My ex had an ancient high-mileage Mitsubishi Mirage that we paid $300 for. The catalytic converter had been removed so the CEL was permanently on. She would constantly complain about it being on and that I needed to fix her car. Thing is, there was nothing actually wrong with it. So one day I removed the bulb and told her that I changed the spark plugs. She never complained about the car again.
Game developers used to be weeks or months ahead but only reveal pitiful, inch-at-a-time progress. As long as the “producer” believes progress is being made they’re happy. No time to add a new feature, we have barely even made spec as it is (the project is complete you just don’t know).
I was working at a company, where many employees at the office whined about temperature of their rooms, so I finally decided to put every room a controller and tucked the cable away somewhere under the skirting board or something. The controller wasn’t working, but everyone was able to set it to their preferred temperature, and the complaints stopped.
How did you provide the necessary 24V power to these?
E: Oh nvm, you made this up
Just playing devil’s advocate, but if the story is old enough then they could’ve been rotary style, and they pulled a wire to sell the effect (I’ve done the same thing with fake surveillance cameras).
Exactly…you don’t need to supply 24vdc if there’s no display to power, just a dial that does nothing but satisfies the user.
I covered that possible lie in my expansive bullshit call out. You either did not read or you do not understand.
Go check it out, you might come to believe that I’ve installed maybe a hundred of these and actually know what I’m talking about.
I already covered that bullshit possibility in my calling out
Yeah I was thinking the same thing hahahaha
I work as an appliance repair technician, servicing household appliances such as refrigerators, dryers, and washing machines. Most of my work comes through home warranty companies, so the homeowner isn’t paying me directly. My responsibility is to diagnose the problem and perform the necessary repairs.
Every so often, you encounter a customer who has convinced themselves that a particular part needs replacing, and no amount of professional explanation will persuade them otherwise. As a technician, I have a few options. I can simply refuse to replace a part that isn’t defective and justify my decision to my supervisor, or I can replace the part the customer insists on having replaced without actually changing anything. I can bring in a component, make it look as though I’ve performed the replacement, and call it a day.
Sometimes, people just want to feel vindicated. They want confirmation that they were right all along, regardless of whether they actually were. And occasionally, it seems easier to give them that satisfaction than to spend an hour arguing with someone who has already made up their mind.
I’m amazed any of your clients actually let you repair anything. Field service is the norm in my (day job) industry and customers just do nothing but bitch and moan and whine and tantrum and threaten and obstruct because they think it’s going to get them a new product delivered instead of a repair. “You mean now I need to wait for parts? That’s unacceptable!” “I paid for a new product, not a repaired product!” “I paid a ‘lot of money’ for this [obvious convenience item] and I can’t live without it, you need to get me a new one immediately or I’ll charge back my credit card!” Etc., etc., et-fucking-cetera. If I took another drink every time I heard any of the above in one day, I’d be dead before quitting time.
Oh my god, dude. Every. Single. Day.
“You mean I have to wait a week?!”
Yes. It’s a home warranty. Parts requests take longer to process. If you want it fixed quickly, you can pay me out of pocket, and I’ll be back tomorrow.
“Why won’t they just replace it? It was repaired once ten years ago!”
I have absolutely no influence over whether your home warranty company decides to replace your appliance. If I did, I’d have them all replaced.
“But they said you have to recommend it for replacement!”
I have no control over the decision-making process at your home warranty company. I can diagnose the problem, recommend the necessary repairs, and provide my professional assessment. What the company chooses to do with that information is entirely up to them.
These people don’t seem to understand that they’re paying into a multibillion-dollar industry for what amounts to a contractual gamble with some very significant limitations.
I have to spend an absurd amount of time explaining to customers that they’re not necessarily being ripped off or scammed. They voluntarily signed a contract agreeing to a particular kind of service, with specific terms, exclusions, limitations, and a claims process that is often considerably less convenient than they imagined.
The home warranty industry isn’t designed to provide you with the fastest, most convenient, or most comprehensive solution to your appliance problems. It’s designed to provide a service within the financial and contractual limits established by the company.
You can argue about whether the contract is worth what you’re paying for it, and that’s fine. But you cannot sign up for a product without understanding what it actually provides and then act surprised when the company delivers precisely the kind of service its business model is built around.
And somehow, I’m the one who has to explain all of this while standing in your kitchen with a toolbox.
Sorry. Rant over.
As someone that has sent the literal exact same robot-vacuum-cleaner about 10 times for repair (because they just keep sending it back without doing anything): sometimes the customer is actually right.
Sometimes, people just want to feel vindicated. They want confirmation that they were right all along, regardless of whether they actually were. And occasionally, it seems easier to give them that satisfaction than to spend an hour arguing with someone who has already made up their mind.
You’d go far in politics.
Such a bassist move.
My father would tell a story about an IBM tech from back in the pre-PC days. She had one of those Dick Trickle kind of names, where the name parses as a phrase? To not outright dox her I’ll call her Robin Banks.
