Adventures In Computing: Closing Support Tickets
Background that is only relevant for setting the stage: I was having a technical issue so I used the companies support system to generate a ‘help ticket’. Details don’t matter, that’s not where the adventure was. No, that came after I realized that I didn’t need help, that I managed to solve my own problem (it had been a reading comprehension fail on my part).
The particular service I was using automatically sent an email when I submitted the ticket. Nothing special there, most of them seem to do this. In the email were links to troubleshooting guides that might have helped. They didn’t, were for the wrong topic (but I could see how they were close enough, so good attempt). But for each of those articles there was a link that would mark the ticket as closed and point at the article as the reason.
Well I couldn’t use those links, because those articles didn’t help with my issue. It was a different article that had the correct directions, I had just misread them. But I looked at the links and saw a pattern. The links all started with the companies website, then had a number, followed by a question mark and a bunch of random looking stuff. Well the website and random stuff was the same for all the links. The part that changed was the number.
Quick look at the support articles showed that each one had a number. So I looked up the original source of information, which actually answered my question. Swapped that number into the links from the email, and went to that new link. Got a nice popup indicating the support ticket was closed.
Alternatively, their system wasn’t as robust as it appeared and I broke it.
In the grand scheme of things, more or less pointless. But it did make for an amusing adventure. Highlighting the importance of reading comprehension, pattern recognition, general troubleshooting, and yes, paying attention to what you read.
As for where my reading comprehension failed, that was also kind of amusing.
The directions basically said to go to a page and click a certain word with white text and black background. Problem was, the page had the same word more prominently displayed with black text and white background. So that was the one I clicked on, which took me down steps that didn’t work.
Once I realized my mistake, it was easy enough to click on the right spot. Which then worked as it should. Wouldn’t have even noted it except for how amusing it was. First with the puzzle solving to close the ticket. And second in regards to how black and white are often treated in the larger world, yet here I was getting them backwards.