Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)
To   : comp.programming
From : Randy Howard
Date : Thu Sep 22 2005 07:44 am

Steve O'Hara-Smith wrote
(in article <20050921121159.2cb4dca4.steveo@eircom.net>):

> On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 07:24:39 GMT
> Randy Howard <randyhoward@FOOverizonBAR.net> wrote:
> 
>> him by pager to let him know to come back for it later in the 
>> day.  So, I call them up, and they were SHOCKED to learn that I 
>> ordered one, received two, and was calling to return the extra 
>> one.  It seems that their computer system doesn't even have a 
>> provision for handling it, because nobody EVER does that.  The
> 
> 	Of course it would have been perfectly reasonable on their
> part to say something like "We are sorry for the inconvenience and
> our system is not geared up for this rare case so please accept
> the second item as a gift from us, by the way you only have warranty
> cover on the item with serial number ...".

Well, if it had been a $20 cable, I could understand that.  I 
suspect if I had ordered an $85,000 4-way server with a boatload 
of memory and drives, they might feel differently, but the order 
was for quite a large sum of money, but not five digits worth.  
Effectively, in the state I live in, not offering to return it 
could be construed as felony theft, not something I'm keen to 
learn about personally.  

> 	Such a response would have left you not feeling guilty, them
> looking magnaminous and everybody happy.

Well, I just spoke the salesman again a few hours ago, and he 
seems to think that it very well might be that I get two for the 
price of one, simply because there is no easy way for a monster 
large bureaucracy to handle exceptions efficiently.  There is an 
analogy to large C++ Programs in there somewhere, but I shudder 
at the idea of driving this discussion on-topic.  :-)

Since in this case I was one of the very early employees of this 
company in its larval stage, and still own a fairly large number 
of shares in it today, it's really annoying that they're willing 
to just take a bath for it.  But, it seems to be beyond my 
control.  

His last attempt at an explanation was that "we feel it's better 
for customer satisfaction to let our customers keep extra units 
when mistakes are made".  I told him how I'd be a really 
satisfied customer if he never charged me for anything at all.  
:-)

-- 
Randy Howard (2reply remove FOOBAR)

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