Five Ways Users Self-sabotage When Reporting Problems

In desktop support and in software development, there runs a common thread - responding to requests for help from users. And this remains some of the greatest tests of patience known to man. Not because the problems are tricky, though sometimes they can be. Not because the users are rude, though on occasion, a couple would greatly benefit from some goddamn manners. No, because sometimes, the way users report problems, just does not help themselves.

Let's go through a few ways that users' requests for help inspires intense rage could be improved.

1. "It doesn't work."

This is probably one of the most exasperating things a techie can hear. Because that phrase, and its numerous variations, basically tells you there's a problem, perhaps a general area, and that's all. It doesn't tell you anything else. No, the user informs you that there's a problem, and expects you to figure everything else from that mysterious statement.

Printer is on fire.

For example, telling us "help, I can't print" is a statement about as useful as a can of diesel to Elon Musk. "I can't print" could mean anything.

- the printer printed blank sheets of paper
- the printout was garbled.
- the print button on the screen did not respond to clicks.
- the print button could be clicked but nothing happened.
- the print button flashed, beeped, triggered the Fire Alarm and rebooted your life.

For extra aggravation points, the user might even write an email with a few paragraphs while including no information as to what the problem is, beyond "we're unable to print", ending with "we would appreciate your help as soon as possible". That in no way sounds like they want our help as soon as possible. In fact, it feels distinctively like they'd rather we take our own sweet time to decipher what the problem actually is, before we do a damn thing.

How To Do Better: Users should actually describe the damn problem beyond "it doesn't work". Because if it did work, there wouldn't be a need for this conversation.

2. What are we looking at?

The user tells you what they see on screen. Sometimes they even send you a screenshot. Neither of which is helpful, because what you see isn't an error message. It's something that looks perfectly innocuous on screen, and only the user knows why it's wrong.

Except the user has neglected to tell you exactly what is wrong. No, apparently having a tech degree means that you can somehow infer what the problem is, in the absence of any other indicators. Which leads me to think that the problem is not that systems have bugs. It's that system users think tech is actually witchcraft.

Not witchcraft.

So if you see a series of numbers in a column, you're supposed to magically know one of those numbers is supposed to be negative instead of positive. If you're sent a screenshot of a message that says "Record Saved", you're supposed to instinctively know that the problem was that the record was, in fact, not saved. Or perhaps the problem was that the record was saved when it shouldn't have been. Or perhaps the problem was that it was spelled in English, when the user's settings were in some other language. Who can tell?

What is with all this vagueness? Do users realize that if techies were capable of reading minds, we wouldn't be working here?

How To Do Better: Users should tell us exactly what they expected would happen but didn't. Without that information, it's hard to tell whether anything is wrong in the first place.

3. How did they get there?

This is when the user tells you what went wrong, and maybe even why it's wrong, but neglects to explain how it came about. Which is kind of like Hansel and Gretel wandering around in some dark forest and neglecting to leave breadcrumbs.

Leave us a trail!

In order to properly diagnose the source of the problem, we need to trace exactly the steps that the user took that led to the problem. In certain cases, this can actually be a case of the user using the system in ways it was not meant to be used. For example, trying to log in to a system and being unable to... and failing to mention that the URL they're using is the UAT site's rather than Production's.

Some users want to avoid looking stupid and leave out that information, perhaps hoping that the air of mystery will help. If I need to point out the irony here, you haven't been at this job long enough.

How To Do Better: The user was doing something that led to this. Whatever the user was doing, needs to be properly articulated because it is probably relevant.

4. Screenshots

For some unfathomable reason, when there's relevant information in a string that needs to be passed to the software developer - such as an id, URL or IP Address - users seem to prefer sending them as screenshots.

Exasperating as all hell when there's info in there that you now have to type out character by character, and probably make a few typos in the process. Now with modern tools such as LLMs that can analyze the image, this has become only slightly less exasperating.

Don't send pictures
of text, please!

Why is this completely stupid? Well, when you're being asked for help, generally, you'd expect those asking for help to at least try to make it easier for you to help them.

Also, copying and pasting text is significantly easier than manually reproducing text from a screenshot. But copying and pasting text takes about the same amount of effort as pasting a screenshot. Now, I could understand if the users were inconveniencing me in order to make their own lives easier... I wouldn't like it, but I would at least understand it. However, at this juncture, they're inconveniencing me without actually making things easier for themselves, so this entire exercise of pasting screenshots remains a damn mystery. It has zero practical value.

The truly horrifying thing is that this isn't confined to laypersons - other techies do it as well. Yes, this brand of insanity isn't confined to people who aren't actually expected to know better.

Bonus points for writing stuff down in handwriting that would make a doctor proud and sending a photo of it, instead of typing it like a normal person.

How To Do Better: Unless the information is wholly visual - colors, layout, etc - and does not include text of any kind that needs to be used by the support - ids, ip addresses, dates, etc - screenshots should not be used as a primary means of communicating the problem.

5. Jumping to Conclusions

This is when the user self-diagnoses and ends up sending you on a wild-goose chase. To be fair, even techies are capable of jumping to wrong conclusions with alarming frequency... except that in the case of techies, their wrong conclusions tend to be directionally correct. In the same ballpark, even.

