I like the part in the middle when the support guy put him on hold and he let out this fairly long and quite audible sigh of exasperation.
I thought his explanations and examples, though futile, were quite good. I doubt I could have come up with anything better in his shoes.
I get the impression that each of the people he talked to didn't have much confidence in their math skills. The last person even admitted this. I think this is part of the reason why the conversation went on so long.
The calculator usage was interesting, especially how each of the support people he talked to seemed to rely on it to give correct answers. Which it did, but...
I agree that the customer seemed to be genuinely trying to help them out. I probably couldn't have done better, but I'd like to find out what I'd need to know to be able to do better.
The calculator thing is definitely interesting. I think some people might be tempted to blame over-reliance on calculators for the lack of math intuition, but I would guess that's not the problem. I suspect that if you take away the calculators people just transfer their trust to a mindlessly-executed pencil-and-paper algorithm.
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winterfish
no subject
Date: 2006-12-12 01:42 pm (UTC)I thought his explanations and examples, though futile, were quite good. I doubt I could have come up with anything better in his shoes.
I get the impression that each of the people he talked to didn't have much confidence in their math skills. The last person even admitted this. I think this is part of the reason why the conversation went on so long.
The calculator usage was interesting, especially how each of the support people he talked to seemed to rely on it to give correct answers. Which it did, but...
no subject
Date: 2006-12-12 08:51 pm (UTC)The calculator thing is definitely interesting. I think some people might be tempted to blame over-reliance on calculators for the lack of math intuition, but I would guess that's not the problem. I suspect that if you take away the calculators people just transfer their trust to a mindlessly-executed pencil-and-paper algorithm.