Robin would be at a customer’s site working on an IBM minicomputer or unit record equipment, when a secretary would flag her down and ask her to adjust the “tension” or “weight” or something on a Selectric typewriter. IBM Selectric typewriters don’t have any kind of adjustment on the key travel or typing feel. What she would do is walk up to it, type a little, agree that it felt off, take a small flathead screwdriver, stick it through an opening in the side or back of the case, pretend to adjust something, she’d take a cloth, damp it with some of the light oil they used on all the intricate little mechanisms in old computer hardware, wipe the key caps with it. Then say “Okay, try that” and inevitably they were happy with it.
Another story from Robin, in an office with a good size secretary pool, one of the secretaries kept bitching about her typewriter. It doesn’t type right, it doesn’t work right. Robin noticed that this particular secretary had been issued a blue Selectric, all the other secretaries had red ones. She swapped out the case with one of the other typewriters, just the shell, same machine, and wouldn’t you know it typed much better!
I’ve had it the other way around, not even on purpose. As the designated nooby sound engineer for the evening I had to mix the bands monitoring as well as the live mix for the audience. During the sound check one of the band members wanted their vocals to have a bit more “pop” in the mix, and not knowing what that exactly meant I asked them what they wanted. I don’t really remember what it was they said, but it was something about boosting certain frequencies. Now, I have never had to do this before, and while I in principle knew how to do it the request kind of took me out of the flow so in the moment I completely forgot. So while this musician was looping his vocals so I could make the change, I was just selecting random menus on the console hoping I would end up at the right one. And, at some point, the guy was like, “oh yeah that’s perfect!”
I had not changed any EQ at all. I wasn’t even close to the right buttons, so to speak. But he still liked it, so I shut up and let them do their thing. Honestly I think it might’ve been his on inflection into the mic that made him change his mind, not the actual EQ, but whatever, he was happy with the mix and I was happy that I did not look like a total noob (even tho I was)
Ah, sounds like you accidentally found the DFA slider!
This leaves out the tidbit that Leeland says he flips the switch and plucks the strings from a different position, which does significantly change the tone. He just doesn’t want to turn the knobs, which he might reasonably be reluctant to do for any number of reasons. It’s not “I’m just gonna do what I want. Fuck the recording engineer” its “Ok. You want a different sound, but I know the better way to change it, so here, I’m gonna flip a nothing switch so we don’t have to argue about it”.
That’s interesting, because you would think that even the newest, least experienced producer would know that you can change the tone of the bass just by adjusting where you play on the strings. So, presumably this is something he uses on “executive producers” who are just there for the credit.
Leland is a freaking legend…this just elevates that status more.
As a writer, I wish I could do this. But they’ll notice if the text is still exactly the same.
I used to be an animator, and we’d deliberately put in obviously bad things just so the director could spot them and tell us to take them out so he felt like he was doing something lol.
But that’d probably work for writing too
We did this at my last job. Couldn’t get user specs or feedback on fucking anything. Total unwillingness to commit.
So we’d build the software wrong just so they could feel powerful and smart ‘making’ us change it. System requirements the stupid-hard way.
Have you considered trying italics ?
Maybe I should try submitting the same text, but in a different font…
Times New Roman? Ew. I want my smut to exclusively be in Comic Sans MS, 14pt.
That would work on me.
The origin of the DFA control.
Similar story, not mine: TV repairmen back in the day would have frequent in-home callbacks, with the TV owner stating the TV picture wasn’t as good as before the repair.
So, after a repair the repairman would adjust the v-hold so the image would slowly rotate. “Tell me if the picture is getting better or worse.” If it was getting worse, they’d flip it back the other way until the customer was satisfied they were seeing the best picture.
Apparently cut callbacks to near zero.
I have a friend that is a producer. They’ve had people try stuff like this before.
Producers just assume you’re an idiot and difficult to work with, and move on, knowing that you’ll have to do it yourself, later.
I use to run sound mixers for events and local bands, and had a dummy slider that I’d move when a family member wanted to hear their special boy or whatnot. Everyone in the industry knows this trick. Almost everyone plays along.
I like how the comment ✨ evolved ✨
It’s important not to be rude
The resignation in this comment is palpable and I laughed a lot. Thank you.
:(
Lots of udiophiles buy lots of gadgets which do this same thing or make the sound worse, but they love it.
Studies have shown that more expensive placebos are genuinely more effective than cheaper placebos. Not in the sense of, “har har, it’s a placebo, 2x effectiveness of zero is still zero” but actual reported higher rates of improved health and diminished symptoms.
It works in a similar way with audiophiles. The sticker shock is part of the effectiveness for them.
“It adds warmth!”
Motherfucker, that’s just adding a low-frequency buzz to the sound.
you know a lot of vinyl collectors?
Maybe I like it this way?! You are not my mom!
Or am I?
dun dun duuuuuunnnnnn
Yeh, this is common.
I’ve heard of PPI (Producer Pleaser Indicator) which is a mixing desk channel not routed anywhere but can be fiddled with to meet client demands.
And there is the DFA (Does Fuck All). Similar conceptYeah we had a DFA slider on our board! Good for placating meddlers, but also excellent for pranking new people. “If it starts to sound too tinny, lower the DFA very gradually till it sounds right” and then watch them very seriously fiddle with it for ages or until someone laughs lol.
