Why do people think everything must be done for them and that they are not responsible for anything?

I got my new T-Shirt today, and it's already proving how correct it is. My T-Shirt simply says: "It must be user error." Now, granted not everything is user error, but I would probably guess than at least 95% of things are. There are system bugs, and various other things that are beyond anyone's control that affect people adversely. However, my life in Tech Support has proven that most issues are caused by user error. Sometimes it's simply ignorance of how things really work, sometimes it's caused by miscoding, sometimes it's caused by all of the above. However, I work for PayPal. I really like PayPal's features, and as a payment source. I liked it long before I worked here. There are things I like, and things I don't like, but in the end all PayPal is, is a payment processor. ALL a payment processor does is process payments. That's the long and the short of it. We take information that is passed to us by the website, auction site, user, etc and allow the customer to enter their financial information and send a payment.

We offer a variety of tools that help make this easy for the customer, and integrate able with many different systems. However, we do not do not write scripts to fit every customers needs. In fact due to different programming languages, business needs, and goals it would be almost impossible to do. This means that the customer needs to write their information to fit their needs. We provide variable names that we can understand, and after that it's pretty much up to the user to create a script that will meet their needs.

We do this for a variety of reasons. 1. We do not have, and do not want access to their servers. 2. We have tried to make everything as truly simple as possible. Trust me, when I say that it is simple. 3. There are so many things that a script can do and languages it can be written in that it would be impossible to meet every customers needs and server specifications. It requires the customer to be able to put a very basic shopping cart on their site with nothing more than the ability to paste something in HTML. This is truly, and honestly, as simple as it gets.

Now I don't mind helping customers who are willing to listen. In fact I'm happy to help them I have even gone so far as to provide an entire help page for our basic services. Including HTML help. HTML is the most basic of languages, if you even want to call it a languages. It's completely tag based. Everything (or almost everything) starts with a and and Obviously these aren't valid tag names but note that the starting tag doesn't have a /, but the ending tag does. This means that when you Start a document it would be and when you end it it would be . Now I could go on and on about various things on HTML and how it works, but it would be completely off topic. I have a hard enough time staying on topic, so I'm going to try not to get off on this tangent and back to my original gripe.

My biggest gripe is that people think everything should be done for them. It should be free, it should be point and click, and someone else should be responsible if it doesn't work. Now tell me, if you want your car fixed and don't know anything about cars are you going to fix it? Are you seriously going to call the part company and ask them why they don't give better instructions on how to install a carburetor? No, you're going to either buy a manual and fight with it yourself, or you're going to take it to a mechanic. Now personally, I'm going to take it to a mechanic. This attitude came from growing up on a farm and a rather nasty snafu that included changing my oil, a creeper, and my hair. I learned that creeper wheels and hair don't go well together, and said result along with pulling the oil filter out can mean hours and hours of attempting to get oil out of your hair, face, and that was only after getting my hair out of the creeper wheels, which was the reason I didn't mange to get out of the way of the oil to begin with. Either way people don't think twice about getting a professional to fix their car, and they can't seem to understand that it's the same principal for almost everything in life.

You either figure out what you 'really' need to know about web design, and yes this may mean you need to learn how to do more than move pictures around whatever gooey interface you're using (FrontPage, Dreamweaver, Site Builder, etc). There are some really and truly great books on HTML and web design. I personally really like the HTML for dummies quick reference. This gives you a great are that gives you may of the HTML tags and what they do.

I have even had a customer tell me that we need to understand that customers are stupid, and we need to make it simple. Well honey, all I gotta say is it's as simple as it's gonna get. We are not a hosting service we're a payment processor, we have to have a way to obtain the information on what the customer is buying, and HTML is honest to god the simplest language to learn. If all else fails and you know how to get to the HTML portion of your website but don't know how to find anything in HTML for pity's sake just mark the area with a !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! or some other distinguishing marks that says put button here.

What also astounds me is then the people who know nothing about even HTML want to incorporate advanced features into their site. IPN, PDT, and other advanced options that would require quite a bit of knowledge in programming, coding, and/or design. I totally admit I don't know everything, in fact I'm the first to admit that there is a lot I don't know. If I need something I either beat my head against the wall until I figure it out or find someone who has or can create what I need for me. You would truly not believe how many programming books that I have and should take the time to learn. I also honestly don't expect anyone to do anything with my site except me. If I do I'd be paying someone else to do the coding for me. *shrug*.

Anyway I've managed to calm down quite a bit from dealing with customers who don't understand that we cannot do it for them. It's their site, if they want advanced features THEY have to be responsible for it. There are even some great sites available that will help them. PayPalDev.org being one of my personal favorites. It's a forum system, but it's good.

Okay the whole moral of this rant is very very simple. People need to learn that not everything is free, there are business costs, and there are things that if you don't want to learn you shouldn't do. If you don't know how to fix the problem, and aren't willing to learn find someone and pay them to do it. There are web designers and developers who are employed and talented. They are many times worth the money. Do some research and find out what will be best for you. There are tons of options, and they are all the consumers to make.

Tink ~ Out