Rants

Rants about various topics.

Rant: SMA vs. RP-SMA

Posted by Justin A. Parr on August 15, 2022
Posted in: Good Design - Bad Design, Rants. 4 comments

Rant: SMA vs. RP-SMA

A few years ago, I put up a wireless camera system, and I ended up needing an antenna extension cable.

I vaguely recall buying a SMA, and it was the wrong one, which of course meant that I had to buy a RP-SMA cable, which worked.

I have also occasionally had to buy RP-SMA cables to extend WiFi antennas from time to time – mainly due to line-of-sight issues.

And I never gave it much thought after that.

Having recently installed a new gate opener, I found that I needed to raise the antenna (again, due to line-of-sight issues), and I bought a RP-SMA cable, which I assumed was fairly standard.

Imagine my surprise when it didn’t work – ONE end connected just fine, but the other end wouldn’t connect at all.

“What idiot used the wrong standard?”, I thought to myself.

So I bought a SMA cable, and that worked out just fine.

However, I started thinking about it.  Why have two cables that are otherwise identical, but not interoperable?

 

Other than the pin configuration, SMA and RP-SMA are identical. In regular SMA, the male pin goes on the female-threaded connector. In “Reverse Polarity” SMA, the male pin goes on the male-threaded connector.

 

 

What is SMA?

The SubMiniature A (SMA) connector is a smaller, lighter-weight, and more precision version of the “F” connector.

If you’ve ever had a VCR or cable box in the 1990’s, you have at least one of these in the bottom of a drawer somewhere:

The venerable “F” connector at the end of a coaxial cable was once the standard way to connect devices that share a NTSC video signal.  Over time, this was replaced by newer standards, but even as late as the early 2000’s, you could go purchase a VCR, and it probably came with one of these cables.

The pin on the male end is typically the unshielded cable’s core, which protrudes from the insulation.  The male end has a female thread that freely spins, while the female end has fixed male threads.  To connect the two, you insert the pin in to the female end, and tighten the free-spinning “nut” on the male end.  Here is an RG59 elbow that has both male and female F connectors:

RG59 (“F” Connector) Elbow

 

The SMA connector is slightly smaller, lighter, and machined to more specific tolerances.

SMA Elbow

If you were unaware of the scale, SMA connectors look almost identical to F connectors.  However, where the female F connector is about 1/3 inch in diameter, the female SMA connector is about 1/4 inch – about 32% smaller.

Today, SMA connectors are found almost universally in any consumer application that uses an external antenna, including hand-held radios, FRS (walkie-talkies), garage door openers, and WiFi routers.

Well, not WiFi routers.

This is where RP-SMA comes in.

 

What is RP-SMA?

I always assumed that one or the other supported better attenuation, or more bandwidth, or maybe one was for outdoor applications.  But, that’s not the case.

“Reverse Polarity” SMA, or RP-SMA, was created as a way to appease the FCC’s requirement to keep people from being able to boost their WiFi signal by attaching a larger antenna.

I wish I was kidding.

You see, when WiFi was first standardized in 1997, the FCC required “unlicensed transmitters” to use an antenna connector that was either proprietary, or required professional installation.

In order to address the FCC requirement, some genius decided to move the pin on the then-standardized SMA connector from the female-threaded end to the male-threaded end.  So RP-SMA should really be called “Reverse Gender” SMA – polarity refers to the signal, and gender refers to the connector.

As an easy fix, the larger manufacturers adopted RP-SMA as an alternative to SMA, because inventing an entirely new connector would be unavoidably complicated and unreliable.

Because all of the larger WiFi manufacturers used RP-SMA, it became fairly standard, and because it became fairly standard, parts and cables eventually made their way in to the consumer market.  And once the parts and cables hit the consumer market, it was no longer considered proprietary.

So, just 3 years later in 2000, the FCC dropped the “unique and proprietary” requirement, because RP-SMA was no longer unique, and no longer proprietary.  And by that time, WLAN was fairly standardized, and the government had other things to worry about.

Unfortunately, the legacy of those bad decisions is that we have two incompatible but semi-interoperable standards.

 

Why RP-SMA is Bad

In summary, there is too much complexity, which leads to too many possibilities for problems.

