Have you tried turning it on and off again?
So a brand new month and a brand new encounter with IT weirdness. Once again... we architects are, in the end, responsible for all this. keep that in mind when you spit out your coffee while reading this.
My banking website allows me to start certain business flows (request a loan, or apply for insurance...) and I recently had a need to do this.
Halfway through this process, while uploading files, the website decided to crash on me with the message "Oops, this doesn't work right now, try again later".
Ok ok... I am an IT guy, I know the problems of running big websites and running complex software. I believe you, I will try again (hopefully when this specific service has recovered or is available).
After a few days of trying this every evening (and even in multiple browsers and turning off all my plugins; not your average user behavior), I gave up and called the helpdesk.
Helpdesk: "Yeah... this happens.. process is stuck."
Me: "Ok so what now?"
Helpdesk: "Just delete the request and create it again. Then it will probably work."
It did work, but I was amazed that the "have you tried turning it on and off" solution is still valid is todays software world.
Two lessons to be learnt here: Make sure your error messages are clear so that the user KNOWS WHAT IS HAPPENING and make sure the Yeah-we-know-this-happens nonsense doesn't end up in production.
aka: The Holistic IT Guy - Conceiving software solutions to shape the future | Making building software fun, agile and people-oriented | #solutionsArchitecture #LiveToLearn #NerdAtHeart #YogaMindset #JavaCraftsmanship
1 年Unfortunately we don't know what did happen with your support call. There are 2 possible reactions. The first reaction is that the helpdesk guy closes your support ticket and helps the next guy who can't upload his document. What basically will convert to a full time job. Probably drinking a cofee with a colleague later on commenting that today he had 6 calls with users that are to ###@# to upload documents The other option is that they escalate the ticket and some-one will search for the root-cause. With will give the support guy time to actually handle real user issues and give him the opportunity to drink a cofee with his colleagues and talk about his childeren. Core lesson is, it is not bad to have issues, what is bad is not learning from them...
Tech Lead
1 年Yes. It worked.