Them: “The API requests I’m making aren’t working.”

Me: “Ah. That behavior means your request has such-and-such header wrong.”

Them: “Can you help me figure out why the server is acting incorrectly?”

Me: “Well, the server isn’t doing anything incorrect here. But sure. Let’s jump on a Zoom and work out what’s wrong.”

Them: “I’ll let you know when I have time.”

A couple of days later.

Them: “Can you request that the server admins fix the incorrect server behavior?”

Me: “Well, as I said, there isn’t anything wrong with the server. Here. Here’s an API request that works properly and doesn’t exhibit the issues you’ve been having.”

Them: “This error happens on every request I make. I think the server is acting incorrectly.”

Me: “If this was a problem on the server, we’d be flooded with support requests. But when I use the client tool which works via the API, everything works perfectly, see? Can you give me an example API request that’s been giving you issues?”

Them: “I can’t work on it right now.”

Me: Goes and gets requests from the server logs. “Ah. Ok. I see the issue. See this header here? The way you’re using this header isn’t correct. There’s extra stuff in the header that shouldn’t be there. That’s probably what’s causing your issue.”

Them: “Maybe.”

That’s as far as the conversation has progressed so far. We’ll see how it progresses next week.

This individual has been pestering other folks on my team. Always comes across as putting blame on whoever they’re talking to and not taking “the problem is X; fix that and if it’s still an issue, we can talk further” for an answer. Really has a way of bringing out the defensiveness in folks.