My dad once called a client stupid for continuing to ask for a feature that made no sense. Technically, he asked “why would you want that? What, are you stupid?”
Then he got chewed out by his boss who told him that clients who ask questions aren’t stupid. My dad told her that the client asked a stupid question. His boss told him that it wasn’t a stupid question, that she thought it was a very good question from an uninformed client. So then my dad called his boss stupid.
Then he got sent to sensitivity training. He completed the mandatory hours, got his certificate, and a letter recognizing his difficulties with reasonable discourse vs arguing and calling people stupid. The instructor recommended that my dad shouldn’t interface directly with any clients anymore. So they made my dad’s younger brother his supervisor since he could translate my dad’s comments and questions into more diplomatic terms.
ETA: this story was from the '80s. He got better over time.
That’s a bad look. He may be smart but that’s really unprofessional. You call them whatever you want behind their backs. You don’t insult clients to their face no matter how stupid they are. He’s lucky he kept his job.
You don’t insult clients, period. You never know who is listening, who will rat you out, etc. Worse yet, you might send that email to the client too by mistake and get fired.
Also it shows a lack of empathy. 9/10 times it’s not that the client is dumb, but that they’re unfamiliar with processes, recieved conflicting information, have other requirements you don’t know about, have personal things going on, or an endless host of other factors.
It could even be that you didn’t do your job properly in explaining or walking them through. Like if I was a customer and the client-facing representative was so fragile that he’d blow up in my face over a minor inconvenience, I probably wouldn’t feel comfortable asking for something explained a second time.
My father was an incredible genius with a terrible temper. He softened up over time and eventually would talk to clients politely. And then he died. The end.
Not a disagreeing with you but I worked with few engineers like this. This is the reason for project managers and sales people as a buffer with clients.
They kind of made that joke in Office Space.
I can 100% understand that frustration of not cutting out the middle man. In some cases it would be highly beneficial.
I remember the story where they customer wanted to have the back of passenger plane open up, sales guy sold it, engineers did it without question. At the end someone asked why, it was because the customer wanted to quickly exchange air… People loss their minds but management was too busy counting the money.
“Hey boss, @[email protected] says they don’t like the new telephones? Says they’re made for kids or something.”
@[email protected]: I still don’t know why I was fired… The boss kept telling me to shove the phone system? Maybe they meant push? Was I supposed to work on some branch of the phone system?
As a dev who does the client talking, sometimes it’s really hard to avoid calling the client stupid. One time, while trying to confirm some stuff for a system, the following exchange happened:
M - Ok, so is this field mandatory?
C - Yes!
* Shows off other stuff, comes backtothatfirst field *
M - Alright, so the user will fill this field, which is mandatory
C - No! That field shouldn't be mandatory!
M - ? But you said it was?
C - No, I didn't!
* Rewrite my notes, which the client saw me writing inthefirst place, stating the field isnot mandatory. Proceed withthe flow, come backtothe field *
M - Alright, this field, isit mandatory, yes or no?
C - Yes!
There was also a different client that asked for a number of changes to a system, we did them, then, once he was supposed to test them give the final Ok, he came with “oh, we won’t use that flow anymore, everything changed” - My boss chewed him hard and left his request at the lowest priority.
In my experience they want the field to be mandatory but don’t want anything preventing them from skipping it if they’ve personally decided to skip it, “just this once.”
That sounds like one of those “okay, I know you want the field there, so it’s mandatory for me to include it, but is it mandatory for your customers to enter values in this field? If your customers can leave the field blank, is that good or bad?”
My dad worked incredibly well internally and was essentially the primary coder. Of the 27 patents his company held, my dad did almost all the work for 17 of them. His biggest internal issue was not being able to get rid of old technology, so there were two offices filled with old junk that would keep him from complaining.
As a worker, my dad was not toxic at all, possibly a little quirky. Now as a father… I’d definitely agree with the word “toxic.”
So I’d like to submit a correction to your statement about my dead father: he kind of sucked
My dad once called a client stupid for continuing to ask for a feature that made no sense. Technically, he asked “why would you want that? What, are you stupid?”
Then he got chewed out by his boss who told him that clients who ask questions aren’t stupid. My dad told her that the client asked a stupid question. His boss told him that it wasn’t a stupid question, that she thought it was a very good question from an uninformed client. So then my dad called his boss stupid.
