Shock absorbers, fluid and coolant exchange... all of it is going to cost me today close to $900!!!
After I spent about $ 500 on it last month (starter, oil change, belts, air filter).
And it irks me that I have another car, waiting idle for me, on the mainland. :-((((
Boy, is life on this island expensive!!!! Sigh....
Showing posts with label technical dilemmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technical dilemmas. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Hurra!
An early evening view from my balcony . The weather's fine!I finely ( after 2 and a half month) got a cable TV and internet at my new place.
Long story: All utilities: electric, water, cable is in my landlady's name and she wants to keep it that way. She is a nice and wellmeaning lady, once you learn to know her, but she was absent most of the time and I had a lot of troubles to get in touch with her. Finally this month I decided to postpone paying rent until everything I needed fixed got fixed.
Looks like it worked almost like a charm: less than two weeks and I got a missing window screen, cable fixed, internet installed and a plumber is supposed to come later today. So now i can post some pictures of my new place - as it is now.
And here is the same view in the middle of the day. A boat is passing in front of Desecheo island. (Click to see the details)
My guests (Katrina and Disa) in an animated conversation one Saturday afternoon
Here is my kitchen
my living room...
with a good luck "goldfish" I once bought on Galveston island now hanging in a Puertorican net...
When I drag the table - and chairs - back inside from the balcony, they serve as a dining room/study.Definitively minimalistic... save for the abundance of cats everywhere! Cats by the table...
Cats on the table...
Cats in front of the TV...
Cats in my recliner...
Cats in every corner...
Cats in cat beds...
Cats on top of the refrigerator...
Cats on top of the world... er.. on top of the stackable washer and dryer ...
Cats on the balcony...
...and all the cats in my bed! It's time to retire - they tell me: come on in, there is place for you, too! :-)
It's night already. Behind the bedroom window a silvery moon is reflecting in the sea...
Monday, November 10, 2008
I think I'll just move in to Sears
Auto Center. Due to all the time - and money - I spend there recently.
After all the maintenance and the purchase of an ultra expensive high performance starter motor ( as if I were a rally driver, lol), my car developed a ticking (coughing ?) noise every time I turn the motor on and turn a wheel. I have no idea what it is and the Sears mechanics did not mention that anything was wrong. Sigh.
So today I need to go there again and make them check it out. Wish me luck. Sigh.
After all the maintenance and the purchase of an ultra expensive high performance starter motor ( as if I were a rally driver, lol), my car developed a ticking (coughing ?) noise every time I turn the motor on and turn a wheel. I have no idea what it is and the Sears mechanics did not mention that anything was wrong. Sigh.
So today I need to go there again and make them check it out. Wish me luck. Sigh.
Friday, November 7, 2008
A car and .... a machete
I have had a series of troubles with my car lately.
It served me without the slightest mishap since last December, when I bought it (save for a routine maintenance like oil chnges, new battery and tires) till October, when I had to replace its starter motor (and have been price gauged really, really bad) , got a flat tire and - upon changing oil - learned (from Sears) that besides the oil, I need to replace two belts, change all the fluids and the coolant, air filter and something - all in all over $300 - again!
But yesterday my car trouble was my own fault entirely: I left my car keys in the lock. I was going to atted meeting yesterday afternoon and found out the keys were inside.
So I asked one of the coworkers, Joel, a really thoroughly talented guy, what should I do, and he threw his arms in the air, but then laughed, asked me to wait and in a moment ... emerged with a machete.
I have seen machete used to cut grass, vines, pumpkins, but I had no idea how easy it is to open a car door with a machete. Merely seconds!
I was impressed by Joel's abilities, greatful for his help... but from now on I'd rather not leave anything of value (like my laptop) in the car, knowing anybody with a machete can open it at any time within seconds.
Not that a guy with a machete would not be conspicuous on a parking lot of a mall, for example ;-)
It served me without the slightest mishap since last December, when I bought it (save for a routine maintenance like oil chnges, new battery and tires) till October, when I had to replace its starter motor (and have been price gauged really, really bad) , got a flat tire and - upon changing oil - learned (from Sears) that besides the oil, I need to replace two belts, change all the fluids and the coolant, air filter and something - all in all over $300 - again!
But yesterday my car trouble was my own fault entirely: I left my car keys in the lock. I was going to atted meeting yesterday afternoon and found out the keys were inside.
