kicking puppies is bad

I’m not supposed to need people skills. I’m a programmer.

Tom Smykowski: Well look, I already told you! I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don’t have to! I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people! Can’t you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?”

- Office Space

Unfortunately, Tracy (my Tom Smykowski) is out of town for the 4th of July holiday. I have no one to interface with the customers for me – so I have to do it myself. I miss Tracy. I value Tracy. I’m in awe of Tracy. She somehow manages to be tactful with customers, even when they are clueless, persistent, annoying, unrealistic and rude.

Anyways, with Tracy out of town, I have been receiving email (and phone calls) directly from customers. I’m not a “people person”. I’m a computer programmer and statistician. Generally I produce my analytical reports as PDF files. SAS ODS makes creating PDF files easy. I like PDF because it in no way involves interfacing with Microsoft products. Microsoft products are a pain in the ass. If I don’t have a reason to interact with Microsoft, I generally choose not to.

Occasionally, someone wants a report in some format other than PDF (like Excel). Generally they have a good reason (i.e. the report has 14,000 records and they would like to be able to manipulate the data). This makes sense to me. I’m more than happy to accomodate these requests. In fact, sometimes this makes me happy. It means that someone is actually going to read and use the report. I often think that once the reports leave my desk, no one reads them or cares about them.

Yesterday (since Tracy is out for the 4th of July Holiday), I received an email from one of our internal customers. She wanted her report in Excel so she could “play with the data”. I’m ok with that. I redid the report in Excel and re-posted it for her. She emailed me again. Apparently she had an old version of excel. She couldn’t open the file. I asked her what version of excel she had. She gave me her Windows Version, not her Excel Version. This is not helpful. Why do people not understand that Windows and Office are not the same thing? I explained how to determine what version of Excel she was using. I re-did the file so that Excel 2000 could open it. I posted the report a 3rd time.

I got another email. Apparently she wanted the report sorted by discharge date, not alphabetically by name. She wondered if I could do that for her… Now, I am more than happy to re-sort PDF reports for people. But when someone specifically asks for a report in Excel. And their reasoning is so that they can manipulate the data, why the hell would they email me asking me to sort it for them…

Please come back Tracy. I can’t deal with customers. I don’t have people skills, dammit!