In my case, I didn’t even know that I had the wrong cable until I went to connect the two male ends together.

SMA is on the top, RP-SMA is on the bottom.  In addition to the two gender changers for SMA and the two for RP-SMA, there are four additional converters between the two.  Also, RP-F is mechanically-compatible with SMA-F, but won’t pass a signal because there is no center pin on either connector.

Because the two standards use the same mechanical connection, it’s way too easy to mistake one for the other.  In addition to two gender changers for each, there are four additional converters, which means that there are eight possible combinations instead of the usual three (M-M, F-F, M-F) that you would find with any other connector.

Worse, you can connect a female RP-SMA to a female SMA, but it won’t pass a signal because there is no pin.

For example, if I didn’t know better, and simply bought a RP-F to SMA-F coupler, I could have spent weeks troubleshooting, and I bet others have done this.

It’s a bad standard, and now that the FCC no longer requires it, RP-SMA should be completely deprecated in favor of SMA, which was the original standard.

(And besides, “Reverse Polarity” SMA is not even named correctly)

 

How Do We Get Rid of RP-SMA?

  1. Stop making devices with RP-SMA connectors.  Eventually all of the old devices will die off.
  2. Stop making RP-SMA cables.  Make ONLY SMA cables, and continue to produce converters for situations where a cable needs to connect to an older RP-SMA device.

As with most pin-based connectors, devices that use either SMA or RP tend to have female connectors, because pins bend, and replacing a bent pin on a device is a lot more expensive than simply replacing a cable.  Further, most antenna cables tend to be male-to-female, and antennas tend to be male.  Therefore, for most applications, converting RP to SMA would only require a RP-male to SMA-female connector, and then everything after that, including the antenna, would be SMA.

 

The Log4J Problem Was Both Insidious And Unnecessary

Posted by Justin A. Parr on January 13, 2022
Posted in: Good Design - Bad Design, Rants. 1 comment

If you have anything to do with technology, the chances are pretty good that you wasted at least part of the month of December patching, upgrading, or reconfiguring software that uses Log4J.

Now that the dust has settled, we can look at the vulnerabilities that were announced in December, what factors led to the problem, and why it should never have occurred.

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Troubleshooting FTP

Posted by Justin A. Parr on November 29, 2020
Posted in: Rants, Tech Support. Leave a Comment

[Edits, 7/28/2022:  There were a couple of technical clarifications required]

Let me start off by saying “I HATE FTP!”

It was developed in the early 1970’s, before the Internet was really the Internet, and before the existence of firewalls or any other type of network security.  Over the last nearly-50 years, it has picked up so many band-aids that the entire protocol is now just basically one big kludge.

Despite its shortcomings, and despite the availability of newer and far superior file transfer tools, banks, governments, and anyone else with a mainframe continues to use it.

So, unfortunately, people like you and I get stuck supporting it.

If you’re having an FTP problem, or are just morbidly curious to learn about an antiquated protocol, read on…

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Bad Design: WinZip – An Annoying Pop-Up Ad from an Irrelevant Product

Posted by Justin A. Parr on September 15, 2020
Posted in: Analyses and Responses, Good Design - Bad Design, Rants, Tech Recommendations. 2 comments

Bad Design: WinZip – An Annoying Pop-Up Ad from an Irrelevant Product

 

The company where I am currently employed uses WinZip as its desktop standard for archive software.

This isn’t my preferred option, but whatever.

One minute, I’m cruising around in a spreadsheet, and the next, this pops up:

They company in question has an enterprise license for WinZip, which means that I’m running a fully-licensed copy.

I will cover some of the history of WinZip, and why I think it’s irrelevant, and then I will tell you exactly why I think this pop-up is wrong.  I will also make some recommendations for both software designers and corporate desktop administrators.

 

Some History

…and, “Why I think WinZip is irrelevant”

Back in the DOS days, there were competing lossless file compression standards, and that’s still true today.

In the 1980’s and early 90’s, disk space was always at a premium, whether it was deciding what to delete off your hard drive so that you could install a new program, or how many programs you could back up to a floppy disk.

