I Didn't Know You Used ALL the Programs on this Machine

This was pretty amusing when Optimus Prime told me about it. I just had to post it to share with all of you wonderful person that reads this blog.

So this IT guy at this hospital decided to take the CPU that Our Software was installed on, back up what he thought he needed to back up, re-format it and then pop a new machine in its place for the end user, who had no idea this was going on. I mean, why check with the actual user of the computer before switching it and completely repurposing the old machine? She got into work the next day and found that Our Software wasn’t there at all. The IT guy came out and tried to re-install it, but part of it won’t work now primarily because he didn’t know how the program worked so he didn’t know that a) it needed to be saved and b) what part of it he needed to save. What did they do next? Call us to fix it. Oh, and it needs to be done NOW.

So, naturally, we did what we could with this, but really, it wasn't going to work without a reinstallation. And since this program is fairly customized from place to place, he'd better hope that he backed up the right parts of the software or we're talking a cost to the tune of no less then $500 depending on how customized it was and how much time it will take to get it going again. But hey, he was proactive in keeping the end user on an brand new, updated computer.

Now, this was an older product, and I think Prime talked the end user into exploring the newer version of it since they were going to have to pay anyway. That newer version is much easier to maintain for them and us.

This whole scenario is akin to you changing out my car while I’m sleeping and putting a new one in its place. The new car is great and all, but you didn’t move the locks over and you don’t have a new key to give me because you threw those out thinking they weren’t needed anymore. To top it off, I can’t even have my old car back because you sent it to the scrap yard and now it’s a big square paperweight. Let’s call Ford. I’m sure they can fix this.