Laypersons, as mentioned, tend to treat tech like witchcraft, so their wrong conclusions can be comically inaccurate. I remember one fascinating incident where the user reported that the changes to the database were not persisting. The next point of escalation was to the database team, because naturally, support had no direct access to the data. After days of barking up the wrong tree, it turned out that the fault was in the front-end code - it cached the previous result even though the data had been updated, thus misleading the user into thinking that it was a database problem.

What users should do, in these cases, is stick to the facts. The user should have just reported the simple fact that her display was showing previous data even though she had already updated it. This would have set support further back on the path, but at least they would not have been miles ahead on the wrong path.

Barking up the
wrong tree.

In this instance, though, I blame the techies for taking the complaint at face value in the first place. When are we going to learn to stop giving users so much credit? If you consulted a doctor and proceeded to diagnose yourself while asking for medication, could you expect to be taken seriously?

How To Do Better: Skip the diagnosis. Lay out the issue properly. Nobody's interested in your opinion - in fact, it tends to muddy the waters. Stick to facts.

Don't make yourselves un-rescuable

If users want help from techies, they should try making it easy for techies to help them. Or, at least, stop making it so devilishly hard. When you report a problem, just try to put yourselves in the shoes of the ones receiving your report, and see if it makes any damn sense.

Whats your problem?
T___T

In defense of small steps

It was 1997. I was a Temasek Polytechnic student waiting to go into National Service. While hanging out at a running track (imagine, in those days I actually had knees that didn't creak.) I bumped into a schoolmate also waiting for National Service.

He told me he had been preparing for National Service by running three rounds around the running track every day. Three. That was 1.2 kilometers. I was baffled. I laughed in his face and said he might as well not bother. This was a pitifully short distance. What good would it do?

Running in preparation.

I know, I know, I was a jerk. And if I ever see him again, even if he's forgotten all about it, I really should offer him an apology. I'm a kinder, more evolved individual now and all. More importantly, I've spent decades as a web developer and it's not just compassion behind the apology - it's professional clarity.

The lesson behind this

The story here isn't about me saying stupid, needlessly cruel things like some empty-headed moron. I was nineteen, FFS. Saying dumb shit was par for the course.

No, the story is that, in my youthful arrogance, I was blind to the simple fact that everything begins with small steps. Everything. And years later, life would beat that lesson into me over and over. I would attempt a tech career in sunny Singapore. I would stumble repeatedly. Sometimes I would take a few steps forward only to be shunted one step back.

In many ways, life was not kind. It could have been worse, of course. A lot worse. But the fact remains that there were challenges. Challenges that weren't going to be navigated in a single bound. I was dismissed from jobs. Failed probationary periods. Screwed up at work. Joined companies that crashed and burned. Worked for exploitative bosses with the ethics of a swamp leech.

But you know what? It was OK because my failures were due to me actually trying. That was valuable. The thing about freedom, and having agency, is that you own all your success and your failures.

Moving slowly.

The thing is, I wasn't shooting up the corporate ladder. Sometimes I wasn't anywhere near any kind of ladder. It took a few (OK, several) iterations before my career got any kind of traction, and even then, it was a slow grind.

In retrospect, my career was like how software is typically written - iteratively. "Do it once, do it good" is music to the ears. Unfortunately, that's all it often is. The ugly reality is that software evolves. You start off with an MVP that gets fleshed out over time, and requirements are going to change. That's business. That's life, even.

What I know now

A new appreciation for small steps is one of the things I've gained. It's not about how big the step is. It's about the fact that the step is being taken at all. It's a statement of intent, and this can be powerful. Without even a small step in the right direction, you ain't getting anywhere, son.

Pretty much like my ex-schoolmate and his 1.2 kilometer run. A tiny step? Yes. Very tiny. But no less important. Because it was the intention that counted. And later on, whatever success he enjoyed in that area should be attributed to that intention.

It wasn't like he simply went on Social Media and talked about doing it without actually doing it. No, he was doing it when I encountered him. And what did I do? Minimized his efforts like a jackass, that's what.

Wishing for software.

I've come to understand the need to do things in iterations. Small incremental steps if necessary. And it's often necessary. Software isn't simply conjured out of thin air after verbalizing a wish, no matter what the likes of Jensen Huang or Elon Musk would have you believe. It follows a process of repeated refinement. A lot of eventual success is predicated upon simply showing up to do the work, and showing up consistently.

This has also manifested in my reading habits, and even my consumption of media. Before, I always felt the need to watch YouTube videos to the end. Finish the book I borrowed from the library. If I started on a TV series, I would binge it to the end.

No longer.

Now I understand that reading a book to the end, for example, means very little. It doesn't actually mean that I'm finished with it. I can always gain new insights from rereading it. Conversely, if it's not worth my time the first round, I can feel free to cut it loose without wasting any more time on it. Perhaps one day I'll find the motivation to get back to it... and if not, it's not a big deal. Basically, I no longer feel the pressure to finish things I started. Because the "finish" is ultimately artificial.

Just like software. Software is never "finished". It's only ready for shipping, but it will evolve in its lifetime.

Small conclusions

Be comfortable with small beginnings. Showing up is more important than showing up loud. "Go big or go home" is ego and stupidity talking, nothing more.

One small step for man...
T___T

Musk's Macrohard is as silly as it sounds

Reading through my tech newsfeed elicits a variety of reactions. Sometimes it's a flicker of interest. Or bemusement. Lately it's been a mixture of weariness and disbelief.

