Ask Lemmy

I work in IT. More specifically I work in Networking. So every fucking day.

Best one was when I was working for an internet provider. Customer was complaining every other day their internet was not working to spec. They ordered a 100Mb service and could never get more than around 60Mb. Somehow they got it into their head that our on prem gear was the issue. But our on prem gear was gigabit capable.
But they never listened and eventually it got to the point where ceo to ceo calls were happening.
My ceo managed to make them agree to a call out where if no problem was found in our gear they would pay the $120 callout plus time for the 2 hour drive to the customer office but if I found a problem on their side we would compensate them for the services until it performs as ordered.

I get there plug my laptop into their network and sure enough I get 60Mb speed tests. Moved my cable from their firewall to the spare port on our gear and get the full speed.
They wanted me to do the tests a few more times and I do and get the same result.
I looked up the spec sheet of their firewall and third line down of the throughput graph shows their setup only has a rated capacity of about 60Mb. Never heard a peep from them after that.

An ex and I were on an hour-long bus trip to the next city over where we lived in Korea. The subject of there being a subway in said city came up, and I insisted there was not. She insisted that she saw one there once. I further insisted that there was no way the city was big enough to have a subway. It got quite heated. Anger. Hurt feelings.

She was talking about the sandwich restaurant, I was talking about underground trains. We were both right.

Many times. It's never as rewarding as you'd like, because the other party is rarely objective, and thus rarely acknowledges their defeat.

It's usually better to ease up when you get close to a total victory and allow the opponent to save face.

After all, no matter how objectively correct you are, if you don't change the other person's position even a little, you're just wasting time.

In the 2nd grade. When we got to school each morning we went to our classrooms and dropped off our stuff, then we went to the gym to wait for school to start. I was in a split class (2nd & 3rd grade in the same room) and while in the gym a 3rd grader came up and asked me what I'd do if my box of crayons went missing. I had the Crayola 128 mega box, with attached sharpener... top of the line.

Of course, when I get to class, my crayons are missing, and Tommy has a box in his desk. I walk over and tell him to give me my crayons and he says they are his. A fight is brewing, so other kids gather round. I reach down and grab the box from his desk and put them behind my back, then simply ask "If these are your crayons, where did you get them?" and he replied "My mom bought them for me at Piggly Wiggly"... I pulled the box from my back and showed everyone the 'Wal-Mart' sticker on the back. Then I put my crayons back in my desk.

I was always a small kid, always being picked on... this was one of my few wins as a kid and it felt so good.

Yes, and in my experience it rarely if ever has the "gotcha" moment of victory that one fantasizes about. Either it was something with low stakes and the response is just "oh okay", or it's something more emotionally charged and the opposing side will deflect, change the subject, pretend that you're agreeing with them or that they believed what was correct the whole time. It never seems to matter.

In college I used to study a class ahead to be ready with questions. A professor said that something couldn't be done analytically, but I just hours before had learned the proof of the analytical solution so I told them it could be done, he said it couldn't, I said I can prove it. He gave me the chalk I went to the board and prove the analytical solution. He was like wow, I didn't knew that. He gave me extra credits on the final for that.

I do disaster planning for counties,hospitals,big companies,etc.

I had a presentation for a hospital and basically showed them very very detailed how they need to prepare for flash flooding. And I was absolutely shot down and basically booed out of the room. "We never can get flash flooding here, it is impossible, you have no idea what you are talking about!"

Exactly two weeks later you could see them on national news, they had 120cm(around 4 feet) on their ground floor, including their ED.

Even if they had signed us it wouldn't have changed a thing (our recommendations take years to show effects) and people died (it is actually part of one of the worst flash flooding disasters in history,over 220 people died). So I can't be happy about it at all.

But my team and I were very very very much proven right. (And meanwhile even multiple court ordered experts have agreed on our assessment)

Old one for me, but as a kid walking home with friends from school, I realised there might be a better route that would significantly shorten my walk and make little difference to them. I mentioned it and was fobbed off. So later I pulled up the route online and actually measured it. Not only was my suggestion a better route for me, but it was actually shorter for everyone else too! I triumphantly took my findings to my friends who to my surprise and disappointment really could not care less, and a little part of me died because they were not my friends.

When I was working retail in a technical environment I had a customer come in wanting to buy product X. Since I’ve always just wanted to help people I suggested product Y for its superior quality and longevity at a slightly higher cost. The customer started raging at me how dare I try to upsell him something he didn’t ask for. Other customers turning their head and all. He left fuming saying he’d go to another store.

A day later said customer came back into the store and I was already bracing myself. Turns out he compared the products on the website and read some reviews and realized I was right. He apologized and bought the product.

It was not really satisfying, just turning a negative into a neutral I guess.

One example comes to mind where I almost did.

I used to drive an older Pontiac. It wasn't the fanciest car, so it wasn't the most performant.