And, before the internet, you connected to Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) through a very slow modem to find and download software.  Smaller files meant that a BBS could host more files, and also, that your download time would be significantly faster.

The first commonly-used compression program for microcomputers was simply called “ARC”.  Not only did ARC compress files, but it had the ability to compress multiple files in to a single “archive” file, and later versions could even span multiple floppy disks – handy if you were backing up your hard drive.

Due to its ease of use, single-file archive format, and itself being a small file that was easy to find and download, ARC quickly became standard among BBS operators and users.  Every PC in the 80’s had a “C:\UTILS” folder, and ARC was one of the programs inside of it.

Although ARC was commercial software developed by SEA corporation, it was distributed as “shareware” – a license that allowed both individual users and BBS operators to freely “share” the file by copying it, but requested that users send in some money and obtain a proper license if they decided to keep using it.  Of course, no one did that, and eventually, SEA released the source code for ARC.

A couple of years later, along came Phil Katz, who wrote a much faster and more efficient implementation of ARC, of course called PKARC, and rather than have both compression and extraction functions within the same executable, Phil Katz split the extraction function in to a separate program called PKXARC.  This meant that you could download the much more svelt PKXARC if all you needed to do was extract files without compressing them, but in either case, you would benefit from the much faster code.

PKARC soon became the de facto tool for using ARC files.

Later, Phil Katz co-developed the ZIP file format – the same one that’s in use today.  And, like ARC, everyone started using ZIP files, especially popular with BBS operators due to the smaller file sizes and faster extraction routines.

Soon, like ARC, every PC had PKZIP and PKUNZIP in their C:\UTILS folder alongside PKARC and PKXARC. Eventually, people just stopped using ARC altogether.

And thus, Phil Katz built the bulk of the PKWare software empire off of one little shareware utility.

However, PKZIP had one major drawback:  It was a command-line program, requiring some knowledge of what a command line is, how to use it, and how to use PKZIP within it.

As operating systems evolved toward Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) and began to focus on ease-of-use, there was clearly a gap.

You could download a ZIP file from a BBS using your terminal program running in a window, but then you would have to shell out to a command prompt and run some arcane (pun intended) commands to extract the files within it, in to a usable format.

In the early 90’s WinZip emerged as a graphical front-end to PKZip.  With PKZip installed, and with WinZip properly installed and configured, a user could simply double-click on a zip file to extract its contents, or drag and drop some files to create a new ZIP file.  WinZip handled the user interface, and on the back end, it ran PKZip with the appropriate command-line switches.

Eventually, WinZip adopted a “clean-room” ZIP implementation, and dumped PKZip.  Now, there was no complicated dependencies nor configuration.  If a user needed to open a zip file, they could simply download and run WinZip as a single program.

As Windows 95 boosted the popularity of home computing, WinZip quickly became much more popular than PKZip.  PKWare made a feeble attempt to release a competing GUI product, but it was too-little, too-late.  WinZip had been on the market longer, most users were familiar with it, it had better desktop integration, and it was far easier to use.

By the late 90’s, WinZip was one of the first programs you needed to download after any new operating system was installed.

Similar to PKWare, WinZip had a “trialware” license that allowed you to freely use it for a couple of weeks, and then either delete it or license it.

To help drive revenue, unlicensed copies of WinZIp would pop up a friendly reminder.  Once you entered a license code, the reminder disappeared.  Further, a license was perpetual, and initially allowed for perpetual upgrades.  So for about $10 (if I recall), not only could you license WinZip to get rid of the annoying pop-up, but you could also freely download and upgrade to the latest version every couple of months when it was released.

WinZip prospered as it virtually ruled the market.  Over time they added new features and updated the GUI, but WinZip was still WinZip.

And then Microsoft released Windows XP, which had built-in support for zip files. 

It’s hard to believe that Microsoft turned a blind eye to this lucrative niche for nearly 10 years, but on the other hand, they were probably gun-shy after having recently fought off anti-trust litigation from Netscape.  In versions of Windows prior to XP, if you double-click on a ZIP file without WinZip (or another ZIP handler) installed, you more or less get a message that says “what the heck do you want me to do with this??”