Apparently, Elon Musk thinks that AI automatically churning out code is inefficient; it should bypass that bullshit. It should automatically compile binaries and ship the finished software. And to do that, he's creating companies like Macrohard. (Yes, that was a juvenile jab at Microsoft which he doubled down on. Sure inspires confidence, doesn't it?)

Of course, this would theoretically remove the need for coders at multiple levels of the stack, but I'm not opposed to that if it truly was a win for tech. Alas...

Why it's a bad idea

Did I say bad? It's a laughably inept concept, even by the standards of science fiction fantasies. If ideas were ships, this one wouldn't even be the Titanic. It would be a sailboat made from spaghetti.

A sailboat made from spaghetti.

Programming code is the bridge between highly ambiguous human language (that only humans - and even then, not all humans - understand) and machine binaries (that only computers understand).

That bridge is looking remarkably tenuous at the moment. Right now LLMs churn out code, trained on millions of lines of potentially imperfect code previously written by human beings. And these imperfections might not even be syntax errors. They might be inefficiencies, logic traps and ambiguities.

The reason why software development takes time is not due to the time it takes to compile code to binary. It's the time producing said code to begin with, and ensuring that it works the way it's supposed to work, without nasty surprises. Going straight to binary does not remove that necessity. Especially when it's potentially end users who deliver the specs straight to the machine. That's a disaster waiting to happen.

This is not innovation

Removing vital parts of a system in order to be "efficient" isn't innovation. Any idiot can remove a wheel from a car because the car can still move on three wheels.

As it is, LLMs already hallucinate in both English and code. Expecting them not to hallucinate in binary is, to put it gently, optimistic. A hallucination in code could still be caught by a compiler. A hallucination right in binary? Good luck, chum.

You know what kind of failures software developers worldwide fear the most? Not the loud ones that announce themselves. The silent ones. The ones that you catch only when it's too late. And this latest idea practically screams "too late".

We prefer loud and visible
failures.

Removing the part that is actually human readable, also removes human oversight. Sure, you may think that you're democratizing tech. But this just means that the only people who would be talking to AI, would be non-technical users. Users who sometimes even have trouble talking to fellow human beings, would be expected to correct the mistakes of machines.

In other words, Elon Musk is solving the wrong problem. The problem isn't that code needs to be compiled. The problem is that laypersons need to communicate their needs better, and AI needs to actually understand code, as opposed to just regurgitating it from millions of processed lines of text.

I've had to revise my opinion of Elon Musk, yet again

Before, I thought he was a genius with the impulse control of a teenager.

Then I thought he was a bit of a twat.

Now I see that he's either masterfully trolled the tech world, or he's as ignorant as this idea suggests. This is akin to having a house broken into, and instead of changing the locks on the doors, simply covering the keyhole with duct tape.

exit status 1,
T___T

What Iswaran's sentence means for those in positions of authority

On the 7th day of last month, former Minister for Transport and Member of Parliament for West Coast GRC, Singapore, Mr S.Iswaran, began serving a twelve month sentence in prison. This is old news, but I was on my annually enforced blogging break. 

Still, I'm going to talk about it today, for a few reasons that I'm about to outline below.

Iswaran as an MP

When I moved to West Coast back in 2014, Iswaran was my MP. That meant that he was in charge of the district. Any issues that I encountered in the neighborhood, with amenities, public areas and services, were supposed to be resolved by him. Barring a chance meeting at a coffeeshop, I did not see him at all in my ten years in West Coast. This was because I encountered no issues at all in these ten years; at least, none I couldn't handle on my own.

Some people will complain that they don't see their MP often. I don't understand that attitude. MPs should be seen and not heard; in fact, they should preferably not be seen either. MPs are public servants. They're not my friends. I don't even want to see my friends every day or even every week, so why would I want to see my MP at all? My MP's job is to fix any issues that I see him about. Iswaran went one better - he made sure I never needed to see him. I never needed to be forcibly reminded of his existence. He did his thing and stayed the hell out of my way.

Give the man his due; by my standards, he did an excellent job.

Deskbound.

People who want to see their MP often are probably the same kind of employers who simply have to see their employees bound strictly to their desks during working hours, doing God-knows-what, but preferably looking busy. How I feel about such nonsense has been well-documented; so suffice to say, this isn't my thing at all.

The other possible explanation could be that these people actually think of their MPs as friends or family, and imagine that their MPS feel the same way. I've got such terrible news for you kids, you're voters and barring becoming family via marriage or adoption, that's all you will ever be.

Also, that "friends" thing is what landed Iswaran in hot water in the first place. I'd be very careful about that.

Relating this case to my professional experience

S. Iswaran pleaded guilty to four charges of obtaining valuable items as a public servant, and one charge of obstruction of the course of justice. He was subsequently sentenced to twelve months jail by the presiding judge Vincent Hoong.

Some people have wondered about the severity of the sentence. It was about double what the prosecutor had requested. Judge Hoong had this to say.

Persons who accept appointments to high office take on the heavy responsibilities of their office along with the associated power and status, and should generally be regarded as having acted with greater culpability in abusing their position to obtain valuable gifts.

Phew. That's a lot of words to say: the higher the office, the more culpable they are. And guess what - in Singapore, at least, Justice Hoong was not wrong. Iswaran should have known better. He was no rank-and-file civil servant. He was Chief of the Ministry of Transport.

