“the hot water isn’t working” could be understood to mean “the water in the hot water tap is not hot”, but it could also be understood to mean “the water is not flowing out of the hot water tap”.
The picture helps clarify the original statement. OP, this interaction is not nearly as bizarre as you make it out to be. It’s pretty typical of virtually all support requests. It’s incredibly common, when asking for support, that the requester assumes information is obvious when it is in fact not.
It’s still kind of a weird way to request that information. They could have just upfront asked “is the hot water tap not working at all, or is it just not hot?”.
Having worked in IT I can tell you that often asking for specifics (even simple ones like what you said) will just get you a reply of “I don’t know it’s just broken. Fix it.” If you even get a response at all. Asking for a screenshot (or a picture in this case) is an action that you are requiring the user to take and is much more likely to at least get a response even if the response isn’t always helpful.
If the landlord had just asked for clarification I wouldn’t be surprised if they just got a response of “It just doesn’t work.” Which is far less helpful than even that picture.
Yep. During my very short (6 mos) stint as a tech support rep for Dell, I’ve learned to assume your customer is an idiot. Even when they’re using techie terms or jargon (and at times more so). Never assume other things besides that or you’ll probably regret it.
You have to be very clear and precise. A single misunderstanding can take a simple problem a lot of time to get fixed.
While I agree with everything you wrote, this conversation is far from a typical support request. Both sides are fucking idiots without any common sense.
“the hot water isn’t working” could be understood to mean “the hot water refuses to go out and get a job”, but it could also be understood to mean “the hot water is just sitting around in it’s boxers all day drinking beer”.
Not sure what you’re talking about. Hot and cold water definitely use different pipes. I’m not even sure how that would work with one pipe unless you were mixing right at the water heater or something.
“the hot water isn’t working” could be understood to mean “the water in the hot water tap is not hot”, but it could also be understood to mean “the water is not flowing out of the hot water tap”.
The picture helps clarify the original statement. OP, this interaction is not nearly as bizarre as you make it out to be. It’s pretty typical of virtually all support requests. It’s incredibly common, when asking for support, that the requester assumes information is obvious when it is in fact not.
It’s still kind of a weird way to request that information. They could have just upfront asked “is the hot water tap not working at all, or is it just not hot?”.
Having worked in IT I can tell you that often asking for specifics (even simple ones like what you said) will just get you a reply of “I don’t know it’s just broken. Fix it.” If you even get a response at all. Asking for a screenshot (or a picture in this case) is an action that you are requiring the user to take and is much more likely to at least get a response even if the response isn’t always helpful.
If the landlord had just asked for clarification I wouldn’t be surprised if they just got a response of “It just doesn’t work.” Which is far less helpful than even that picture.
Yep. During my very short (6 mos) stint as a tech support rep for Dell, I’ve learned to assume your customer is an idiot. Even when they’re using techie terms or jargon (and at times more so). Never assume other things besides that or you’ll probably regret it.
You have to be very clear and precise. A single misunderstanding can take a simple problem a lot of time to get fixed.
15 out of 16 times, or more so, they’re useless.
While I agree with everything you wrote, this conversation is far from a typical support request. Both sides are fucking idiots without any common sense.
I’m assuming you recognize this is you’re ex’s kitchen sink.
I doubt he is “ex’s kitchen sink”
“the hot water isn’t working” could be understood to mean “the hot water refuses to go out and get a job”, but it could also be understood to mean “the hot water is just sitting around in it’s boxers all day drinking beer”.
In America we have both in the same faucet so the photo is less useful over here
Not sure what you’re talking about. Hot and cold water definitely use different pipes. I’m not even sure how that would work with one pipe unless you were mixing right at the water heater or something.
The faucet not the pipes. The picture is of a faucet and there is one. Likely because hot and cold water both come out of it