Sure, with 0 or 1 as the “lowest priority” setting you don’t have room to go lower (except for negative integers). I suppose whoever programmed it must have decided that the users would need more room on the “more important” side, as in “this will always come first” rather than the less important/this-will-always-come-last side. Or they figured negative numbers would be too confusing (or negative-priority numbers were already reserved for something else — completed tasks, for instance).
Or, as I suggested, the computer shoulda been made with automatic settings with space in between for refinement.
Amazon Floozy Goddess, My guess is that it was a Sociology student with a groovy soul-patch wearing professor that gave an assignment out to go break cultural norms and then write a paper on the reactions. I mean really, nothing else makes sense.
3 is a higher number than 1 - so it has higher priority …
did I mention that SAP is a german company and has very logical thinking behind their product???
(at least for germans
The most ridiculous thing I heard from a customer happened during my brief stint as a cashier at Burger King. An old woman came in and started ordering with an extremely heavy Chinese accent; she barely spoke a word of English. Here’s what it sounded like.
“Naamaa whaa-pho”
“Number one-four?”
“Naaabaa waa-foo”
“Number one? Number four?”
“Naamaa whaa-pho”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand…number four?”
She starts pointing at the menu.
“No, no, no…Ndaabaa whaa-fooo”
After a minute or two of this it finally dawns on me: Oh! :smack: :smack: :smack: Double Whopper! :o I was embarassed for both of us, but she eventually did get her order.
I work in biomedical research. One of my responsiblities as a lab manager is to order supplies. There is a standard form the researchers fill out to give to me. The form has a space for the vendor’s name, catalog number, product description, etc.
I had been a manager for a couple of weeks and I recieved an order form with all the information filled in but the product description. No big deal, I thought and I called the vendor.
Vendor: How may I help you?
Me: I would like to order catalog number XXXX-XX.
Vendor: XXXX-XX, 200 reaction units of human testis.
Me: :eek: :eek: Ummmm, excuse me.
I’m sure the vendor heard me asking my principle investigator if this order was for real.
From then on, I will not place an order if there is any information missing on the form.
I was a little scared when the package arrived. Much to my relief, the tissue had been process and was shipped in a little plastic tube. It creeped me out that there was a document that stated the age, race, and general type of death of the tissue donor.
That’s a little different. There’s no linguistic convention that places “Code 1” above “Code 3” in terms of urgency.
“Priority One,” on the other hand, is unambiguously the highest priority, by definition. If you say, for example, “Fiscal responsibility is Priority Three,” you’re inviting people to speculate as to which two goals trump fiscal responsibility. It’s entirely possible that hookers are Priority One and blow is Priority Two – so long as those two areas are covered to our satisfaction, we can afford to worry about being prudent with money.
With this type of maintenance prioritization you are only looking at general categories of priorities, not absolute priorities. There could be hundreds of priority "1"s in the system, dozens of which could have active work orders out at any time, without causing a problem in the system.
What the priority number means is based on your individual companies work flow, but for mine “1” means do it as soon as possible, “2” means do it by the date listed, and “3” means do it when you get a chance. If you have multiple priority "1"s assigned to an individual employee it is determined by the supervisor or the employee on an as needed basis. The general preventative maintenance software being described relies on populating a database well before the work order is issued, and the people populating the database often have little idea of the EXACT priority, only the general category. And having 3 be higher priority than 1 would be a pain in the butt.
It *is * thoroughly confusing. Want it done now? Say “Do this first!”
Want the real wizards when you call for help? You need third-level support. First-level support are the script monkeys that ask if you rebooted yet.
Speaking of customers, here’s a transcript of a call I had years ago. Probably the same one with the backwards batteries in the remote…
The customer calls me, looking for a password reset. (I’m SO glad I don’t take those calls any more!) She gives her ID and I attempt to verify the garbled last letter of the ID:
Me: M as in Mary?
Her: No, Kathleen.
Me: M as in Kathleen?
Her: No, my first name is Kathleen.
Me: No… Is the last letter of your ID M?
Her: Yes, my middle name is Mary.
And one memorable for the user’s level of frustration:
I’m not sure I’m in the right spot, but the f—er is stuck!
Hey, I didn’t program their goofy machine. I can just see what the programmer might have been thinking when priorities counted into higher numbers, that’s all.
The TADS adventure-game programming syntax does this with automated NPC behavior (though with 0 as “do immediately” and higher numbers set as “do only if nothing else comes up first”) with plenty of room in between the various priorities.
I think we can both agree there’s probably a much more efficient way to have done it.
I worked in a book store years ago. We were not a huge store, but still had a couple thousand titles out on our shelves. A man walked in one day and said he’s like to buy a book for his girlfriend’s birthday. When asked what sort of thing he was looking for, he said he just knew she liked to read, so he thought he’d get her a book.
It took several minutes to narow it down to “Fiction”. I forget what we eventually sent him on his way with, something that wasn’t moving out the door that week I suspect.
Ha! what is funny is that wireless channels in many wireless routers do go to 11!
From a pit thread I made a while ago:
Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666. - Revelation 13:18
One thing I do understand: lots of people really don’t know how to calculate.
Months ago I had a caller that got worried that the wireless network had the last 3 numbers in the network name as 666 (number is assigned at random)
No problem, the name was easily changed in the wireless properties.
Later, **a different customer ** did go like this:
“Well, my security code that is printed under the device is xxxx666xxxxx, I need to replace my device”…
Never once mentioning Satan, the rapture or the apocalypse I explained that it was just an unfortunate coincidence and it was easily solved by changing the security key.
“No, that is not good enough, even if the number will not be broadcast anymore, the number will still be printed under the device”
(emotions I had while the customer was explaining: ) :dubious: :eek: :smack:
Not wanting to waste time, we decided to replace the router.
I answered a 911 call the other night. It was a drunk guy who couldn’t figure out how to make his television come on. What was funny was his speech was so slurred I could barely understand him; I was within 2 seconds of dispatching an ambulance to a stroke victim when he finally managed to tell me what he wanted.
I work in a museum now, and part of my job is to give tours to the public.
–“Wow! It must have cost you guys a fortune to buy all this stuff!”
–“If that doll really dates from 1800, why isn’t her hair gray?”
–One woman brought in a white silk dress which she claimed was her great-great-great-great grandmother’s wedding dress, from around 1800. She refused to believe me when I told her it couldn’t have been, because they didn’t have zippers at the time.
–One woman claimed that the 19th century log house we have as part of our facilities had to be “a fake” because she knew for a fact that houses* never* had stairs at that time-- people climbed ladders outside to reach the top floor.