The case of Singapore warship RSS Courageous is a good situational study. Back in 2003, she was involved in a high-profile maritime collision with merchant vessel ANL Indonesia. In the ensuing chaos, four servicewomen lost their lives. The Officer of the Watch was a Lieutenant Chua Chue Teng, understudying and supervised by superior officer Lieutenant Ng Keng Yong. At the conclusion of the case, both of these officers were found guilty of "causing death by a negligent act not amounting to culpable homicide" and dealt with accordingly.

But what of the helmsman, who undoubtedly steered RSS Courageous to collision? The name was not even mentioned in court. For one, the helmsman was not the officer of the watch, and therefore not entrusted with the lives and safety of those on board. For another, being rank-and-file, the helmsman's job was to trust the officer of the watch and follow orders. The helmsman wasn't qualified to make independent decisions as to where to steer or how fast to go. Thus, in the event of a mishap due to a bad decision, the blame lies solely with the Officer of the Watch.

The higher up that
totem pole you are...

That's a lesson we should all take something from. The higher up the totem pole you are, the higher the standards you should be held to.

A few years ago, I worked for this jackass who had a very childish habit of leaving profanities and abusive language in the GitHub code base. People thought I was being oversensitive. Do I have anything against profanities? (Bitch, please. You're joking, right?) No, I took exception because the person doing it was also the CTO of the company. I held him to a higher standard, professionally, because he should know better.

This is why I save some pretty scathing criticism for the likes of Elon Musk. Not because I don't admire his chutzpah and accomplishments - I do, in spades. But because I think his online behavior is unbecoming of someone in his position. Do tonnes of other people do the same thing? Yes, of course, but they're not leaders of multi-million dollar tech companies, are they?

Similarly, a public servant of Iswaran's standing and experience cannot claim ignorance where pertinent laws apply. It's like an experienced software dev claiming not to know how to write FizzBuzz. Either that dev is alarmingly incompetent, or just not being entirely honest.

Finally...

While he was ultimately found guilty under the law, it's my opinion that Iswaran acted out of carelessness and complacency rather than avarice or worse, contempt for the law. Ultimately, he conducted himself like a gentleman and has faced his legal responsibilities with dignity. I wish him and his family only the best.

My valuable gift to you (heh heh),
T___T

TeochewThunder: Year Ten (Part 1/2)

Ten big ones. Ten!

This blog has been around for ten years since October in 2014. It feels like a momentous occasion, only it's really not, because I wasn't working up to this being any kind of milestone. In all honesty, I just kind of did my thing, rinse and repeat, and before I knew it, it was the tail end of 2024.

Ten glorious years!

So what's been going on? As I speak, numerous wars rage across the planet, and some of them even involve actual physical violence. Artificial Intelligence is being hyped to the heavens the same way Blockchain and the Metaverse were. The USA is being all dramatic about their upcoming Presidential Election.

In other words, same shit, different day. Business as usual, folks!

This blog has kept moving along even with the numerous changes in my life since it first started in 2014. It hasn't been a huge success but it doesn't need to be. Maintaining it has kept me sharp, sharper than if I'd spent my time playing video games and scrolling on TikTok.

Blogging has been slow this year. From the October of last year, I concentrated on moving house, and finally completed the move on the last day of 2023. Since then, it's been a period of settling in. In addition to that, my Lenovo died and I was scrambling for a replacement.

Web Tutorials

This year, I broke away from my bread-and-butter of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and started making web tutorials in Python. Mostly I just didn't want to neglect the skills I picked up in 2021 and allow them to atrophy too much. So if you regularly check in to see what other cool stuff I have that you can jump into right away without needing to install an environment for it... tough luck I guess.

Been doing a bit more
of Python lately.

Along the way, though, I found time to do something in ReactJS. And the result was last month's web tutorial.

My work has begun incorporating Generative AI for minor improvements. Nothing earth-shattering. Just trying to develop that muscle memory in the event that one day I'll really need it. And also so that on the occasions I write about AI, I'll actually have some idea what I'm talking about.

Since I'm on the subject of web tutorials, some readers would have noticed that my Easter web tutorial was posted after Easter this year, as opposed to before. This was a total accident as I lost track. But come to think of it, why can't I do this? There's no good reason, for example, for a Valentine web tutorial to always be before Valentine's Day. Sometimes the occurence of Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year in the same month, makes this a logistical challenge. Thus, from this year forth, I'm giving myself the liberty of posting such web tutorials after the day.

Tech News

As mentioned earlier, AI has been dominating my newsfeed regularly. The other tech news regular, unfortunately, is big tech layoffs. Just seems to be a thing these days. Thankfully I'm not in big tech. I'm a tech practitioner in the food and beverage industry. Not one of the high-earners to be honest, but I don't have a problem with staying employed. As of last week, I've been at the company four years now.

Getting laid off.

Elon Musk also appears on my feed from time to time for something stupid. It gets less interesting each time, thus I'm saving my limited supply of fucks for something more... fuck-worthy, I guess.

There's been plenty of news related to work or tech (sometimes both!) on the home front. Some were neither, to be fair, even though I managed to relate it to my professional experiences - such as with Singapore's Smoking Samsui Woman Controversy Through a Web Developer's Eyes.