So I asked one of the coworkers, Joel, a really thoroughly talented guy, what should I do, and he threw his arms in the air, but then laughed, asked me to wait and in a moment ... emerged with a machete.
I have seen machete used to cut grass, vines, pumpkins, but I had no idea how easy it is to open a car door with a machete. Merely seconds!
I was impressed by Joel's abilities, greatful for his help... but from now on I'd rather not leave anything of value (like my laptop) in the car, knowing anybody with a machete can open it at any time within seconds.
Not that a guy with a machete would not be conspicuous on a parking lot of a mall, for example ;-)
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
My new - all in all - $400+ starter motor...
... or how to be taken to the cleaners (twice???) by car mechanics in PR.
In my last post - from less then two weeks ago (I know, I have been neglecting this blog) I wrote about the troubles my starter motor caused me... and that I had it fixed after a couple of hours of wasted time and a $ 130 in towing ($45) and parts and labor for the starter.
I thought the problem was fixed. But no... yesterday I went to the airport in San Juan to drop in my daughter, who was leaving after her long weekend visit. Parked the car... but when I was ready to drive back, the car would not start. The airport security came to help, noticed there was electricity: sound signals worked, lights worked, radio worked... but the car would not start.
They tried to bust it anyway, but to no effect. They said it was my starter. Whaaat? Said I?
I had it fixed less than two weeks ago!!!!
They shook their heads... So I called AAA, now knowing it offered services in PR.
A towing truck came in less than half an hour. The towing guy tried to bust it, also, not trusting the security people... and the same no result. Starter, he said. I repeated that I had it fixed less than two weeks ago. He, too, shook his head and towed me to the nearest Western Auto in Carolina.
"You need a new starter" - they told me. "It will be $ 170".
I reapeated that I had it fixed recently.
"He rebuilt your starter" they told me. "But it did not work. You need a new one. $ 170, will be ready in 45 minutes".
So there I was : 120 miles away from home, two deadlines looming and I have already taken too much time to entertain my daughter during the weekend and driving her to San Juan.
"OK", I said.
But after half an hour the guy, Carmelo, calls me back:
"We have a problem" he says." This is not the part you need. The regular starter won't work in your car". He did not explained why. He only shook his head, when I asked and continued: You need a special starter. There is one in Lakeland, Texas, which we can get here in one and a half weeks (he knows I am 120 miles from home, before he askem me that previously) ... and there is one on the island, which I can get in about half an hour, but it will be that much" and he shows me a price on the computer of $ 296.
I had a distinct feeling I was being taken advantage of ( you know , the Blink factor), but... what was I to do: renting a car, driving to Cabo Rojo and driving back in one and half a week would cost me more that the difference (of about $ 100) in quoted starter prices, so I agreed.
The part arrived within the half hour as promised and the car was fixed within a bit more than an hour. But the final bill did not show the price of the starter as previously quoted at the computer screen. It was the same as Lakeland price - if I remember correctly. Only a few other parts and services were suddenly added to come to a definitively not cool $301.
I have been taken to the cleaners: twice, presumably... though the first time might have been in a misguided wellmeaning....
Handy men and car mechanics - two groups I have very bad experiences with ... almast always trying to take advantage of single old ladies. That was the reason I sold my house in Texas when my spouse died and swore never to buy another one, so I would not have to be at handyman's mercy - or bother my neighbors every time I got a repair quote to verify just how badly they want to rob me.
But how WHERE can I live without a car, to be able not to be at mercy of car mechanics????
In my last post - from less then two weeks ago (I know, I have been neglecting this blog) I wrote about the troubles my starter motor caused me... and that I had it fixed after a couple of hours of wasted time and a $ 130 in towing ($45) and parts and labor for the starter.
I thought the problem was fixed. But no... yesterday I went to the airport in San Juan to drop in my daughter, who was leaving after her long weekend visit. Parked the car... but when I was ready to drive back, the car would not start. The airport security came to help, noticed there was electricity: sound signals worked, lights worked, radio worked... but the car would not start.
They tried to bust it anyway, but to no effect. They said it was my starter. Whaaat? Said I?
I had it fixed less than two weeks ago!!!!
They shook their heads... So I called AAA, now knowing it offered services in PR.
A towing truck came in less than half an hour. The towing guy tried to bust it, also, not trusting the security people... and the same no result. Starter, he said. I repeated that I had it fixed less than two weeks ago. He, too, shook his head and towed me to the nearest Western Auto in Carolina.
