Work 8
[phone rings]
Me: [name, company name] “How can I help you?”
Caller: [Support question, support question.]
Me: [Support answer, support answer.] (I was lucky; I knew the answers. Opie will tell you that half the time I’m winging it.)
Caller: “Shall I hang up on you or do you want to hang up on me?”
Me: [hysterical laughter] “I’ll hang up on you.” [click]
Two hours later:
Me: [name, company name] “How can I help you?”
Caller: “I’m so-and-so.”
Me: “Yes, sir.”
Caller: “You know, the guy you hung up on.”
Me: [hysterical laughter]
And life goes on.
August 24, 2006 at 10:22 pm
Com port dies on server talking to master controller. Brand new server. Manufacturer replaces motherboard. Month later, com port dies again. Manufacturer replaces motherboard again, Opie replaces dogbone just to look like he’s doing something. Another month passes. Today, com port dies again. Opie clueless, calls Dave Raup. Dave wonders why only the com port is dying and not the dogbone or master controller. Good question.
August 25, 2006 at 8:41 am
The last time I had to call any sort of tech support was when the scanning software on my printer went nuts. After a half an hour on the phone, plus the cost of the repair disk & the shipping, I realized that it would have been so much quicker if the support person hadn’t been in India. Most of my conversation was “Excuse me?” At least if they get you, winging it or not, you can be understood.
August 25, 2006 at 7:37 pm
Opie: What kind of computer was this? And . . . you replaced the crappy motherboard with a crappy motherboard from the same manufacturer? GIGO.
Karen: I had to deal with a support guy in India once. He was excellent. He had me do exactly what I would have had me do, then authorized the warranty repair. I mention this only so to show that they aren’t always horror stories.
August 25, 2006 at 10:40 pm
It’s some hoity-toity Hewlett-Packard server. The customer furnished it and it’s under warranty, although they’re getting a little concerned as to how many motherboards HP is going to replace.
August 27, 2006 at 5:54 pm
Speaking just as a home user, I don’t think much of HPs. I have no expertise regarding their servers, but first son had two desktops, and I wasn’t impressed by either one.
Speaking professionally, I would say that customer-supplied computers
suckare less than desirable, but in the world of Windows, you have to live with them.August 28, 2006 at 9:34 am
I’ve never had to deal with HP servers, but I’ll never buy another HP computer. The one that we do have has been in the shop so many times it isn’t funny. The other 2 here are EMachines, & have been no trouble. They even include a recovery disk, that HP does not.
August 28, 2006 at 8:01 pm
Oh, my.
Early my career, a tech called up to ask if we specified E-Machines.
This was for a Windows NT application.
No, was all I said.
Thank you, was all he said.
August 28, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Oh, yeah, and recovery disks
stinkare less than desirable. They blow out everything you have.A class provider gives you an installation disk, so you can reinstall, if you have to, without blowing everything away. (Dell, for example.)
‘Course, I don’t have to worry about that. I’m running Linux. Everything I need is open source.