r/talesfromtechsupport • u/ElanFromRsr • 7d ago
Short A lesson in geography
I work at an MSP as application specialist and occasionally tickets regarding the application get escalated to me. This ticket, from a customer, related to my application. A message was sent from my application to another application which is not part of our ecosystem. The message got rejected by the target application because the country code "CD" (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2) was not recognized.
This message concerned a person from Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the country code was set correctly in our application. Information about this person needed to be sent from my application to the target application and it wasn't accepting the message.
Somehow, that makes it my problem.
After some troubleshooting with the user, we finally decide to schedule a call. During the call, the user decides to show me the target application.
User: "Look, here is Congo in the target application."
And indeed, there was the Republic of Congo. Note, this is not the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it's ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code "CG".
Me: "This person is from the other Congo."
User: "Other Congo?"
Me: "Yes, there are two."
I then pull up Google Maps and share my screen. I tell the user that they need to add the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the target application, with ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 "CD". Once this was done, the message was accepted as usual.
Now, one small detail I omitted regarding this customer: This is a school. The user in question is one of the teachers. And you want to know what subject?
Geography.
156
u/Mr_Cartographer 7d ago
Ahem.
I would like to officially go on record apologizing for this erstwhile "geography" teacher. Granted, these countries are like right next to each other, and their capitals are able to wave at each other across the river, but come on. This is like saying "Which Washington are you in, DC or the state?" and having a professional come back with "Washington is a state?"
I'm afraid that I'm going to have to revoke this teacher's geography license and sentence them to six months of remedial cartography. Somewhere in the Congo. I'll let them figure out which one.
Facepalm. All of the facepalms. Lol :D
30
u/iacchi 7d ago
Wait, there are two Washington in the US? (not even /s: I know that now and I've known for a while, but for years I've been oblivious to the fact) (I'm not from the US)
40
u/georgiomoorlord 7d ago
There's more than two. Washington thr State, Washington DC, and approximately 28 towns called Washington on wikipedia
20
u/candycaneforestelf 7d ago
There are also at least a handful of "Washington County"s scattered through the nation.
16
17
u/Mr_Cartographer 7d ago
Not a problem, at all - I wouldn't expect everyone to know this. I would expect a professional American geographer to know this, however. I can assume it's like you IT folks speaking with a professional tech and telling them to turn a device off and on again, and for this "professional" to come back with "Ok, where's the 'Power' button"? Lol :D
4
u/Rathmun 3d ago
Considering some of the devices I've had to deal with, "Where's the power button?" is significantly more reasonable of a question. Why some designers think hiding all the most important buttons is a good idea I still do not understand. "I would turn it off and on again, but someone forgot to label the power button."
1
u/Mr_Cartographer 2d ago
100% understand. I realized after I posted this comment that I was almost assured to have someone get back to me with a "Ok, here's when that exact problem happened." Lol!
3
u/swattz101 5d ago
Good example for that back when I worked helplessdesk, quite a few of my users would turn the monitor off and on.
11
u/BipedSnowman 7d ago
I am Canadian; In highschool I took a holocaust studies course and we went to DC in large part to visit the holocaust museum. I remember mentioning it to my aunt and she asked DC or state and I realized I didn't know how to answer. Felt really embarrassed.
Not like we have a US geography course!
11
u/SwedishMeatballDish 7d ago
Don't feel bad. You guys only have 10 providences and 3 territories, and I can't name half of them.
5
9
u/deeseearr 7d ago
You don't need a US Geography course, you can just watch US TV. That will teach you the names of four different states, that Seattle is only a one hour drive away from LA, and that New York City looks surprisingly like Toronto.
8
u/Drew707 7d ago
I went to school in Reno and met some Irish exchange students. I asked them what they were doing that Saturday, and they excitedly told me they were going to spend the day at Tahoe and then explore the Vegas strip that night. They were very confused when I asked them when their flight was, and then very disappointed when I explained why I asked.
4
u/BipedSnowman 7d ago
From what I know from TV, American seasonal fashion is purely cosmetic, as is clearly evidenced by americans of all ages getting bundled up for school and then going out in sunny weather even when the leaves are still green and on the trees.
1
u/zeus204013 6d ago
The Royalty of Canada is offended of your lack of knowledge. No more Canada Ploos for you!!!