One day, I was leaving a restaurant with a girl I was dating, and had to merge into traffic up a hill. I knew the car would need all the power it could get to do the merge safely, so I turned off the air-conditioning. Confused, the girl asked why I did that. I explained that air conditioning affects the performance of the car. She disagreed. She was raised a bit privileged and had only ever driven nice cars, so never noticed the performance hit of having the A/C on.

We bickered back and forth for a minute or two before I said "okay look I'll show you" and reached to turn off the A/C. Before I could, however, she hit me with "you know, you don't always have to be right". I didn't end up getting to prove it to her.

In her defense, I can be very stubborn when its something I am confident I'm correct in, and we actually argued a lot about stuff. Another example of an argument we had was over the fact that prairie dogs can carry the plague. She didn't believe me and I remember we had to look up the answer. And that was on our second date.

I think about that line she hit me with a lot. But I also realize that in a lot of our "arguments" I was still having fun. To me, there's a playful aspect to a good argument. As long as nobody is yelling or getting feelings hurt, it's a fun way to pass the time. Unfortunately, I didn't realize she wasn't having fun like I was.

Once when I was little my mom was yelling at me about something or other. In the heat of the moment she called me a son of a bitch, and I went "Oh?" with a single eyebrow raised over a smirk. She laughed, and that stopped the yelling.

Wait, does being funny enough to distract someone equal winning an argument? In my universe it does

I once got in an argument with someone who claimed a fish isn't an animal. And I laughed and said "of course it is. What else would it be a plant?". They said "It's not an animal. It's a fish!" So I said "which is an animal we can look it up if you want"

The reply I got was "I don't need to look it up I know a fish isn't an animal"

I got stunned into silence so I think in their mind they believe they were absolutely objectively proven correct. I don't put much worry in arguments since, easier to let things go and realise people are just stupid and ignorant.

Yes, a few times. Didnt make the slightest difference though, it almost never does. Such is life. Still, at least others viewing the discussion who were on the fence/ unsure will have been presented with the evidence needed to convince them

Yes. My company wanted me to get a corporate credit card with Bank of America. I said absolutely not, they have a terrible reputation and I want nothing to do with them. In response, I was told in an email (which was Cc-ed to some VP of Finance) that this wasn't true, and that Bank of America has a great reputation.

Now, if you're gonna claim I'm wrong and start cc-ing people, you better be able to back it up. This pissed me off, so I googled for lists of the worst banks in America. Of the three first surveys on the topic that I found, two of them had Bank of America as the "top spot" as worst bank, and the third one had it in third place. I emailed this back to the person. I never heard back. I happily continued not using their corporate credit card ever after.

I knew a dude in highschool that you could literally perform a scientific experiment in front of multiple times, reproducing the same outcome every time and he would still deny it and say whatever opposite day inane bullshit he was claiming to be true.

Otherwise almost every other day with my sister. Especially if it comes to video game knowledge. She at least realizes she was wrong once proven wrong though.

Happens all the time in my head.

Essentially all my young life I was treated like a dork because I was finding ways to reuse containers for lunch rather than get disposables. This is going back well before it was common knowledge.

Yes I was that person who had my own cotton mesh bags for veggies. Yes I got a lot of judgy looks especially from the middle aged ladies. I just embraced being seen as a dork. Figured out early I wanted to be on right side of history even if that meant I wasn’t ‘cool’. As far as I cared, this Shit went beyond me and my ego/confidence.

Now those who called me a dork not only pretend like it didn’t happen but often pass on unsolicited information to me about reuse that is now very common knowledge.

Current day I’m like yea… you have to wash it because reuse isn’t just reuse. It’s also wash well to reuse so you don’t get sick. And occasionally you stil have to throw things out that become contaminated. This part still isn’t ‘common knowledge’ yet…smh.

only in the shower, two days later.

It's the usual thing.

Many moons ago I was in a very heated argument that you could write a fully functional program in notepad.

I was trying to explain what COM files were, they just didn't understand enough about it.

I don't argue unless I am correct. So alot of the time I am able to successfully prove it in the moment, other times they find out on their own later. If I didn't know for sure, why would I argue? That just seems like pointless behaviour.

What kind of question is this? 😆 I think everyone older than 6 regularly does that. Especially when planning things and disagreeing and then you get to learn who was right. And even the kids like to bet who is right and then they look it up, ask someone or try it and one of them will have this as an outcome...

In reality yes, but normally who I’m arguing with it’s based on pure emotion and no logical aspects anywhere.

One time my dad and I were in Mexico looking for some glue to fix a chair. So walking into town, I said we need to look for Kola Loka—spelled with Ks. My dad said "Nonsense! It would be spelled with Cs." Neither of us had seen how Krazy Glue is marketed in Spanish, but I could've put money on that spelling. I should've, because I was right dammit! And dad, who is a linguist, grudgingly admitted, "All right, I suppose you may have some linguistic talent too." It was the only time I ever won an argument with him over anything having to do with language.