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Tech Support Revisited digg this article | del.icio.us this article As anyone who has ever worked in tech support knows, stupid questions deserve stupid answers. You'd think that FileMaker, being so much easier to use than other databases, would make better programmers out of us, and eliminate the stupid questions. But sometimes I wonder if it hasn't had the opposite effect, actually causing atrophy of some of the brain's higher logic centers. Advanced Database Systems' internal email server is a lively place. This is where innocent ADS programmers ask abstract FileMaker questions, and where treacherous rogues waylay them with brutal sarcasm. Whether the eternal adage "Problem exists between keyboard and chair" is the case or not, I have found that sarcasm is the most satisfying response to give, though perhaps not the most efficacious. Our most experienced programmer was trying to tackle the ageless client request to make the database respond to keyboard commands "like other Windows programs." She posed this question to the list on the off-chance that someone knew a workaround. With easy confidence, I pointed her to the Status(CurrentKeyboardMode) flag (new to FileMaker 5) and advised her to set it to "true." Little did I expect that she then combed through her manual, did web searches, scanned the app with a block editor, and was driven so mad hunting for this command that she actually killed three people over the weekend and had a fourth trapped in a pit in her basement. You can guess the unfortunate fate of the green ADS programmer who dared to ask for help on this:
Maybe some of these guys who are retiring early selling their plug-ins to FileMaker can dedicate some of that wealth to the development of the Programmer Skill plug-in. They could sell site licenses everywhere. Maybe the next product would be the Create Finished Solution Automatically plug-in. I can't say enough about the Status functions. When FileMaker gave us access to these important registers with version 3, it opened up a whole new universe of tech support possibilities. No longer were we limited to the boring features that actually exist in FileMaker, we could now invent a limitless domain of ones that don't. So little time, and so few innocent programmers with honest questions:
When Status(CreativeJuices) are "false," the following has been reported on the list as a response to almost any FileMaker related question:
When any question is longer than one or two succinct sentences, like nine pages of gobbledygook with field definitions, script listings, attached files, URL references, and quotations from the manual, any of several generic answers is appropriate. To wit:
or
or the eternal
It's one thing when the victims are being paid to receive the abuse, but it's a whole different ball game when providing tech support to a paying client. One could argue that the minute a client signs the service contract, they're agreeing to be abused for the better part of a year. But the client may see it differently. Here are some techniques which I cannot endorse, but which you may find helpful when a client calls to report a problem with your FileMaker solution:
For no logical reason, FileMaker files are often blamed when a user's computer crashes. Users always assume that the developer has maliciously used Set Crash Mode[On], and they grumble about "That's how those IT people maintain their power over us." Of course, if you really want to be cruel, you can advise your Windows users to fix the crashing problem by installing the latest version of DirectX, then selecting a generic video driver. The sad thing is, that one's true.
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