Now, with Windows XP and onward, you could double-click a ZIP file to open it, or right-click some files and send them to a “compressed folder”, which is Microsoft’s codename for a ZIP archive file.

Even worse for WinZip, by the time Microsoft released XP, there were Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) alternatives such as WinRAR and 7-Zip.  Initially, each of these only supported a proprietary archive format (RAR and 7z respectively), but eventually they both ended up supporting multiple archive formats, including ZIP, and even the advanced features of the ZIP format, such as media spanning and AES encryption.

And, WinZip’s market began to dry up.

Casual users didn’t need to download anything – they simply used the operating system’s built-in ZIP file handler.

Power users could download FOSS utilities for free, such as WinRAR and 7-Zip, and simply avoid both the cost of WinZip and its increasingly clingy, laggy user interface and more frequent and annoying beg-ware pop-ups.

As it turns out, switching from a perpetual to an annual license model was a smart move for WinZip.

Rather than die out like ARC and PKZip, there is just enough recurring revenue from corporate licensees to keep it on life support.

So, despite being completely obsolete, WinZip is still running out there, with it’s ever-more kludgy and annoying user interface, limited features, and annoying pop-ups.

And, companies like the one I work for are still running it, because, hey, it works, and hey, they still have a license for it.

 

Why Pop-Up Ads are Bad

<RANT>

In case you don’t remember using a computer in the 2000’s, let me describe what it was like:

  • “Windows has some updates for you!”
  • “Update to the LATEST version of Adobe Flash to view this page!”
  • “Adobe Acrobat needs to be updated.”
  • “Your virus definitions are out of date.”
  • “You’re not running the latest version of WinDVD / WinAMP!  Download it now!”
  • 10 browser pop-ups for spray tanning you should buy online, software that can clean your PC, stock you must buy immediately, adult websites you HAVE to try right now, the truth about “x”, and whatever else you don’t care about.

Play this every couple of hours on endless repeat while you’re trying to edit a document or watch a movie.

PEOPLE.  HATE.  POP-UPS.

People hate pop-ups so much that every modern browser has a built-in pop-up blocker – code that specifically stops a website from opening new browser windows.

People hate pop-ups because they are pre-emptive.  You have to STOP doing what you WERE doing (which was important to YOU), and click “close” on a useless pop-up.  You can’t ignore a pop-up, because it’s right there, blocking whatever you were working on behind it.  It’s even worse when you’re typing, because you have to take your hands off the keyboard, which is both slow and distracting.

People HATE them.

So why have a completely random pop-up inside a fully-licensed product??

If I was running the trialware version (if that even still exists), then a pop-up is justified when I first launch the program.  “Hey… we see that you still haven’t registered…”   OK, fine.

BUT I HAVE registered.  It’s fully-licensed.  And, I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE WINZIP RUNNING!!  So it obviously has hooks in to the scheduler (Microsoft’s biggest architectural mistake, but that’s another story) for the sole purpose of trying to sell me more WinZip crapware, that I can only assume has even MORE pop-ups!

What’s even worse is that I don’t need any of the “new features”, and I don’t want them.  I don’t need some crappy product “running tasks in the background” or “sorting through my photos”.

All I need to be able to do is encrypt a ZIP file and read encrypted ZIP files.

BUT, because I’m on a corporate laptop, rather than downloading a superior product like 7-Zip, which is simple, fast, and free, I’m forced to run WinZip and deal with bulky, slow software and random crappy pop-ups.  What a user experience!

</RANT>

Just let this sink in for a minute… My recent experiences with WinZip have been so frustrating that I just spent 3 hours of my personal time writing this blog post.