All in all, I think I've gotten better about identifying what qualifies as tech news, or at least tying it in by viewing it through a tech lens.

Other Stuff

My ongoing quest to remove irrelevant tags in this blog is progressing well. In the space of a few months, I've combed through the tags from A to Z. Some of the tags I removed were Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, because clickbaity as they can be, they're not tech personalities and that's what I want to keep this blog about. Arguably I should have started way before now, but ah well, hindsight and all.

I've started included more personal stuff on here. Much of my personal stuff is tied into my identity as a software dev, either directly or indirectly, so that's great. A lot of my life realizations were gleaned from writing software.

I'm chill now. Swear to
fuckin' God.

This has been ongoing for a couple years now, but I'm proud to report that my efforts to decrease the amount of profanity that I use on this blog, is paying off. At least, it has for this year. What's really needed is to sustain the effort for another year, and another, until it becomes second nature. The last thing I want is to come off as this perpetually raging old man.

I've improved on my ability to use AI to generate images for this blog. It's been a year, and you'll probably see that the images I've generated are far less plastic. I hope. Plus, it's free. Since I'm not making a damn cent off this blog, I think it's fair.

Next

Greatest hits of 2024.

Five Hilariously Unfortunate Names in Tech

Naming things is one of the hardest things in the tech industry. This shouldn't be surprising; naming things is one of the hardest things in the world, period. One runs into a whole host of problems such as accuracy, contradicting an already existing name for something else, and unintended meaning.

In the last case, this takes the form of unfortunate comedy, esepcially when seen through the lens of another culture. I think it's fair to say that the people who named these things in tech, never considered the Asian perspective.

1. Microsoft

This is the most ubiquitous and arguably the most boring name in tech. "Micro" and "soft". It's two words that appear in every other sentence in software technology, or in the case of the former, just technology, period.

Feeling a little...
soft?

Until you think of it as a descriptor for penis size. And from there on, insinuate that Bill Gates was overcompensating for something in the bedroom.

Unfortunate name? Yeah, it's pretty unfortunate.

2. Debian

Debian is touted as a "complete free operating system", but that's not what we'll focus on today. You see, this name gave me a serious case of the giggles when I first saw it, and that's because the word "debian" looks like "da bian", which is the romanization of the Chinese phrase for "defecate".

Number Two.

Yep. In mandarin, "xiao bian" is Number One and "da bian" is Number Two.

Non-Chinese will probably draw a blank as to why this one tickled my funny bone. So, the naming is not that unfortunate. I do wonder how Debian does in China or Taiwan, though...

3. Erlang

Erlang is a programming language, and that's all I know about it. Never touched it, don't think I'm likely to in the future.

And on its own, the name "Erlang" isn't really remarkable.

The deity Erlang
and his celestial
watchdog.

However, if you were brought up in a Chinese household with traditional values, chances are you'd have heard of the three-eyed deity "Erlang". The coincidence is not exactly unfortunate, but it is amusing.

4. MariaDB

MariaDB is a database. With an engine similar to MySQL, MariaDB and MySQL are often mentioned in the same breath.

Now, on its own, the name "Maria" is a beautiful name. Think "Santa Maria" or the Italian last name "DiMaria". However, in sunny Singapore, that name has racist connotations.

"Housekeeping!"

Yes, "Maria" is a derogatory term for "Filipina". Especially with regard to Filipino domestic helpers. Don't ask me why; I have not a solitary clue.

5. xAI

Let me begin by saying that Number 2 on this list can be a little far-fetched. It requires both the ability to speak Mandarin and a slight leap of imagination. But ask any Hokkien speaker how to pronounce the name of Elon Musk's pet Artificial Intelligence company, and you might get a snigger.

A really shitty coincidence.

You see, while "debian" can be taken to mean "defecate" in Mandarin, saying "sai" in Hokkien literally means "shit". Dung. Poop. Excrement.

Yep, this is absolutely unfortunate.

Conclusion

This is not to say that any of these companies should change their names. In the case of Microsoft, that name is long entrenched. In the case of the others, it's inevitable that whatever words you use, it's going to have a completely different meaning from what you intended in some other language. And sometimes, yes, these incidences are hilarious.

This is also why I object to censoring words just because they sound offensive in the English language. Considering the fact that there are thousands of languages in use in the world today, this is an exercise in futility. 

Till we meet again, xAI-yonara!
T___T

Remote workers in Dell Technologies stand firm

It was with a fair amount of interest that I read this article during the week. Computer company Dell Technologies, like many companies in the USA, has been trying to enforce a return to office for their workers, with dismal results.

During the worldwide crisis that was COVID-19, Dell mandated a remote work policy which their employees resisted at first, but gradually grew accustomed to. And now that COVID-19 is no longer life-threatening (at least for the general public), Dell has tried an about-face on this by demanding that employees return to the office.

Sound familiar?

If you're thinking that you've heard all this before, you probably have. This is a story that has been repeated over and over since 2021, not just in the USA but all over the world. Employers like Elon Musk have even stamped their metaphorical feet and opined that chosing to work from home is "immoral", which only serves to enforce my belief that being worth millions of dollars doesn't mean you're less prone to saying stupid shit.

Going to remote work meant that many employees had made certain commitments in terms of housing location and lifestyle. A return to office would disrupt everything, and incur certain costs such as transport, food and makeup. Nice shoes. The works. Those were just financial costs; there were also costs with regard to time, such as the daily commute.