Then he got sent to sensitivity training. He completed the mandatory hours, got his certificate, and a letter recognizing his difficulties with reasonable discourse vs arguing and calling people stupid. The instructor recommended that my dad shouldn’t interface directly with any clients anymore. So they made my dad’s younger brother his supervisor since he could translate my dad’s comments and questions into more diplomatic terms.
ETA: this story was from the '80s. He got better over time.
That’s a bad look. He may be smart but that’s really unprofessional. You call them whatever you want behind their backs. You don’t insult clients to their face no matter how stupid they are. He’s lucky he kept his job.
You don’t insult clients, period. You never know who is listening, who will rat you out, etc. Worse yet, you might send that email to the client too by mistake and get fired.
That’s an unfair dismissal lawsuit: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/smith-oxford-b2616638.html
Also it shows a lack of empathy. 9/10 times it’s not that the client is dumb, but that they’re unfamiliar with processes, recieved conflicting information, have other requirements you don’t know about, have personal things going on, or an endless host of other factors.
It could even be that you didn’t do your job properly in explaining or walking them through. Like if I was a customer and the client-facing representative was so fragile that he’d blow up in my face over a minor inconvenience, I probably wouldn’t feel comfortable asking for something explained a second time.
My father was an incredible genius with a terrible temper. He softened up over time and eventually would talk to clients politely. And then he died. The end.
See what being polite to clients gets you…your dad had it right in the beginning calling it how he sees it!!!
Some people can deal with stupid people, some can’t. Manager is stupid to not know the difference.
Not a disagreeing with you but I worked with few engineers like this. This is the reason for project managers and sales people as a buffer with clients. They kind of made that joke in Office Space.
https://youtu.be/m4OvQIGDg4I?Oosz1OyOb9lRBLKT
Meanwhile, I’m a dev who can actually talk to people, but I still have to go through 5-6 layers of business people mangling what the user said…
I can 100% understand that frustration of not cutting out the middle man. In some cases it would be highly beneficial. I remember the story where they customer wanted to have the back of passenger plane open up, sales guy sold it, engineers did it without question. At the end someone asked why, it was because the customer wanted to quickly exchange air… People loss their minds but management was too busy counting the money.
It’s as if they don’t remember playing telephone when they were kids.
“Hey boss, @[email protected] says they don’t like the new telephones? Says they’re made for kids or something.”
@[email protected]: I still don’t know why I was fired… The boss kept telling me to shove the phone system? Maybe they meant push? Was I supposed to work on some branch of the phone system?
As a dev who does the client talking, sometimes it’s really hard to avoid calling the client stupid. One time, while trying to confirm some stuff for a system, the following exchange happened:
M - Ok, so is this field mandatory? C - Yes! * Shows off other stuff, comes back to that first field * M - Alright, so the user will fill this field, which is mandatory C - No! That field shouldn't be mandatory! M - ? But you said it was? C - No, I didn't! * Rewrite my notes, which the client saw me writing in the first place, stating the field is not mandatory. Proceed with the flow, come back to the field * M - Alright, this field, is it mandatory, yes or no? C - Yes!There was also a different client that asked for a number of changes to a system, we did them, then, once he was supposed to test them give the final Ok, he came with “oh, we won’t use that flow anymore, everything changed” - My boss chewed him hard and left his request at the lowest priority.
In my experience they want the field to be mandatory but don’t want anything preventing them from skipping it if they’ve personally decided to skip it, “just this once.”
Time spend undoing/redoing stuff and delays caused by clients should always be billed, and contracts should address that.
That sounds like one of those “okay, I know you want the field there, so it’s mandatory for me to include it, but is it mandatory for your customers to enter values in this field? If your customers can leave the field blank, is that good or bad?”
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My dad worked incredibly well internally and was essentially the primary coder. Of the 27 patents his company held, my dad did almost all the work for 17 of them. His biggest internal issue was not being able to get rid of old technology, so there were two offices filled with old junk that would keep him from complaining.
As a worker, my dad was not toxic at all, possibly a little quirky. Now as a father… I’d definitely agree with the word “toxic.”
So I’d like to submit a correction to your statement about my dead father: he kind of sucked