/s
7
u/ComputerEcstatic1227 7d ago
plus at least two Portland's (Maine and Oregon)
Plus, Texas has Paris and London (although London is a blink-and-you'll miss-it)
6
4
6
u/Marmot418 7d ago
There are, there's Washington D.C. the capital and Washington the state, it's on the west coast bordering Canada
3
u/Moist_Heat9523 7d ago
There are over eighty Washingtons in the US, not even counting the people named Washington
2
u/J_Landers 7d ago
To add on, Spokane (city) in the eastern end of Washington State is over 2,000 miles (3,200km) away from Washington, District of Columbia (DC) - the Capitol of the US. To give a comparison, Lisbon, Portugal to Kyiv, Ukraine is 3,360km.
7
3
u/zeus204013 6d ago
Well, if you consider Spanish speakers in Argentina, yo have Londres, Inglaterra or Londres, Catamarca... (locally funny, because is Londres, not London)
3
u/Equivalent-Salary357 7d ago
"remedial cartography"
I just bark lauhed because of that, and my wife looked at me like I'm an idiot.
Thankfully this Allplesbees isn't exactly busy tonight.
35
u/grond_master 7d ago
There's a whole scene in 'The Newsroom' where a staff member got confused between Georgia, the US state, and Georgia, the country in Europe.
And let's not talk about common town names across different states and provinces in countries around the world; ZIP and PIN codes help alleviate the issue.
20
u/jamoche_2 7d ago
San Jose, California occasionally gets airline passengers who thought they were going to San José, Costa Rica.
9
u/randolf_carter 7d ago
I once took a flight from Albany, NY to Albany, GA.
13
u/harrywwc 7d ago
it's not unknown for people in the US trying to get to "Sydney, NSW" (Australia) winding up in "Sydney, NS" (Nova Scotia / Canada).
2
u/Shinhan 5d ago
ZIP and PIN codes help alleviate the issue
As long as you are aware that their length and format varies from country to country.
3
u/FnnKnn 4d ago
https://aldavigdis.dev/2023/03/25/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-addresses-and-location-data/
Classic read any programmer should have seen at least ones.
Postal codes
Postal codes are always called “Zip Codes” in English
Postal codes are always 5 numerical digits.
Postal codes are always numerical.
Then at least postal codes should be validated somehow.
Well, then I can strip out spaces and dashes from them.
Postal codes always indicate the nearest city/town/village.
Postal codes never change.
I can assume things unrelated to mail sorting, such as real-estate value from a postal code.
Postal codes don’t cross administrative boundaries such as county, state or region.
Every postal code indicates a fixed location.
Every location in every country has an associated postal code.
Every country uses postal codes and I can depend on that!
Postal codes are not personally identifiable information.
At least there aren’t multiple postal codes per building, right?
Right?
2
15
u/AshleyJSheridan 7d ago
The crazy thing in all of this is that those countries and ISO codes were being added manually!
There are online lists for this kind of thing, that you can straight up lift and dump into your code/application.
15
u/DeciduousEmu 7d ago
I had a similar issue 30 years ago. An application was built in Lotus Notes for tracking equipment leases and feeding a monthly order to the ERP for billing.
The application was built for USA only as policy was we didn't lease equipment outside the US. Of course an exception was made for a lease in the Caribbean. The order feed broke because the state code wasn't a US state.
The manager of that department raised holy hell that it was broken. Fortunately our VP didn't grab his ankles for every complaint. He said they were using the application outside of its design parameters and needed to manually enter the billing order each month which would only take them a few minutes.
26
u/Equivalent-Salary357 7d ago
I should know better making this comment, but apparently I can't help myself. I'm leaning toward giving this teacher a provisional pass on this faux pas. Here are two possible situations that would let them off the hook, in my estimation.
First looking at the country names, we have "The Democratic Republic of the Congo" and "The Republic of the Congo". The second could easily be mistaken for a shorter version of the first. To be honest, I made that mistake. (I need to learn how to keep my mouth shut.)
Second, just like there are different countries with Congo in their name, there are different types of geography. Physical geography studies natural Earth features and systems, such as climates, landforms, soils, bodies of water, and ecosystems. A teacher who specializes in physical geography wouldn't focus on knowing all the countries in the world.
I think those excuses wouldn't apply if the teacher lives in Africa, although I get the impression that isn't the case.