Traffic is crazy.

Can we reasonably blame workers for not wanting to go through yet another drastic lifestyle change after going all in the first time? Should we accuse them all of being lazy and unmotivated or worse, actively trying to take advantage of the company? Those bad actors do exist, but does their existence justify tarring all remote workers with the same brush? Or is that just a convenient excuse?

Also, a company known for making computers portable and providing network access to those computers so that they can be used from anywhere, is insisting on a return to office? How's that for an unsubtle dose of irony?

Standoff

What's interesting is that Dell stated that those who opted to remain remote would no longer be considered for promotion... and a full fifty percent of remote employees didn't blink. The sentiment appears to be that the threat of not being promoted was an empty one, anyway, as opportunities for promotion had been scarce even before this. Their defiance seemed to state that even if there was a genuine chance of getting promoted had they chosen to acquiesce, promotion just wasn't worth making all those changes. The carrot wasn't working.

A chance at promotion?

Of course, the stick would soon follow. Or, if you consider the aforementioned "carrot" actually more of a stick, an even bigger stick would inevitably follow. The implication being that in the case of layoffs or company restructuring, remote workers would be the first on the chopping block.

Who's winning?

Well, arguably, the fact that this story is out in the public in the first place, means that Dell as a company has lost. And if Management goes to war with its own employees over this, Dell's reputation as a workplace can only fall further.

Resentment at Dell's machinations has caused employees to not only remain remote, but also to actively seek out new employment regardless of what Dell eventually decides. There's also the sneaky feeling all around, that Dell Management knows exactly what they're doing. After all, if those opting to stay remote really do leave, this eliminates the cost of compensating them if indeed layoffs do occur. To be fair to Dell, this tactic is hardly illegal. If we're being honest, it's not even exactly original.

Dell's tactics at this point in time would seem to be directly contradictory to the stand articulated by CEO Michael Dell less than two years ago. This is an excerpt from his blog, where he waxed lyrical about Dell's inclusive work culture.

But from my experience, if you are counting on forced hours spent in a traditional office to create collaboration and provide a feeling of belonging within your organization, you’re doing it wrong.

Technology’s ability to create a do-anything-from-anywhere world, where work is an outcome rather than a place or time, also enables you to create a strong corporate culture anywhere, all the time.

And another...

Ultimately, we have committed to allow team members around the globe to choose the work style that best fits their lifestyle - whether that is remote or in an office or a blend of the two. We are redesigning office spaces for the purpose of bringing teams together for social connection and collaboration to enhance hybrid experiences.

These decisions are grounded in our culture and based on the facts of our internal data. It is a philosophy of flexibility, choice, and connection.

Companies making a u-turn from their previous stands isn't at all new, of course... but a u-turn after that extravagant song and dance about "flexibility, choice, and connection"? Unless shame is a completely foreign concept to you, that's nothing short of an utter embarrassment.

Abrupt reversal in direction.

If we give Dell the benefit of the doubt, Dell may have been all about remote work in the beginning, but perhaps that sentiment was genuine until the tides of reality hit and they realized that they simply weren't that well-equipped for it. Perhaps this was an honest mistake.

Or perhaps, more cynically, it was just corporate gaslighting. Perhaps those words by Michael Dell were merely meant to sway workers to adopt remote work due to circumstances caused by COVID-19... and now that the pandemic is over, there's no longer any need for that pretense.

All in all...

As a salaried worker and an economic digit, my heart is with the employees of Dell no matter what their ultimate decisions are. This stalemate cannot end well; eventually the pendulum will have to swing one way or another. Only time will tell if Dell Technologies, as a company, can survive.

I would like to conclude by saying that I've never been a big fan of the USA. There's precious little about American culture that I admire, that I would choose over Asian culture. But now here's one thing, at least. I appreciate the way these workers at Dell have managed to prioritize the quality of their lives over corporate promotions. That's something that we in Southeast Asia, with our obsessive hustling and pointless flexing of empty job titles, can emulate.

What the Dell?!
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Is it really ScarJo, and why does it matter?

If you're both a fan of Hollywood and tech, the tail end of May must have been eventful for you. A-list movie star Scarlett Johansson took legal action against tech company OpenAI for using her voice without permission, for promotion of their product. Just to elaborate, in case there's even the remotest chance that you don't know who or what OpenAI is, it's the company that is responsible for generative technology such as ChatGPT, Dall-E and Sora.

What happened was that OpenAI included Voice Mode to ChatGPT, where the user can choose a voice out of a few presented options, to engage with ChatGPT.

Voice Mode.

The sticking point was that one of the voices, named "Sky", sounded an awful lot like Scarlett Johansson herself. In the days that followed, ScarJo revealed that OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, had approached her twice for permission to use her voice for that purpose, and she had declined to give it. It sounded like OpenAI had gone ahead anyway, disregarding her objections, when they launched the new feature. Johanssen, herself no stranger to suing corporations when necessary, did not hesitate to call out Open AI.

Was it ScarJo, though?

Apparently not! OpenAI apologized to Johansson for the confusion and clarified that the voice wasn't hers, but belonged to a voice actor whom they hired for the job. She simply sounded an awful lot like Johansson, and had her mannerisms.

Nevertheless, OpenAI took down the voice "out of respect" but the bonfire that was the controversy continues to rage on. Though it begs the question: if OpenAI are completely innocent of the charge, why is there a need to do that?

