We work with an offshore country based at GMT + 5:30 to develop an application for us. Communicating with the contractors has been trying to say the least. Emails just don’t seem to get the point across about what needs to be done, or how I should set things up on my side. And, it seems they want me to be awake at 2:30 AM my time to answer the phone. After two weeks of trying to move the application from staging to production, with multiple points of failure, it was time for a phone call.
Ring, ring.
Me: “Hello”
Them: “Hi James”
blah, blah, blah, and niceties exchanged.
Me: “Ok, so let me get this straight. On the production machine, you want me to set the connection string to the XYZ report to the staging database? Doesn’t this defeat the purpose?”
Them: “Yes, set the connection string to the staging database.”
Me: “Are you sure? You’re positive right? This is the production server.”
Them: “Yes, please set the connection string to the staging database on report XYZ.”
Me: “On the production server?”
Them: “Yes on the production server, set the connection string to the staging database.”
(this isn’t going well)
Me: “Ok. Then anything else?”
Them: “Yes, when we move to the production server, make sure to change the connection string to the production database.”
Me: “Sigh….”