Sometimes You Can't Fix It
A few years ago, I messed my foot up pretty bad and had to be in an air cast and use a knee scooter for some really unpleasant duration like ten weeks. This is unfortunate at any time, but this happened to occur right before VMworld and then extended into Microsoft Ignite – both of which I was booked to travel to. I toughed it out and got a temporary nickname of “Scooter Steve,” but I learned the hard way that in-person conferences are brutal when you have mobility issues. My knee was so raw from riding on that scooter that it was bleeding by the end of both weeks (though my insistence on attending both conference parties didn’t improve my situation).
As cool as this thing looks, it’s a lot less fun to wear for a long time than you’d think.
Pretending you’re Robocop wears off after about a month.
Jokes about what it’s like to traverse Universal Studios on a knee scooter aside, I was discouraged by how long it was taking to heal and at my next check-in with the doctor, I made it clear that I wasn’t happy. As I recall, the conversation unfolded something like this:
Me: My foot isn’t healing fast enough. I feel like this is taking forever.
Dr: Well, you’re in your late thirties now – that’s kind of how it goes.
Me: What are you talking about? Tom Brady is 40 and playing professional football. If he can recover from injuries and go back to playing pro sports, why can’t I get out of this cast?
Dr: …you’re not Tom Brady.
Effectively, what my doctor was saying to me was that “this is how it is.” She didn’t offer to do anything to improve the situation or offer any modifications. She acknowledged my complaint, and then basically told me to build a bridge and get over it because nothing about my situation was going to change. Certainly, you can argue that this may not be great bedside manner, but I think this was a very compassionate thing for her to say to me. She didn’t hold out false hope or prescribe me additional PT that wouldn’t help but instead would have wasted more of my time and money.
I left her office somewhat deflated, but also realizing that I needed to just accept that this wasn’t going to heal in a week and that I had to reset my expectations on what I was going to be in for. It wasn’t the most fun I’d ever had at a doctor’s office, but I appreciated the straight talk. I’d rather not be patronized just to make me happy.
If you’re like me, you can probably relate with the doctor in this story – possibly even more than you can relate with me. How often have you had someone at your company give you feedback about an application or complain about some software that you have no ability to impact whatsoever? For almost everyone in IT that I know, we’d give a non-zero answer. One of the unique things about IT is that we not only create solutions and platforms for people to be productive, but we also serve and provide software that other organizations have created to our customers and clients. In many cases, we don’t have any ability to modify these,we simply provide or install them.
The font they use in Scrabble annoys me, and the way they do the point values in subscript isn’t pleasing, and look how all the letters don’t line up; they didn’t even try to get the vertical alignment right.
Oh… sorry. I got carried away there.
Recently, I was talking to a colleague who started providing a lot of feedback on some Microsoft 365 applications. They were giving me a long list of things they did and did not like about how OneDrive, Outlook, and SharePoint functioned. From the way the menus popped up from the activity tray to the manner in which it handles multiple Microsoft accounts, they had strong feelings on the user experience of these apps. I listened as they went on for a while and when they finished, I told them I appreciated the feedback. They looked at me puzzled for a minute and then pointedly asked, “Are you going to do anything about it?” I realized pretty quickly that I hadn’t articulated clearly that I have no ability to impact the menu options in OneDrive. Perhaps by thanking them for the feedback, I may have implied that I was in a position to do something to alleviate their concerns. I tried to backpedal a bit by telling them that I don’t have any ability to change software that is produced by a two trillion-dollar company headquartered outside of Seattle. I stopped short of saying that I also am fairly confident that that same company has invested more money that my entire IT budget in market research around what customers want in these applications, and that I have confidence that they’re acting on it in a manner that makes the largest number of customers happy as quickly as possible.
I decided that from that point on, I wouldbe clearer that “that’s just the way it is” when someone starts looking to me to “fix” something that I have no ability to modify. Generally speaking, I think a polite but firm approach can sound like, “I appreciate that feedback and hear what you’re saying. Unfortunately, as you know this software is written by [vendor], and our team just installs it. If you’d like to write your thoughts in an email, I can forward them to our account rep and put you in touch.” I think this sets the right tone that I appreciate their frustration, but that the very best I can do is forward their concerns on to the company that is actually responsible for the software.
Look at this cute little guy covered in all that misery powder.
No, seriously… I need some antihistamines.
However, it also serves us well to remember that we do have a lot of latitude to configure certain applications. Salesforce apps can be modified an almost infinite number of ways, and homegrown applications can be bent to our will to the extent feasible by budget and labor bandwidth. We need to listen to our customers when they give us feedback on these applications, as not doing so would be willfully neglectful of our primary role of supporting the organization that we work for. Going back to the example where I discuss my issues with my doctor, I recently talked with her about sinus issues that seem to crop up annually during allergy season and she was able to provide me with a prescription for a steroidal spray. Similarly, if we can make things better for our customers, we should. That’s our job. But we’re also not a sounding board for every technological complaint that someone can muster. To provide false hope and attention to complaints that we cannot do anything about undermines the value that we provide to the business we serve. It’s simply listening to someone complain about their foot that isn’t getting better fast enough and offering them some false hope that you can make it better quickly.
I was thinking about this today as I took a brisk walk that turned into a jog around my neighborhood. After about six miles, my foot started to ache a bit - but it was the good kind of ache that lets you know that you’ve been using it and not the sharp stabbing pain of a damaged navicular bone. My doctor was right; it was what it was and the healing process took time. Soon after, my sinuses were pretty angry at the pollen count - but the sinus spray I was prescribed does seem to help with that. My doctor was able to help with that issue, and she did. Just like our bodies, with software sometimes you can control what and how things can be improved - and sometimes you can’t.
Questions for reflection:
If something can’t be fixed, would you rather be told that it’s unchangeable or do you prefer to hear that someone will try?
Has someone ever given you feedback on commercial software that you don’t have an ability to impact? What was your response? How did the customer take it?
What’s the nit-pickiest piece of feedback that you ever got from a customer? How did you handle it?