The most corporate of corporate ways is to say that what the other party is saying doesn’t align with your experience/observations. In specific circumstances, though, you can (and should) challenge it as bluntly as possible.
Example…person A says “My local users have been running their Dell Precision 7780 laptops with 65W power bricks and no performance impact.” Person B says “that’s not possible, they’re equipped with i9 CPUs, RTX 5000 GPUs, and come with 200W power bricks.”
Example: A says “I asked you for this load balancer configuration a month ago and you never did it. I’m copying our managers so they can see that you’re the one holding up the process.” Person B says “I told you via your service ticket that it was done within a couple hours and requested feedback. Here’s a screenshot of the ticket’s chat log, which explicitly says that it’s done and you need to add the DNS entry to make it work. Here’s a timestamped screenshot of my command line showing that you haven’t done that. Here’s a screenshot of my /etc/hosts file and browser showing what it looks like when the DNS entry is correct. This whole thing could have been handled with a 3-line Teams chat, no need to escalate.”
My favorite was trying to get some other tech to update BIOS and essentially telling them “run it again, except this time READ THE FUCKING PROMPTS/OUTPUT” in the politest way possible. Funny enough, their BIOS update went through that time!
The recent BIOS updates for some of these Precisions and Latitudes have really tested the patience of my team…yeah, reading literally anything on the screen is apparently a lost art.
It was the Dells (in my case, desktops) for me too 😅 BIOS updates were pushinf through WUFB for the HPs, which is great, until HP pushes a janky BIOS update.
The most corporate of corporate ways is to say that what the other party is saying doesn’t align with your experience/observations. In specific circumstances, though, you can (and should) challenge it as bluntly as possible.
Example…person A says “My local users have been running their Dell Precision 7780 laptops with 65W power bricks and no performance impact.” Person B says “that’s not possible, they’re equipped with i9 CPUs, RTX 5000 GPUs, and come with 200W power bricks.”
Example: A says “I asked you for this load balancer configuration a month ago and you never did it. I’m copying our managers so they can see that you’re the one holding up the process.” Person B says “I told you via your service ticket that it was done within a couple hours and requested feedback. Here’s a screenshot of the ticket’s chat log, which explicitly says that it’s done and you need to add the DNS entry to make it work. Here’s a timestamped screenshot of my command line showing that you haven’t done that. Here’s a screenshot of my /etc/hosts file and browser showing what it looks like when the DNS entry is correct. This whole thing could have been handled with a 3-line Teams chat, no need to escalate.”
Only thing I would say is to watch your language and use of “we/you/I”, do not say “I told you”.
It comes across as combative.
My favorite was trying to get some other tech to update BIOS and essentially telling them “run it again, except this time READ THE FUCKING PROMPTS/OUTPUT” in the politest way possible. Funny enough, their BIOS update went through that time!
The recent BIOS updates for some of these Precisions and Latitudes have really tested the patience of my team…yeah, reading literally anything on the screen is apparently a lost art.
It was the Dells (in my case, desktops) for me too 😅 BIOS updates were pushinf through WUFB for the HPs, which is great, until HP pushes a janky BIOS update.