 

Tips for Corporate Desktop Admins

Why do corporations still use WinZip?  Probably one of several reasons:

  • You have used it for years.  So what.  The current version is a kludgy piece of crap.  Move on.
  • You already own a license.  This falls under the sunk cost fallacy.  Once an investment significantly diminishes in utility, the best course of action is to STOP SPENDING MONEY ON IT.
  • We have to train our users.  No, you don’t.  The 7-Zip interface is similar to the WinZip classic interface, and anyone who has used a computer within the last decade will figure it out.
  • WinZip is secure.  So are 7-Zip and WinRAR.  But, now that no-one out in “the real world” is running WinZip, finding new vulnerabilities is much more difficult.  Existing WinZip deployments could sit on desktops for years in a vulnerable state.  In contrast, with 7-Zip being one of the most popular pieces of FOSS of all time, there is lots of active development, and any vulnerability would be quickly identified and patched.
  • “Open Source” licensing is questionable.  No, it’s not.  Have your legal department review and approve the GPL and move on.
  • Being open-source, there is little or no support.  IT’S AN ARCHIVE UTILITY.  HOW MUCH SUPPORT DO YOU REQUIRE?  Having said that, there’s probably more support out there for 7-Zip than any Microsoft or IBM product.  (Microsoft is the new IBM, they just don’t know it yet.)
  • It’s difficult to deploy.  You don’t even have to install it.  Just copy the files and run it.
  • It’s expensive.  The “F” in FOSS stands for “Free”.

Tip of the day:  DUMP WINZIP.  STOP WASTING MONEY ON MAINTENANCE AND LICENSING.  MOVE ON TO A SUPERIOR SOFTWARE PRODUCT.

 

Tip for Software Designers

If you are Microsoft:

If someone is making MILLIONS OF DOLLARS selling an add-on to your flagship operating system, hint, you might want to BUY THEM.  Loot the codebase, integrate the functionality, and move on.

If you are a startup company with a niche product:

  • Stay within your lane.  Don’t over-innovate.  Keep the feature set simple.
  • Keep the User Interface as simple as possible.  People are using your product out of necessity, not preference.  They don’t want 15 levels of menus, nor “innovative” user interface elements.  Keep it simple and fast.
  • Don’t get greedy.  You have a niche product, not a “desktop suite”.  Charge users a few bucks for each license, and keep the product as simple as possible.
  • Pivot when needed.  Despite being battered in to the dirt by WinZip, PKWare didn’t go out of business.  Currently, they are out of the desktop archiver market, and their current product offering is focused on security.
  • Sell out at the top, not the bottom.  Because you have a niche software product, someone will eventually come along who sells a better / faster / cheaper product.  Once you begin to lose market share, it’s already too late.  You WILL eventually have to sell – do you want to sell while your company is dominating the market, or as you walk out of bankruptcy court?
  • NO POP-UPS.  Remember your place.  I don’t “WinZip” on my computer daily.  I do a lot of things, and products like WinZip are a very small part of it.  The LESS interaction I have, the better.

Enough ranting, I think my points are clear.

Thanks for Misusing My Personal Data!

Posted by Justin A. Parr on July 22, 2020
Posted in: Analyses and Responses, Good Design - Bad Design, Rants, The Light Side. Leave a Comment

Thanks for Misusing My Personal Data!

15 months ago, I bought a house.

During the course of that transaction, I had to disclose personal information to:

  • The finance company (two, since we dropped the first one)
  • The insurance company
  • The title company

I was required by Federal law to disclose information, including my:

  • Birthday and date
  • Social Security Number
  • Full Name
  • Address

You know, everything you might need to, you know, KNOW in order to steal my identity.

The business purpose for this was ostensibly to:

  • Obtain credit information
  • Review my financial records and assets
  • Report a financial transaction to the IRS

And, it was ostensibly to be used ONLY in the course of doing business.

A year passes…

I get a “Happy Birthday” e-mail from:

  • BOTH finance companies, even though I dropped one of them
  • The insurance company

In addition, I got an actual birthday card in the mail from the finance company that we ended up using.

Two decades ago, I would have thought “how quaint!” and moved on.

However, in the days of identity theft, YOUR BIRTHDAY is a significant piece of non-public personal data that should be closely guarded.

If I had gotten a birthday card at the beginning of the month with a note that says “Hey, happy birthday this month!” We know it’s your birthday, but we respect your privacy, so we’ve stored a generic representation of your personal data rather than your actual birthday.

Completely acceptable.

The reason storing my ACTUAL BIRTHDAY is NOT ACCEPTABLE, is twofold:

  1. YOU HAVE NO REASON TO STORE IT.  Once you’ve pulled my credit, sold me a house, and reported all of this to the government, there is no legitimate ongoing business need to continue to retain that information. 