AI generated
image of ScarJo.

I can't verify if the voice is indeed Scarlett Johansson's, or simply sounds similar. I couldn't pick Johansson voice out of a lineup for the simple reason that I'm not great with voices. Also (heh heh) I spend significantly more time looking at rather than listening to her.

But perhaps that's not the important point in this entire thing. If AI can legally replicate any celebrity's likeness for the purpose of promoting any product, service or agenda regardless of that celebrity's intentions, that entails a couple of implications.

The first, and arguably less important, is financial. Now, I'm not concerned with ScarJo specifically. She'll be fine; this woman makes more money in a month than most of us do in a year. However, just being able to ride on the back of someone else's popularity to promote whatever you want without needing to pay that person a cent, strikes me as fundamentally and ethically wrong.

The more alarming implication

The second implication, is, of course, having someone else use your image to sell something you don't endorse. In an age where deepfakes and misinformation abounds, this is a huge, glaring red flag.

Beware!

Take the case of one Gina Carano. Back in 2021, she found herself being cancelled due to some remarks she made on Social Media. Whether one agrees with her or not, the fact remains is that she aired those views. She stood behind them, and suffered the consequences. There is no debate about that.

But what if she didn't espouse those views? What if she only appeared to do so because someone made an AI deepfake of her spouting those views? Now we're wandering into some truly sinister territory.

Sam Altman himself posted a Tweet on X, leading up to the release of the new feature, referencing the movie Her, which, quite ironically, starred Scarlett Johansson herself as an AI generated voice, thus implying that the voice of Sky in ChatGPT's Voice Mode was really ScarJo. Now, he could have been completely innocent of the charge of stealing ScarJo's voice for OpenAI. The voice could really have, as claimed, come from a completely unrelated voice actress. With that stunt from him, it no longer matters. The existing fears that people have towards generative AI could only have been amplified after this debacle, regardless of the legal outcome.

Seriously, between Sam Altman and Elon Musk, what is it with tech company CEOs doing stupid shit and acting like consequences are for lesser mortals?

Also, if anyone feels like arguing that it's not too far-fetched for Scarlett Johansson to endorse OpenAI, do remember that this woman is in the business of filmmaking, an industry that OpenAI's Sora may well one day disrupt. Call it a failure of imagination on my part, but I can't see her (or any other actor) championing that.

In the Final Analysis

It doesn't matter one iota if Sky was really ScarJo. Perception is everything, especially in a world where AI is generating content.

Whether or not OpenAI survives this legal battle; indeed, whether this even results in a legal battle at all, its public image has taken a serious battering.

Looks like Sky is the limit!
T___T

Profanity-laced Content Over The Years

Long-time readers of this blog will have noticed that whenever certain impolite words are used in a blogpost, I take care to tag the post with the term "Profanity Alert". I've been called many things (and some of them are even true) but let it never be said that I am not in the habit of giving fair warning.

Through the years, the suspicion that I use entirely too many vulgarities to communicate my thoughts, has been entertained, and I have striven to do better, especially where this blog is concerned. It's not a moral issue for me, more a professional one. And perhaps a desire to challenge myself by expressing ideas in a less vitriolic manner.

Wash your mouth!

Thus, imagine my chagrin when I ran some data analytics on tag usage on this blog, and found that "Profanity Alert" was the frontrunner in terms of appearances.

What. The. Fuck?! (Yes I know, this doesn't help my case at all)

The findings

In 2015, things weren't so bad. I was mostly in techie mode. In fact, The tag "Profanity Alert" was not even in the Top 5. I was all business.

Things changed in 2016. "Profanity Alert" was not only in the Top 5, it was numero uno. At this point, I should have suspected a dangerous trend there.

It didn't get better the following year. "Profanity Alert" was still the most frequently used tag. Tags like "Web Development" came a close second. And honestly, it wasn't even that close.

There was a little improvement in 2018. The tag was still in top position, but it was tied with "Web Development". Which I guess meant that I was at least spending as much time talking about things that really mattered, without swearing.

2019 continued in the same vein. "Profanity Alert" and "Life as an Economic Digit" were tied in first place, with "Web Development" running close behind.

2020 was almost a copy of 2019, as far as the top few were concerned. "War Stories" took the place of "Life as an Economic Digit". Now "Web Development" was nowhere to be seen in the Top 10, and "Singapore" was the runner-up in terms of frequency. It marked a change to me talking more about local affairs.

It was in 2021 where I made a concerted effort to stop swearing excessively. To my pleasant surprise, "Profanity Alert" no longer appeared in the Top 10 after having been a mainstay for years. Go, me!

It did not last, alas; for in 2022, "Profanity Alert" slithered back to Numero Uno spot. Imagine my consternation! Bad habits, do, indeed die hard. It was time to stop being complacent.

2023 looked OK, as I made another effort to limit my swearing. It met with some success, for now my posts centered around Social Media. Thank you Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, for giving me so much material to focus on!

2024 has gotten off to a promising start thus far. I have not used enough profanities in any posts to push the "Profanity Alert" tag to prominence. A little discipline seems to have done the trick.

Moving forward

I hope to continue making progress. While in principle, I have nothing against swearing, I think overuse of it ultimately detracts from what this is supposed to be - a tech blog. There are certainly better ways than constantly dropping F-bombs.