LOL, I tend to give people a lot of 'slack' in cases like this.
18
u/bbutrosghali 7d ago
Wait 'til you learn about the People's Republic of China vs the Republic of China...or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea vs the Republic of Korea :)
19
u/b1ackfa1c0n 7d ago
And the People's Front of Judea, The Judean's Popular People Front, The Popular Front, and the Judean's People's Front...
(Monty python reference for the sarcastically impaired)
15
u/_Paul_L 7d ago
I teach geography at college. No pass from me. That there are two Congos is literally a teaching point in those classes that cover this part of geography. If you are an ass you try to trick the students on the exam with this very point.
Also, doesn’t surprise me. If you are talking about the US, geography education here is, um, suboptimal. The things I’ve heard from other “teachers.”
6
u/Equivalent-Salary357 7d ago
those classes that cover this part of geography
I defer to your obvious better perspective on this.
I was thinking about someone who's specialty didn't cover that part of geography, as if that were a possibility. Thanks
2
22
u/Mr_Cartographer 7d ago
I am far less forgiving than you.
To the mechanic above, I give a pass. To the folks not from the US, I give a pass. But to the geography teacher from America, whose profession is explicitly to know this, I do not give a pass.
And I would imagine you IT folks would hold your own to the same standards. After all:
Server vs. Production Server. It's just one extra word. How's a production server any different from the rest? Lemme just unplug this real quick.
Domain vs. Domain Controller. It's just one extra word. How could these things possibly be that different?
Backup vs. Incremental Backup. It's just one extra word. How different can they possibly be? Anyway, I deleted the original backup to free up some space. You're welcome!
Switch vs. Managed Switch. It's just one extra word. I figured I'd just factory-reset the thing. That should fix the network!
Certificate vs. Root Certificate. It's just one extra word. What could possibly go wrong? Here, let me remove this one. It's getting old anyway!
I guess I'm channeling some BGFH vibes - Bastard Geographer from Hell >:D
13
u/spaceraverdk 7d ago
Some have servers, some have production servers. Some are lucky enough to have both.
12
u/ManWhoIsDrunk 7d ago
I like to say that everybody has a test environment, but some are lucky enough to have it separate from the production environment.
5
u/Moist_Heat9523 7d ago
The profession “geography” is not to explicitly know such things. Your idea of geography is off.
Would you expect a mathematician to know all square roots by heart? Or a doctor to know all sicknesses?
1
u/Equivalent-Salary357 7d ago
I see your point, but somehow feel there's a difference between technical terms like those and names. For instance, Harry Michael vs Harry, Same person or different person? Or Susan vs Sue?
Perhaps I'm all wet here, LOL.
Note: I had to google BGFH. Interesting to learn it stands for "Baked Goods From Heaven: A small baking business that shares updates and videos online". Not sure how that applies, but cool nonetheless.
OK, I know that isn't it but didn't actually find something that actually makes sense here.
3
u/Mr_Cartographer 7d ago
No worries, I understand :) People put a lot of importance on the names for places, of course, but this was more about knowing the foundational aspects of the geographic discipline. I don't expect a programmer to understand every error code that Python can throw at them - but I would expect them to know the basic syntax of the language. Knowing that there are two nations with "Congo" in their name is so basic to the discipline of geography that it is ridiculous for me to even fathom - hence the basis of my jokes here, as well as fundamentally what OP wrote as well :)
Anyways, the "BGFH" is just a play on another acronym, "BOFH", or "Bastard Operator From Hell", a popular trope in IT and tech support for many years :) Should be able to look it up on the subreddit's wiki page!
8
u/epicfail48 7d ago
...TIL there are 2 congos. In my defense, I'm a mechanic, not a geography teacher
6
u/JonathanTheZero 7d ago
Wait until you find out about Korea and Sudan
6
u/epicfail48 7d ago
Gimmie a little credit, I know about korea
...there are 2 sudans?
8
u/Mr_Cartographer 7d ago
Yep - Sudan and South Sudan. Just like Virginia and West Virginia. And Ireland and North Ireland :)
1
49
u/deeseearr 7d ago
To be fair, he probably can't keep up with all of those recent changes. After all the DRC changed its name to "Zaire" in 1971 and didn't change it back until... *checks notes*
Oh. 1997, about thirty years ago.