    If your company stores data for which there is no valid, ongoing business purpose, you’re inviting a data breach.
  2. YOU PROBABLY AREN’T STORING IT SECURELY.  Is my birthday in a spreadsheet, stored on your laptop that you take to your house every night, which someone could steal from your house, or even worse, steal from the back seat of your car when you stop to pick up dinner on the way home? 

    Don’t laugh – I worked for a company where this exact situation happened – a spreadsheet containing personnel records, including social security numbers, was stored un-encrypted on the hard drive of a company-issued laptop that was stolen out of the back of someone’s car while parked in a restaurant parking lot.

    So hopefully not on a laptop, but, pursuant to GLBA or FCRA or HIPAA or a number of other laws, we should hope that my birthday is stored on a server that’s encrypted, logically-secured, physically-secured, logged, monitored, audited, sitting behind a firewall, etc.  More realistically, it’s stored “in the cloud” in your company’s sales system.

In addition to appearing completely unprofessional, the situation gives rise to the following, UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS:

  • What else are you storing without my knowledge and consent?
  • Who do you share it with?
  • Is it all stored by social security number?  I hope not, but that’s how businesses were run 30 years ago.

<RANT>

And…

If WE NEVER DID BUSINESS AT ALL because MY WIFE FIRED YOU, then you have NO LEGITIMATE PURPOSE for storing my data, and ZERO REASONS to send me a birthday e-mail.

You know who you are…

</RANT>

 

Best Practices

Most data breaches result when companies store data that they don’t need, or store improperly, or both.

  • Identify and catalog all systems that store Personally-Identifiable Information (PII) / Non-Public Personal Information (NPPI) / Protected Health Information (PHI) and other sensitive, personal data.
  • Make sure these systems are secured properly – the Federal government provides guidance on securing financial and healthcare data.
  • Audit the data regularly to make sure you are only storing what is needed for legitimate business purposes.  This includes purging old data, as well as ensuring that you are not unnecessarily, permanently storing personal data fields.
    • In most cases, a business is only required to retain business records for 3 to 7 years, depending on the type of business.  If you have data older than that, you need to delete it!
    • If you have data fields that are necessary, say, to perform a credit check, you need to store them temporarily, and then delete them when no longer needed.  Those data fields should live only as long as the transaction, and no longer.  3 months to a year would be more than sufficient.
  • If you want to store demographic information, or, you know, send birthday cards in a quaint attempt to appear personable, then at least use legitimate techniques to anonymize the data.
    • Don’t store the birth year at all (if not needed for demographics)
    • If you DO need demographic information, Round the birth year to a multiple of 5
      • y’=int(y/5)*5
      • if y’=y then y’=y’+5
    • In your CRM system, set everyone’s birthday to the first of the month.  If my birthday is April 22, store 4/1.

Send me a birthday card at the first of the month, and let me know that because you respect my privacy, you DO NOT STORE MY ACTUAL BIRTHDAY.

 

 

Black Friday 2018 Wall of Shame

Posted by Justin A. Parr on February 6, 2019
Posted in: Rants. Leave a Comment

Black Friday 2018 Wall of Shame

11/20/2018:  Reminder!  Black Friday starts on FRIDAY.  BOYCOTT STORES THAT DISRESPECT THE AMERICAN TRADITION OF THANKSGIVING, by having Black Friday deals that start on THANKSGIVING.

WALL OF SHAME, 2018:

  • Wal-Mart
  • Best Buy
  • Macy’s
  • Target
  • JC Penny
  • Big Lots
  • Kohl’s
  • Belk
  • Cabellas / Bass Pro
  • Dick’s Sporting Goods
  • Dollar General
  • Five Below
  • Gamestop
  • K-Mart
  • Sears
  • Michaels
  • Old Navy
  • Bealls
  • DSW
  • Fry’s Electronics
  • Lord and Taylor

There are No Tech Deals on Black Friday

Watch out for Personal Computing “Door Busters”

Instead of leaving the comfort of your home on Thanksgiving day, boycott the stores above, and hit the retailers online on Cyber-Monday.  You’ll get the same deals, or better, and you can shop from home.  Don’t be like the stores above.  Don’t use the promise of cheap crap to lure people away from their families on Thanksgiving.

Unprofessional of the Year Award for 2019 Goes to Pizza Hut

Posted by Justin A. Parr on January 6, 2019
Posted in: Good Design - Bad Design, Justinisms, Rants. 1 comment

Unprofessional of the Year Award for 2019 Goes to Pizza Hut

  • On 1/5/2019, placed an order at 8:00 PM Saturday evening
  • Delivery time 9:45 PM.   OK, they’re busy, but I’ll get my pizza eventually.
  • 9:45 comes and goes, call the store multiple times for a status, and each time, they hang up on me.
  • Pizza shows up at 11:15 PM.  I bet THAT IS SOME HIGH QUALITY EATS.  The driver offered to give it to me for free, but at this point, I don’t want whatever it is, that they managed to put in a box and send to me, so I refused the delivery.

It’s not the driver’s fault, obviously, but to show up at someone’s door an hour and a half late, and over 3 hours after I placed my order, with no call back, and no confirmation is completely unprofessional.

The driver alluded to the fact that the manager completely botched things up, but at this point, after multiple calls to the store, and multiple calls to their call center, I really don’t care.

  • The manager needs to be fired for gross incompetence.  There is no excuse for a 3 hour delay.
  • The driver apologized.  I should have told her that you SHOULD NEVER apologize for someone else’s mistake.  She should be promoted, for at least attempting to handle the situation.
  • Whoever was hanging up on customers needs to be summarily fired.

 

How to Turn a Bad Situation in to a Win:

Bad things happen.

Things can go from “OK” to underwater very quickly, but as the manager, you have to think about what outcome you want, and what swift action you must take to achieve that outcome.

  • As soon as things started getting bad, the manager should have closed the store.  This would have prevented more orders from coming in, and new orders could either be routed to another store, or the customers could simply be told that delivery service is unavailable at this time due to foreseen circumstances, rather than wasting the customers’ time.
  • Any order delayed more than 15 minutes should necessitate a call to the customer.  Most stores have 23 or fewer phone lines (the number of DS0 lines that can be carried on a T1/DS1 line), so it’s entirely possible that the phone system was overloaded…  It’s up to the manager to take action!  Use a cell phone to start calling customers and setting expectations.  Tell the customer that there are unforeseen circumstances, don’t make excuses, set expectations, and then ask what the customer wants:  Delayed delivery with a discount, or cancel the order.  Give the customer the option.  Empowering the customer, and then closely managing expectations is how to turn a losing situation in to a winning one.

 

Corporate Changes Needed

  • There was no escalation path.  Although you could call the call center, they were only empowered to take an order, and they have no ability to check the order’s status or cancel it.  After a couple of phone calls, it became very clear that the call center is only able to transfer you to the local store…. which of course, was hanging up on customers.  The call center should be 100% empowered to handle order changes, provide status, and cancel an order.  Which brings us to the next problem….
  • Complete technological failure.
    • The Android app failed.  The order was originally placed via the Android app, and the app is supposed to provide the user with a near-realtime status.  However, the developers built the status function so that it ONLY runs on the newest versions of Android – I have 6.0, and the app simply tells me that my OS is out of date.  There is no update for my device, for a newer OS, so the message you’re sending is that, to be a Pizza Hut customer, I have to go out and buy a new phone every year.
    • The website failed.  After an order is placed, there is no way to get a status or contact the store via the website.  In the age of online, you have to call the store, on the phone to get a status.
    • The store’s point of sale / order entry system doesn’t seem to integrate with the rest of their technology.  How is it that, if by miracle I happen to be running the ordained version of Android, I can get a near-realtime status from the store, but neither the website, nor the call center can?  The answer from the website, the call center, and the application was: “Call the store for a status.”  Which would be OK, if the phones weren’t jammed.  Wouldn’t it be nice for the manager to be able to post a status, so that everyone sees it instantly:  “Due to unforseen circumstances, we are running behind.  We are not accepting new orders at this time, and if your order is delayed more than 15 minutes, we will be contacting you.”   BOOM, everyone is in sync.

