Jerome Comeau gave a talk on learning to love support roles. He discussed how support acts as the guard dog of applications, dealing with customers, operations, accounts, and engineering. Support jobs often involve taking on tasks that others don't want to do. Comeau used exaggerated metaphors and images to convey both the challenges of support work but also the need for empathy, education, and inclusion within support teams. He concluded his talk by welcoming questions and sharing a picture of a snake.

1. Learn to Love Support
2 October 2016 / PyDX Conf / Jerome Comeau /
@heronymus / jerome.comeau@jeromecomeau.com

2. Who is this A$$&*!&
Jerome Comeau
@heronymus
Jerome.Comeau@jeromecomeau.com
https://jeromecomeau.com
20 years in Ops
15 years in Support
8 years in Portland
2 years at PyDX
2 days since shaving my beard
@heronymus / jerome.comeau@jeromecomeau.com

3. What The Hell Is He Talking About (pt. 1)
Support! Roles:
Rubber Meets the Road
Tip of the Spear
Vanguard of the Company
Guard Dog of the App
More analogies than you
can shake a stick at
@heronymus /

4. What is he talking about (Pt. 2)
Support! Jobs
Talking to customers
Talking to operations
Talking to Accounts
Talking to
Engineering/Development
Anything anyone else doesn’t
want to do that Support can’t
get out of doing

5. The First Middle Bit
Here is a picture of a sad
kitten while I say a lot of
discouraging things about
Support.
Don’t worry, it’ll get better
soon.
@heronymus /
jerome.comeau@jeromecomeau.com

6. Metaphor Alert!
Sadly, I
couldn’t find a
CC licensed
Exploded view.
You have to
settle for
this.
@heronymus /
jerome.comeau@
jeromecomeau.com

7. The Second Middle Bit
A series of Wild(e)
exaggerations to make
a point.
@heronymus /
jerome.comeau@jeromecomeau.com

8. Please Try to Keep In Mind:
Empathy
Education
Escape
Enclusion (yes, I know)
The Final Middle Bit

9. Metaphor Alert! (pt. 2)

10. It’s Over!
I hope you enjoyed my talk.
Any questions? Also, here is a snake.
@heronymus / jerome.comeau@jeromecomeau.com