Happiness Engineers

Fandango

“Damn,” Rachel said. “Hey Jimmy, can you come take a look at this?.”

“Hey, Rachel, what do you need?” Jimmy asked.

“I got a help ticket from a user. There’s something wrong with the user interface,” Rachel said. “It doesn’t seem to recognize when the user is logged in. And when they try to log back in it causes the app to crash.”

“Hmm. Let me toss out a trial balloon. See what happens if you remove this line of code right here,” Jimmy said, pointing to Rachel’s monitor. “That seems superfluous and deleting it just might obviate the need for the user to have to reauthenticate.”

Rachel removed the line of code that Jimmy had suggested. “Fingers crossed,” she said when she restarted the app. It crashed again.

“Okay, well I’m afraid that was more like a lead balloon,” Jimmy said.

“We have to figure out how to fix this fast,” Rachel said. “If the app keeps crashing every time a user tries to log back in, that’s a huge liability.”

“Listen, Rachel,” Jimmy said. “Respond back to the user who opened the ticket. Tell him you understand how frustrating this is and that you’ve been able to replicate the problem. Tell him that you’re going to notify the developers about the issue and have them make it a priority. Explain that we can’t provide a definitive date for when it will be fixed, but that you’ll get back to him with an update.”

“Right,” Rachel said. “You know, Jimmy, that’s pretty much our standard response to any help ticket we get. I wish there was more that we could do.”

“Come on, Rachel,” Jimmy said. “You’ve been a Happiness Engineer long enough to know that we take all the flack but can’t do shit when it comes to actually fixing the problem. “That’s what the developers do.”

“Jimmy, have you ever met or even talked with a developer?” Rachel asked.

“No, but I’m sure they exist,” Jimmy said. “Don’t they?”

Written for these daily prompts: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (help), BlogBattle (interface), The Daily Spur (recognize), Word of the Day Challenge (crash), Ragtag Daily Prompt (balloon), Your Daily Word Prompt (obviate), My Vivid Blog (afraid), E.M.’s Random Word Prompt (liability). Image credit: shipmonk.com.

41 thoughts on “Happiness Engineers”

    • Fandango February 16, 2022 / 10:18 pm

      As they say on some TV shows or movies, “Ripped from the headlines.”

      Like

      Reply
  2. msjadeli February 16, 2022 / 4:38 pm

    Truth is always stranger than fiction. That last line is brilliant.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply
    • Fandango February 16, 2022 / 10:20 pm

      Yes, unfortunately for us bloggers.

      Like

      Reply
  6. Sadje February 16, 2022 / 7:37 pm

    I do hope that there’s a developer somewhere!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
  8. emkingston February 16, 2022 / 10:33 pm

    😀 I think they exist…but they are on a planet of their own lol.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
  13. aebranson February 17, 2022 / 7:48 am

    Very droll – loved the ending! So glad you contributed to BlogBattle.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  15. deteremineddespitewp February 18, 2022 / 2:12 am

    Been there in Rachael and Jimmy’s seats/shoes, so accurate I had flashbacks.
    Although in my localities our comments about developers were not so sanguine.
    Shrewd and sharp ending.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • Fandango February 18, 2022 / 6:37 am

      Dealing with the Happiness Engineers can be so frustrating.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
      • deteremineddespitewp February 18, 2022 / 9:02 am

        Who? Who in the remote realms of management had the idea to call them Happiness Engineers???…The poor folk labelled thus and us the customers know ‘happiness’ does not enter into the equation.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply
  16. Pingback: #BlogBattle Stories: Interface | BlogBattle
  17. parikhit February 19, 2022 / 7:39 am

    Oh those developers! They are, indeed, as clueless as a lot of other engineers 😀

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  18. Marleen February 19, 2022 / 7:47 am

    There aren’t enough programmers in the world to keep up our current lifestyle, or the place we think we’re headed. To get enough of them, everything else will fall.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment