Helpfulness-ness

I had the chance this morning to help a bewildered visitor to Melbourne town who was trying to get to RMIT from the corner of Elizabeth and Collins. Now for all the non Melbournites out there, this kind of direction is quite simplistic and helped me feel good about myself for the next hundred meters or so till I started dodging trams jaywalking on Bourke St.


The man, of unknown overseas origin, wandered on his way happily hoping that he was one step closer to his destination than he had been when standing on our meeting corner. And I can't recommend enough that you ensure these tourists, visitors, new residents, interlopers or otherwise time travellers do get the assistance that they are asking for.

It may be a little far to run ahead of him and drop bread crumbs or pay a skywriter to lead them towards there intended goal but it does give you a good kick to make people feel a little better.
Now, I know you can all see this as self congratulatory but this should lead to an obvious conclusion.

People need to help people out.

Well, I don't think that was that much of a revelation but maybe, just maybe if you're feeling a little down you should go out and find someone who is incompetently trying to parallel park their scooter and assist them (without appearing to actually steal the scooter).

Heck, this should be naturally for everyone to assist any stranger, who happens to walk by, across a pedestrian crossing regardless if they want to cross or not. Why not wait half an hour to merge onto a freeway letting everyone else past first, you'll feel 189.3% better than you had earlier in the day(figure not yet proven)

But lastly, if you want to truly help someone else. Maybe you should let them help you. If you notice a friend or colleague feeling a little glum then what better way to make them feel better than to go out there and injure yourself(only to a slight degree, no point killing yourself) so that they can give you the kiss of life, tourniquet up your acute angled knee and feel for a good two days on top of the world.

Well, that's all from me for this post.
I think it's time I went and helped some people out.
Maybe just a twisted ankle this time, broken bones just take too long to heal.

Can you tell me where the FAQ for me is?

Recently I was disappointed with a customer’s service department of a website for there inadequate options on the frequently asked questions so I wrote them a letter. I have included it below for your reference.

Dear [Name removed to protect the innocent]

I would like to say that I have no problems whatsoever but I’m a little unsure, Can you tell me if there is a frequently asked questions section for those who may have forgotten the questions they wanted to ask when logging into your site. I feel that this is a common occurrence but something that has been neglected by your administration there.

This should cover all the available options that could be on someone’s mind when logging into the computer, should it be simple like ‘Does [said website] know the meaning of Life” (Yes but we’re not saying) to the complex “Can you tell me if my computer is on” (Yes but we’re not saying).

I think that until this has been implemented that the frequently asked questions is severely incomplete.

Mister Fine

So this brings me to my point. Does customer service really serve a customer or is it now too much of a buffering tool to make hardworking absentminded people such as myself forget the thoughts they have before they actually want to ask the specific question. Understand?

But even with current frequently asked question sections I personally wonder why I have to answer questions correctly for the help section to know what I want help with. Can’t it intuitively interpret my answers that I’m thinking about fruit and colours to know that I want to look into Volkswagen Beetles with fluffy polyester interiors? Why does it require such specific information without a random assumption that I don’t actually know what I’m talking about. Considering the impression most IT professionals have of technical questions it might not be the best thing to assume.

So my solution to such an issue is to have a government funded body just for getting people working with Frequently Asked Questions and other such Customer Service tools. Maybe call them the Department of Infrastructure for Persons Seething with Technical Issues on Computer Keyboards (DIPSTICK). If we can’t throw some money at some public servants to help us out, what hope is there really to go on in this world.

Still, I should get back to my point on this blog. It had it before, I remembered it halfway through but now it’s gone again.