Friends Ultimately Choose Kindness!
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TeochewThunder: Year Nine (Part 2/2)

Much of this blogging year's content was strong. Few made it to extreme highs in terms of readership, or broke existing records. On the other hand, plenty of them garnered a respectable amount of views.

Red hot

Those posts in this category simply reinforce my point that it is my views about politics and the workplace, rather than my tech, that get the most attention.

Damn, that's hot.

Quiet Quitting: Do Or Do Not? examined the phenomenon of Quiet Quitting in the workplace.

Film Review: Black Mirror Series Three was a surprise - I didn't know people were that interested in a series that isn't even all that recent. It definitely overperformed.

The Real Reason Behind Political Resignation rode upon the wave of awareness generated by the recent (at the time) scandals in the Singapore Government.

Remote Work Is A Moral Issue For Elon Musk was basically me roasting the world's douchiest techbro millionaire. I don't know why, but people seem to pay more attention to these. That's sad.

Decent

These got a fair amount of attention - some of which was expected, and some which weren't.

Well done!

That Sinking Feeling At Twitter was a post talking about Elon Musk and Twitter (now X) and this always gets attention.

Film Review: M3GAN, Film Review: Missing, Film Review: Black Mirror Series Two and Film Review: Black Mirror Series Three, Redux were film reviews and these usually do well. No real surprise here.

Five New Workplace Buzzwords, Does Skin Art Affect Your Career Prospects?, What we think we deserve, does not matter, On job applicants who want work-life balance, Didn't get that promotion? Blame The Peter Principle and It's Not Personal were some of my views on the workplace. Could have done better, but I'm not complaining.

ChatGPT's capabilities and their implications in Software Development, Big Tech Layoffs in Progress!, From Twitter to X? and  TikTok Congressional Hearing: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly were about recent tech developments. I honestly expected these to do better, especially the last one. I mean, I worked really hard on the TikTok Congressional Hearing. Oh, well.

The How And Why Of One-Hot Encoding and Let's Unpack The CSS Box got a surprising amount of attention. I've never labored under the delusion that people bother about my more technical posts.

A Software Developer's Vacation in Kuala Lumpur was a WTF moment for me when I saw it had gotten this many views. I really wasn't under the impression that people care about my vacations, or about Kuala Lumpur. 

Meh

These were the underperformers. The ones that I expected a better reader reception for, and just didn't get it. Thankfully, there's not that many of them.

What a letdown.

Meta's new platform: Threads or Threat? now this one definitely underperformed. I don't know why.

Five Java Exceptions Personified was a fun listicle that bombed. I had higher hopes for this one.

Here's to Year Nine!

The blog has survived. It's often on life support, but it's there. I haven't been a huge success, but that was never the goal. The goal was to build muscle memory, keep me sharp, help me stay current and relevant. And on that front, it's worked wonders.

On cloud nine,
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From Twitter To X?

It appears that Elon Musk has come up with yet another bizarre decision. Sometime last week, Twitter underwent a name and logo change. Now, name changes aren't anything new in the world we inhabit. Facebook became Meta. Bruce Jenner became Caitlyn Jenner. In 1993, Prince became... well, you get the idea. Nothing to blink at.

Bye bye, birdy.

What's surprising, at least to me, is the what. From an internationally known moniker, the app has changed to a relatively generic X. The cute and tasteful blue bird that has served as the app's logo for more than a decade, is now a stylized and, dare I say, uninteresting "X". Now, not being a tech billionaire and all, nobody really cares about my opinion, and nor should they. I assume Elon Musk knows what he's doing... because I really don't. And I'm not entirely sure anyone else does either. Of all changes to take place, this stands out as a strange choice.

They call it a rebranding, but it really feels more like a debranding.

While I've never been a Twitter user, Twitter was such a mainstay of cyberspace that it was impossible for it to not be on my radar in some fashion. That's how strong its branding was. To throw that all away for a new but not altogether exciting image, seems counter-intuitive.

Burning questions!

Elon Musk has stated his desire to evolve Twitter into some kind of "Everthing App", just like WeChat. Something like that would require strong brand recognition as a foundation. Unfortunately, we live in a world where many things already share the name "X". And some of these things are distinctively pornographic in nature. Is that the kind of recognition that Elon Musk is going for? Somehow I doubt it.

Twitter's presence in not just cyberspace, but also Internet culture at large, has resulted in certain words being added to the lexicon. "Tweeting" is a verb which essentially means posting a message on Twitter. Now with the name change, what other changes could we see? Will Tweeting now be known as X-ing? Sounds uncomfortably violent.

Let me just do some X-ing...

Finally, of all the icons that Elon Musk could have gone with, why this one? I called it "relatively generic" earlier. I was being kind. It's boring. It's tepid. It says nothing about what the platform does. This could be deliberate. Musk could have some big plans for the app, and perhaps this generic quality is meant to avoid painting the app into a corner.

In Conclusion

With Meta's Threads encountering a bit of a downturn in recent weeks, this looked like a good time for Twitter to recover. Looks like it's not to be.

Still, it's going to be interesting seeing the two platforms taking turns to flounder. Definitely way more interesting than seeing one platform dominate. Let's hope that this does not lead to Elon Musk going from X owner to ex-owner. (hur hur)

Kick some X, Elon Musk!
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