"You need a new starter" - they told me. "It will be $ 170".
I reapeated that I had it fixed recently.
"He rebuilt your starter" they told me. "But it did not work. You need a new one. $ 170, will be ready in 45 minutes".
So there I was : 120 miles away from home, two deadlines looming and I have already taken too much time to entertain my daughter during the weekend and driving her to San Juan.
"OK", I said.
But after half an hour the guy, Carmelo, calls me back:
"We have a problem" he says." This is not the part you need. The regular starter won't work in your car". He did not explained why. He only shook his head, when I asked and continued: You need a special starter. There is one in Lakeland, Texas, which we can get here in one and a half weeks (he knows I am 120 miles from home, before he askem me that previously) ... and there is one on the island, which I can get in about half an hour, but it will be that much" and he shows me a price on the computer of $ 296.
I had a distinct feeling I was being taken advantage of ( you know , the Blink factor), but... what was I to do: renting a car, driving to Cabo Rojo and driving back in one and half a week would cost me more that the difference (of about $ 100) in quoted starter prices, so I agreed.
The part arrived within the half hour as promised and the car was fixed within a bit more than an hour. But the final bill did not show the price of the starter as previously quoted at the computer screen. It was the same as Lakeland price - if I remember correctly. Only a few other parts and services were suddenly added to come to a definitively not cool $301.
I have been taken to the cleaners: twice, presumably... though the first time might have been in a misguided wellmeaning....
Handy men and car mechanics - two groups I have very bad experiences with ... almast always trying to take advantage of single old ladies. That was the reason I sold my house in Texas when my spouse died and swore never to buy another one, so I would not have to be at handyman's mercy - or bother my neighbors every time I got a repair quote to verify just how badly they want to rob me.
But how WHERE can I live without a car, to be able not to be at mercy of car mechanics????
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Making a grand entry... the WRONG way!
Mayaguez Resort and Casino - terrace in front of IFC meeting roomThis morning I - inadvertently, I swear! - made a huge traffic stop when entering - by car - Mayaguez Resort & Casino, to attend a breakfast meeting of the Mayaguez International Friendship Club.
I pulled into the entry gate too far away to reach a parking ticket, so I stopped the car and got out to pick my ticket up. That went realtively well, although already inconveniencing a few drivers behind me... but when I got back into the car and tried to start it... nothing happened.
Again and again. I opened the mask, to see if battery screws needed tightening, messed with them a moment and ... hotel personnel started coming to get me off that spot. First they tried the jumper cables, but when these did not help, they pushed my car away, so the others could pass me.
I could not believe how many cars I managed to stop during this five minutes (?) of my car mishap!
I told the parking attendants I was about to be late to a meeting. "Don't worry", they told me, "your car can stay here until you get back and then we shall see what we can do."
Now, THAT, I call a first class service!
I enjoyed the meeting, got the tow truck called in by the parking staff, after they failed to start the car with jumper cables. "Starter" they told me "not the battery". The tow truck took it to Mercado Auto Electric downtown, a garage that specializes in alternators (don't ask me what that is, I have no idea), starters, generators, regulators and all things electrical.
The car is now fixed. Starter changed. Parts and labor total $68.78, which, I was told, is a very good price.
Tow truck was $45 and a very nice conversation with its driver, who told me about his adventures driving an 18-wheeler through the entire USA and Canada, when he worked there. He knew how to speak Spanish to a foreigner, and even threw in some English words, when I looked confused, so I understood quite a bit of it. Too bad I did not know I could have used my AAA in Puerto Rico, but I know now!
The worst was the close to 40 minutes wait for a coworker to come and pick me up from the garage, as it is downtown, tight spaces, hot, nowhere to sit and cool down. And, of course, after I pick up my car from the garage, I'll have to try and not get lost, among the maze of narrow, congested streets. But I'll manage somehow :-))
I pulled into the entry gate too far away to reach a parking ticket, so I stopped the car and got out to pick my ticket up. That went realtively well, although already inconveniencing a few drivers behind me... but when I got back into the car and tried to start it... nothing happened.
Again and again. I opened the mask, to see if battery screws needed tightening, messed with them a moment and ... hotel personnel started coming to get me off that spot. First they tried the jumper cables, but when these did not help, they pushed my car away, so the others could pass me.
I could not believe how many cars I managed to stop during this five minutes (?) of my car mishap!
