I’m sorry, WHAT?!
January 4th, 2007 at 8:44 am by Chad (Chad's Blog)
Yesterday I was on the phone with a client to determine dates for a course they wanted us to teach. They are notorious for going down random rat-holes that have little, if anything, to do with the subject matter at hand. During the discussion of the roll-out, they suddenly took issue with the name of the product we would train their users on. To simplify and to avoid naming names, let’s pretend I work for McDonald’s. If I had, the conversation would have gone a little something like this:
Customer: Yeah, calling it the McRib is just confusing. Our users won’t know what that is. Can’t we just call it a Big Mac?
Us: Well, no, because it’s really a different sandwich altogether.
Customer: Well, our users will get really confused. Let’s just call it the Big Mac.
Us: Again, we can’t really do that — it’s a totally different sandwich. One is pork, the other is beef.
Customer: But our users don’t know that, and it’s just too confusing. If we can’t call it the Big Mac, can we call it the McBurgerator?
Us: Well, it’s not really a burger, and it already has a name.
Customer: Is there anything hard-coded into this “McRib” that keeps us from calling it the McBurgerator?
Us: Um, yes… We’d have to change all our documentation to reflect the change. We have other customers who purchase the McRib, and if you refer to it by a different name when you order, our cashiers won’t know what you’re talking about.
Customer: What if we compromised and called it the Rib McBurger-like Sandwich?
(and on… and on… and on…)
Who are these people? Why do they think they can do this?
Tags:job,rant