the boredom of ramfree17

Gist: When paying via your online wallets then make sure to take a screenshot before payment.

My internet provider bill (from PLDT) is nearing its due date and I was paying the last few month’s bills via my Maya.ph wallet to take advantage of the crypto coin “cashback” feature. I logged into my Android app and saw that I still have more than 6000 pesos in the wallet which is sufficient to pay for my internet bill. I proceeded with paying for the bill using the saved template and adjusted the amount to Php1900.

Upon submission, the app encountered an error that it didn’t receive a response from the provider and to try again a few minutes later. When I refreshed the app home page my wallet balance dropped to Php4200 but there is no transaction listed for it. I waited for 5 minutes to refresh the Maya app but everything remained the same.

The Maya chatbot is useless and doesn’t want to connect me to a human helpdesk agent so I called up the Maya hotline. The agent who answered it is helpful enough but she does not have any ability to view my prior day balance to confirm the deduction. She can only confirm that there is no new transaction logged to my account since what she saw is the last payment I made a few days back. She suggested to call the PLDT hotline instead and to email support@maya.ph to do a deeper check and to request for an online receipt if needed. It has been 2 days and yet there is still no response on my request except for the automated ticket number.

I dont have any tangible proof other than this claim so it will be very easy for Maya to say it didn’t happen. This is a very costly lesson in proper documentation, and a very negative experience that will prevent or at least minimize my use of the Maya payment system in the future.

SLA – the maximum amount of time that a task can be put off that the requester cannot contest except to raise the cost by involving higher-paid individuals to increase the imaginary priority shown to external users.

Sometimes misunderstood to be the time needed to require work to be completed.

Imagine an environment where standards are strictly enforced.
Where security is of paramount importance.

Now imagine that at the expense of productivity or rational reasoning.
Where compliance is dictated by the contents of a clipboard checklist.

Welcome to Hotel California.

Food for thought for operations people.

If you are doing support work and using a ticketing system that doesn’t provide a link or information to contact the administrators then you become responsible for connecting that request to the administrators. You cannot expect end users who are twice-removed from the administrator team to have the means to contact them directly. The very least you can do is to ensure the concerns are forwarded to the next link in the chain and avoid shoving the end user to fumingly face a brick wall when they are given the curt response of “it is not my scope”.

Image courtesy of pxhere.com

Sometimes giving up is the only option. Shelving it. Lowering the priority. Putting it in the backburner for a later time.

Give up with the hope that someday might be a better day to try again; that on that fateful day you will have the numbers and support to cross the pitiful gap that for all it’s worth could be the chasm between two continents.

“He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight”
– one of the essentials of victory, Sun Tzu, Art of War