I told the parking attendants I was about to be late to a meeting. "Don't worry", they told me, "your car can stay here until you get back and then we shall see what we can do."
Now, THAT, I call a first class service!
I enjoyed the meeting, got the tow truck called in by the parking staff, after they failed to start the car with jumper cables. "Starter" they told me "not the battery". The tow truck took it to Mercado Auto Electric downtown, a garage that specializes in alternators (don't ask me what that is, I have no idea), starters, generators, regulators and all things electrical.
The car is now fixed. Starter changed. Parts and labor total $68.78, which, I was told, is a very good price.
Tow truck was $45 and a very nice conversation with its driver, who told me about his adventures driving an 18-wheeler through the entire USA and Canada, when he worked there. He knew how to speak Spanish to a foreigner, and even threw in some English words, when I looked confused, so I understood quite a bit of it. Too bad I did not know I could have used my AAA in Puerto Rico, but I know now!
The worst was the close to 40 minutes wait for a coworker to come and pick me up from the garage, as it is downtown, tight spaces, hot, nowhere to sit and cool down. And, of course, after I pick up my car from the garage, I'll have to try and not get lost, among the maze of narrow, congested streets. But I'll manage somehow :-))
Thursday, March 13, 2008
New notebook
On my way back from the jungle I purchased a new notebook - an HP Pavilion. I admit I hesitated before purchasing it, since it was marketed as an "entertainment PC" loaded with stuff like a plethora of games (which I actually started to play... and am already on the verge of becoming addicted to ), an ability to watch TV on it (who ever does that and why???) a web cam (which I have never used before, but might try, if it serves any purpose) and even a karaoke (which I shall definitively never use).
My old notebook, a Toshiba satellite,
served me very well for almost eight years, not giving me trouble even when in Costarican cloud forest, in Monteverde, small ants seemed to have found home in it. But last fall it started breaking down and finally it almost quit, so I bought this one.
It is cool and new and ... not Japanese, but American. And like all things American (made in China???) it started malfunctioning almost instantly. After a few hours the screen went dark. So I called tech support and they offered a following solution: unplug the notebook, turn it upside down, remove a battery, then put the battery back again and restart the computer.
Worked like a charm - twice, since after a few more hours I had to repeat this- admittedly ridiculous albeit working - procedure. Now, could anybody explain to me why (and how) removing and reinstalling the battery would cure the blankness of the computer screen????
To me it looks like black magic - forced by shoddy manufacturing? Now, Carly, or whoever is now in charge of HP, why do you guys sell crap?
My old notebook, a Toshiba satellite,
served me very well for almost eight years, not giving me trouble even when in Costarican cloud forest, in Monteverde, small ants seemed to have found home in it. But last fall it started breaking down and finally it almost quit, so I bought this one.
It is cool and new and ... not Japanese, but American. And like all things American (made in China???) it started malfunctioning almost instantly. After a few hours the screen went dark. So I called tech support and they offered a following solution: unplug the notebook, turn it upside down, remove a battery, then put the battery back again and restart the computer.
Worked like a charm - twice, since after a few more hours I had to repeat this- admittedly ridiculous albeit working - procedure. Now, could anybody explain to me why (and how) removing and reinstalling the battery would cure the blankness of the computer screen????
To me it looks like black magic - forced by shoddy manufacturing? Now, Carly, or whoever is now in charge of HP, why do you guys sell crap?
Sunday, September 30, 2007
No rose withouth thorns?
Having technical difficulties again. ( See post: I am not a total idiot)
This time with blogger: no life support here, I see, extremely difficult to post to a group help. I moved around html code - knowing nothing about it - in order to position pictures the way I want it and must have done something wrong, because now I get an error message, that my code can't be accepted because ending something something lacks corresponding something something at the beginning.
Great, looks like customer friendliness of blog sites is everywhere in the dark ages - if not one way than another.
Great, looks like customer friendliness of blog sites is everywhere in the dark ages - if not one way than another.
Monday, September 24, 2007
I am not a total idiot
... I'd like to think, although, I admit, I sometimes behave like one... (Don't we all ?)
I am just not interested in technological details, which, I think, I should not need to know in order to use technology to do what I want it to do.
What??? you ask. OK, I shall explain: do you think that it is necessary to know how the car's engine works in order to be able to drive a car?