 

Customer Perspective

Aside from being frustrated, I just wanted to get the food that I ordered.

After waiting 3 hours, which was an hour and a half PAST the delivery time, I had no idea if it was still on the way or if the order was cancelled, or if the store was on fire.

This is the point where some kind of escalation should have occurred, but there was no one to whom I could escalate.

After being hung up on, multiple times, and being told that the ONLY way to cancel my order is to call the store (and be hung up on), is extremely frustrating.  There is no valid situation, save for life-and-death, that it’s acceptable to hang up on a customer.

I turned off my lights, locked my door, and the delivery driver STILL knocked on my door, over an hour later!  How about a phone call?

The offer of getting the pizza for free was the right thing to do, but if things are going so poorly that you’re OVER AN HOUR AND A HALF LATE, how do I even know what’s in that box?  I don’t want some half-cooked crap with the wrong toppings.

At this point, as a customer, this seems like a breach of trust.

From my perspective, I can’t trust your service, which means that I also can’t trust your product.

All it would have taken is someone in authority who was empowered to fix the problem, to change that perception.

Kudos to the driver, who at least tried to take care of the situation, but it’s the manager who miserably failed, and with a fairly severe technology deficit, there was no way that anyone could help me, except the manager, who was too busy hanging up on people.

 

Dear Pizza Hut:

I’m happy to have you hire me to fix these problems for you.  I have a long track record of taking a complete train wreck like yours, and building a success story.

Short of that, I will no longer be a Pizza Hut customer.

 

 

Update – 2/6/2019

  • The next day, the credit card charge still indicated ‘pending’, so my wife called the store to discuss the matter with the day manager.  She explained that the delivery was refused, and was told “That sounds like a ‘YOU’ problem”, and the day manager hung up on her.
  • We both submitted corporate complaints, which were simply referred back to local store (GALLOWAY AVE., MESQUITE, TX), and then summarily ignored.
  • Fortunately, we disputed the charge with the credit card company, and got the charges reversed.  My next stop would have been the BBB.
  • It has been 30 days, and no one has responded to our complaints.  This is an unacceptable way to treat customers, and a horrible way to do business.

 

Update – 4/16/2019

  • I contacted the store on or about 4/13, just to see if they would be willing to discuss the matter.
  • When I asked to speak to the manager, I was told I WAS SPEAKING to the manager (this was an obvious lie), and this so-called manager apologized profusely.  He assured me that the entire previous management staff had been fired, and that there was all new management in place.
  • When I asked for the district manager’s contact information, the so-called manager told me he couldn’t give that information out.  I said, if he’s doing business, then surely he has a business contact.
  • He hung up on me
  • NO.  In reality, this was just another sh##bag employee, willing to lie to a customer.
  • ONLY AFTER I filed a complaint with the BBB (see below) did I get a half-hearted sorta kinda apology.
  • Now, I’m starting to think that the problem is with Pizza Hut Executive Management, and that the problem is systemic.

Dear Pizza Hut:

WHEN IS IT OK TO LIE TO YOUR CUSTOMERS?

WHEN IS IT OK TO ISSUE A HALF-HEARTED APOLOGY ONLY AFTER I INITIATE A COMPLAINT WITH THE BBB???

I can fix this for you…. you need to hire me in an executive position, so that I can fire everyone in customer service, and everyone in technology, and rebuild both departments.

Oh, and ONE MORE THING.  Let’s look at the tail end of that e-mail…

Disclaimer: This message (including any attachments) contains confidential information intended for a specific individual
and purpose, and is protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, you should delete this message. Any disclosure,
copying, or distribution of this message, or taking any action based on it is strictly prohibited.

This is tacked on for the sole purpose of allowing Pizza Hut to bully me in to taking down any copy of this e-mail I may choose to post.

Well…. LET ME EDUCATE YOU.

  1. This entire communication is covered under the Fair Use Act, and I’m publishing it, accordingly
  2. I don’t use Facebook or Google for my blog.  Go ahead.  Threaten people.  There are no robots out there to help you silence me.
  3. If you issue a cease and desist, I will be obliged to post it here.  TRY ME.