  I’m sorry; sometimes it is in your best interest to hear the hard truth.  (The Hard Truth was a contender for the name of the series too.)

 I brought the idea for the series to my boss.  I told him that I have an idea that I believed would over flow with content.  One that all of the techs could contribute to, but most of all one that I thought people would be interested in and read.  That got his ear, but it was then that I dropped the bomb shell.  I told him that there was only one condition that I would even pitch the idea to him.  I wanted full publish rights.  The articles had to go straight to the blog, no mediator, or fact checker, and no one checking for the politically right thing to say.  It needs to be straight forward, and the fact is that it may make some people a little mad.    It took a little convincing, but here it is.  Please understand that the articles are being written by me or the other techs, we are not writers by trade, just a bunch of tech guys that would like a venue to level with our customers and the cad world.  We are not trying to make anyone mad or put anyone down.  This is about telling it like it is, and the fact is, It’s Just Time to: