Every user was very nice. Everyone keen to learn, and talked to us politely. In fact, I enjoyed very much answering to their queries and helping them familiarise with the system. The satisfaction for a developer to interact with the end users, so many of them, who wanted to learn more about the system you developed, is tremendous. All, except one. He was not an end user, just an observer at the site. His surname starts with 'P' (think Singapore most famous contractor with yellow boots and curls). Let's just call him Mr. PCB in short, for P*** CH** B**. *censored*
I was happily teaching my users some of the features of the system. I turned my head and there he was, Mr PCB looking at me in his stern face. He had a slight resemblance of Ah-Bian, probably he thought that he was someone of that stature too. He said to me in a commanding tone, "You are xxx engineer right? Please tell your friend to put down his bag. You are not going anywhere." and something with the meaning of "just stay here and do your damm job". That made me freaking pissed. I was also carrying my bag at that time. We just came from the canteen, and were attending to the users questions immediately when we came back. That was why we were still carrying our bags.
Put the bag issue aside, who was he to tell us what to do? "You are not going anywhere?" What was he implying? Did Mr PCB thinks that he owned us? I can jolly well carry my bag around all day all I like. Maybe I will parade in front of him with a big duffel bag tomorrow. What ticked me off was his tone, attitude and use of words. We don't wear green. He was doing his job (not sure what his job was, probably to sit around zuo bo and pick on people), we were doing ours. Why should he throw his weight at us for no practical reason? Even my manager don't boss us around. Isn't it basic courtesy to speak to people nicely?
Before we ended the session today, he tried to threaten us. Again, I had no idea what it was for. He mentioned that the support will be 24hr next week and told us what we should do, implying we should not go missing. The fact was, he was just an observer, and had no idea what our arrangement with the end users were and what we job scope was. Then he mentioned that he had once threaten to cut the pay of an engineer who wanted to leave the site at six because since he worked for eight hours, he should just get eight hours of pay. That immediately struck me! This is the famous Mr PCB, and that engineer he mentioned is my colleague.
The real story went like this. We were not even supposed to support them on that occasion. Our agreement was purely phone support. Based on goodwill, my colleague went down to take a look at things. Everything was fine, and went smooth that day. Since it was six, my colleague decided to go home. This is completely appropriate. Afterall, our normal working hours is till six. But Mr PCB, thought that he was the biggest f*** around and everyone including those non-green must listen to him to. He went on to scold my colleague for leaving and complained to our manager.
Why would someone of that stature resort to threatening people, throwing his weight at people whom he had no authority over? At the end of the day, we respect our users, and they should respect us too. We acted professionally and I expected them to be likewise. I guess in the commercial world, some users may be unreasonable, but that was definitely not an expected behaviour of someone in green. He acted as if he was the one who paid us and could boss us around like one of his subordinates. He was merely an observer. Even in the commercial world, any form of support required some sort of payment - even for just looking around and doing nothing. And yet here we are giving our best, supporting on goodwill despite our thin resources, only to hear Mr PCB threatening us.
Totally unprofessional. I guess having some sea creatures on his shoulders made him think that he rules the world. Unfortunately his behaviour brings a bad name to the rest of his comrades in green.
At the end of the day, we still gave him that smile. We may just whine about it among ourselves, or bitch about it on our blogs. But his name is not disclosed. And we will continue to put in our best for our end user. Because, we are, professionals. Unlike Mr PCB.
I was happily teaching my users some of the features of the system. I turned my head and there he was, Mr PCB looking at me in his stern face. He had a slight resemblance of Ah-Bian, probably he thought that he was someone of that stature too. He said to me in a commanding tone, "You are xxx engineer right? Please tell your friend to put down his bag. You are not going anywhere." and something with the meaning of "just stay here and do your damm job". That made me freaking pissed. I was also carrying my bag at that time. We just came from the canteen, and were attending to the users questions immediately when we came back. That was why we were still carrying our bags.
Put the bag issue aside, who was he to tell us what to do? "You are not going anywhere?" What was he implying? Did Mr PCB thinks that he owned us? I can jolly well carry my bag around all day all I like. Maybe I will parade in front of him with a big duffel bag tomorrow. What ticked me off was his tone, attitude and use of words. We don't wear green. He was doing his job (not sure what his job was, probably to sit around zuo bo and pick on people), we were doing ours. Why should he throw his weight at us for no practical reason? Even my manager don't boss us around. Isn't it basic courtesy to speak to people nicely?
Before we ended the session today, he tried to threaten us. Again, I had no idea what it was for. He mentioned that the support will be 24hr next week and told us what we should do, implying we should not go missing. The fact was, he was just an observer, and had no idea what our arrangement with the end users were and what we job scope was. Then he mentioned that he had once threaten to cut the pay of an engineer who wanted to leave the site at six because since he worked for eight hours, he should just get eight hours of pay. That immediately struck me! This is the famous Mr PCB, and that engineer he mentioned is my colleague.
The real story went like this. We were not even supposed to support them on that occasion. Our agreement was purely phone support. Based on goodwill, my colleague went down to take a look at things. Everything was fine, and went smooth that day. Since it was six, my colleague decided to go home. This is completely appropriate. Afterall, our normal working hours is till six. But Mr PCB, thought that he was the biggest f*** around and everyone including those non-green must listen to him to. He went on to scold my colleague for leaving and complained to our manager.
Why would someone of that stature resort to threatening people, throwing his weight at people whom he had no authority over? At the end of the day, we respect our users, and they should respect us too. We acted professionally and I expected them to be likewise. I guess in the commercial world, some users may be unreasonable, but that was definitely not an expected behaviour of someone in green. He acted as if he was the one who paid us and could boss us around like one of his subordinates. He was merely an observer. Even in the commercial world, any form of support required some sort of payment - even for just looking around and doing nothing. And yet here we are giving our best, supporting on goodwill despite our thin resources, only to hear Mr PCB threatening us.
Totally unprofessional. I guess having some sea creatures on his shoulders made him think that he rules the world. Unfortunately his behaviour brings a bad name to the rest of his comrades in green.
At the end of the day, we still gave him that smile. We may just whine about it among ourselves, or bitch about it on our blogs. But his name is not disclosed. And we will continue to put in our best for our end user. Because, we are, professionals. Unlike Mr PCB.
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