No, I did not think you did, because most people, most drivers in fact, would just laugh at such a demand. (And I bet that most drivers - me included - do not even want to know how and when to change gears - particularly Americans, since they had it so good for so long. Everything that can be automated, should.) Yet, when I was a young girl in the then communist Poland I was expected to pass the written exam proving I knew how a car's engine worked and how it was built, before I could actually start to learn driving the car with an instructor and get a license to drive it on my own.
The - ridiculous - explanation for that requirement was that Poland at that time had almost no car service stations, so car drivers were supposed to be self sufficient if anything happened to their vehicles. The incredible naivety of the car techies, who imagined that anybody, without a technical background, would be able (even if he or she was willing and had appropriate tools) to fix his/her broken engine at the side of the road, just after a few theoretical lessons on the inner secrets of car engines, still makes me laugh.
Today I feel in the same situation trying to upload my pictures to my wordpress blog.
Not that i am a total novice at uploading pictures. No, I uploaded tons of images to various power point presentations, email letters, etc. But not to a blog...
During the weekend I wanted to write a post about Scania's gardens and to do that I needed to upload some photos, but no matter how hard I tried, I could either post thumbnails or - when I tried full size images, they came out so huge, as to show only tiny, totally inconsequential fragment of the image on screen... even though one photo somehow accidentally "uploaded itself" (?) to a category (???) ... and ... lo and behold... there it showed in its desired size. Aah, the miracles of technology!
OK, I DID try not to be totally tech-arrogant, so I read - rather carefully - wordpress's faq posts about uploading images, and the forum discussions and did not find what I needed to find, because
1) the information I needed was not there
2) whatever information was there was written by geeks to geeks in Geeklish (= geek English), not for non geeks in English, so, not being conversant in Geeklish, I did not understand most of it.
Thus today I contacted technical support at wordpress to get some help and Mark responded very promptly (I have to admit, giving the credit where the credit is due), that wordpress has no autoresizing ... and referred me to a faq question: how big can my images be..... which I previously read and had no idea how to follow. Sigh....
This reminds me of another technology dilemma, which was faced by one of my former clients, a small, but international manufacturer of a highly specialized, technologically cutting edge product, who hired me several years ago to solve some serious problems they were having with their instruction manual and product training.
The instruction manual was written in an extreme Geeklish ( actually in geek-German and translated to Geeklish and geek-Japanese), by the company's tech aficionados, so proud with the cutting edge technology they developed and used in their product, that..... the manual they have written enabled their most advanced competitors to copy their technology and bridge the gap from their to my client's technological advancement level in almost no time at all, which, of course, was not exactly what the company's management and shareholders had in mind business wise.
But the same manual - and the tech-repair loaded training - was a constant subject of complaints of their clients, because, although their maintenance staff could fix the product if it malfunctioned with the help of the manual, their operators - the very people to which the manual was ostensibly being addressed - lacked enough technical background to be able to use the product on the basis of those waaay too geeky instructions.
It took me no time at all to convince company management to stop the manual asap and withdraw as many already distributed copies of it from circulation as possible, as not to give away all of their secrets to their competitors.... but it took me a lot longer to convince those tech-geniuses to help me as SMEs (= subject matter experts) to completely redesign it and publish in several interactive versions (on line, on DVDs, in different languages, not only those of the company owners, but those of the majority of clients) able to accommodate every kind of user with every level of technical background from - if need be - a practically illiterate (they did happen, particularly in Malaysia and Brazil) operator of a machine, in which this technological marvel of a product, critical to the quality of production, was installed, to a PH.D in physics at any manufacturer of a machine using this product as one of its components - without either boring to death the PhD in physics and similar or going over the heads of any of the end users
Immediately after we were able to get these recommendations implemented, and the new interactive instruction tools were distributed, clients started calling with praise how pleased they were with the improvements and soon after the company got a public endorsement - at the largest relevant technology fair in the world - from several largest manufacturers of those machines that used my client's product as a component, not only for the technological advancement of their product, but for "extraordinary customer friendliness" of their product training and interactive instruction tools. The sales' levels and company's profits shot up and stayed up for almost three years.... until their techies - left again to their own devices - managed to ruin the "extraordinary customer friendliness" of the company's new and improved products' instruction tools, once again reducing them to - incomprehensible for most end users - techno-gobbledygook. And the sales responded accordingly: they fell.
Geeesh, will they ever learn????
I am just not interested in technological details, which, I think, I should not need to know in order to use technology to do what I want it to do.
What??? you ask. OK, I shall explain: do you think that it is necessary to know how the car's engine works in order to be able to drive a car?
No, I did not think you did, because most people, most drivers in fact, would just laugh at such a demand. (And I bet that most drivers - me included - do not even want to know how and when to change gears - particularly Americans, since they had it so good for so long. Everything that can be automated, should.) Yet, when I was a young girl in the then communist Poland I was expected to pass the written exam proving I knew how a car's engine worked and how it was built, before I could actually start to learn driving the car with an instructor and get a license to drive it on my own.
The - ridiculous - explanation for that requirement was that Poland at that time had almost no car service stations, so car drivers were supposed to be self sufficient if anything happened to their vehicles. The incredible naivety of the car techies, who imagined that anybody, without a technical background, would be able (even if he or she was willing and had appropriate tools) to fix his/her broken engine at the side of the road, just after a few theoretical lessons on the inner secrets of car engines, still makes me laugh.
Today I feel in the same situation trying to upload my pictures to my wordpress blog.
Not that i am a total novice at uploading pictures. No, I uploaded tons of images to various power point presentations, email letters, etc. But not to a blog...
During the weekend I wanted to write a post about Scania's gardens and to do that I needed to upload some photos, but no matter how hard I tried, I could either post thumbnails or - when I tried full size images, they came out so huge, as to show only tiny, totally inconsequential fragment of the image on screen... even though one photo somehow accidentally "uploaded itself" (?) to a category (???) ... and ... lo and behold... there it showed in its desired size. Aah, the miracles of technology!
OK, I DID try not to be totally tech-arrogant, so I read - rather carefully - wordpress's faq posts about uploading images, and the forum discussions and did not find what I needed to find, because
1) the information I needed was not there
2) whatever information was there was written by geeks to geeks in Geeklish (= geek English), not for non geeks in English, so, not being conversant in Geeklish, I did not understand most of it.
Thus today I contacted technical support at wordpress to get some help and Mark responded very promptly (I have to admit, giving the credit where the credit is due), that wordpress has no autoresizing ... and referred me to a faq question: how big can my images be..... which I previously read and had no idea how to follow. Sigh....
This reminds me of another technology dilemma, which was faced by one of my former clients, a small, but international manufacturer of a highly specialized, technologically cutting edge product, who hired me several years ago to solve some serious problems they were having with their instruction manual and product training.
The instruction manual was written in an extreme Geeklish ( actually in geek-German and translated to Geeklish and geek-Japanese), by the company's tech aficionados, so proud with the cutting edge technology they developed and used in their product, that..... the manual they have written enabled their most advanced competitors to copy their technology and bridge the gap from their to my client's technological advancement level in almost no time at all, which, of course, was not exactly what the company's management and shareholders had in mind business wise.
But the same manual - and the tech-repair loaded training - was a constant subject of complaints of their clients, because, although their maintenance staff could fix the product if it malfunctioned with the help of the manual, their operators - the very people to which the manual was ostensibly being addressed - lacked enough technical background to be able to use the product on the basis of those waaay too geeky instructions.
It took me no time at all to convince company management to stop the manual asap and withdraw as many already distributed copies of it from circulation as possible, as not to give away all of their secrets to their competitors.... but it took me a lot longer to convince those tech-geniuses to help me as SMEs (= subject matter experts) to completely redesign it and publish in several interactive versions (on line, on DVDs, in different languages, not only those of the company owners, but those of the majority of clients) able to accommodate every kind of user with every level of technical background from - if need be - a practically illiterate (they did happen, particularly in Malaysia and Brazil) operator of a machine, in which this technological marvel of a product, critical to the quality of production, was installed, to a PH.D in physics at any manufacturer of a machine using this product as one of its components - without either boring to death the PhD in physics and similar or going over the heads of any of the end users
Immediately after we were able to get these recommendations implemented, and the new interactive instruction tools were distributed, clients started calling with praise how pleased they were with the improvements and soon after the company got a public endorsement - at the largest relevant technology fair in the world - from several largest manufacturers of those machines that used my client's product as a component, not only for the technological advancement of their product, but for "extraordinary customer friendliness" of their product training and interactive instruction tools. The sales' levels and company's profits shot up and stayed up for almost three years.... until their techies - left again to their own devices - managed to ruin the "extraordinary customer friendliness" of the company's new and improved products' instruction tools, once again reducing them to - incomprehensible for most end users - techno-gobbledygook. And the sales responded accordingly: they fell.
Geeesh, will they ever learn????
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
