Archive for tech rants
07.21.09
Posted in tech rants at 5:30 pm by terip
I guess I should admit that I now have a regular cell phone, on a regular cell plan. I have been using a very basic prepaid. It seemed to be time to move to something fancier, given that I seem to use my phone almost daily. So I wound up with a Samsung A767 Propel. I am still sorting out what I want to use on it.
I deal with a lot more technology these days. I even use a microwave now and then, although I still don’t like the taste of food cooked in one. I use a dishwasher, although I still believe that they take longer to clean dishes than just washing them. I do as the natives do. There are times when I have regrets over all that time spent without ammenities. I still feel that I learned some useful lessons during that time. As I get older, I find I desire a little bit of comfort. And I am living in a comfortable house these days. You can’t understand how much of a time saver electricity is, unless you’ve lived without it. And so I have a bit different take on “green” technologies. I don’t mind them, but too much of what I see just seems to be a waste of money. We need alternatives, true, and I realize that they are not going to be developed unless there is a market for them. Now, it just seems to be a way to show your superiority to the “unenlightened” masses.
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08.18.08
Posted in tech rants at 1:17 pm by terip
This is one of those things that happen in small support centers. The larger places usually have enough staff to handle high call volume, or have an overflow to route calls. But, what happens is a huge jump in the call queue. We had over 20 calls in queue when ours started. We had some comprimised email accounts sending out spam. When we locked those down, all our customers started getting emails requesting that they send in their email address and password, or the account would be shut down. Nothing generates calls like email. Everyone had to call in and find out if it was a legitimate email or not.
So this is where the cold pizza of doom comes in. You get an email from your supervisor or manager telling you that you will now be working through your lunch and they will be providing pizza. Technically, this isn’t legal. You are required to have a certain amount of time off the clock each day. But they send out for your pizza and you get to sit glued to your chair. Usually, folks in the office who are not working support drift by and grab a slice or two. By the time there is enough break in the calls for you to go grab a piece, the pizza is cold. You eat it anyway, of course. And you go back for seconds during the day, when it is even colder.
I really do not find cold pizza good compensation for losing my lunchtime. And I don’t like phone systems where you can’t record a message that customers can hear, up front, to let them know that we don’t need to talk to them. We had a full week of serious issues getting lost while we answered calls about those emails. There has got to be a better way to handle support calls.
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12.31.07
Posted in tech rants at 6:52 pm by terip
This is an interesting article on how much technology is enough. I think that I am going to be blogging more in the coming year on technology. Maybe we can talk about companies that make snow shovels with plastic handles that are held on with a single nail. Guess what? The handle splits and breaks. Hope they saved a lot of money using that cheap handle. But really, I suspect that the next year is going to be difficult financially for a lot of folks. It’s time to stop thinking in terms of gadgets and start learning how to analyze exactly how much technology you need to do something. And happy new year to you all!
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02.21.07
Posted in tech rants at 4:12 pm by site admin
One of these days, I’ll dig up that post about tech support. For now, here’s a new tech rant.
The other day, we started getting a number of calls from Stevenson. Users were online but couldn’t browse. Things had been working earlier in the day. Sometimes they could get email, but the web just wouldn’t work. About the third call, I walked around and asked if everyone was seeing the same thing. All three of us were. All our Tier 2 was out and the supervisor was at lunch. So I sent an email to netadmin, told him we were all seeing this issue and that I could send details if he’d like. Also told him we did not have any Tier 2 folks to look at this, since our supervisor told us we have to say this when we send emails directly to netadmin.
So what was the response? A request for more details? No, we got an email telling us how to troubleshoot dns issues by trying to ping the dns servers and basically telling me that this was a browser issue. Oh, and that he was sorry we didn’t have any Tier 2 folks around but things were tough for him because he was the only one in netadmin that day.
So we kept getting calls. I talked with the other tech and he had about three trouble tickets out on the same issue. Finally our supervisor was back and I told him that I didn’t care what they thought, we still had an issue in Stevenson. He must have had a few calls on it too, because about 20 minutes later we had another email from netadmin. This one said there was a problem in Stevenson, high packet loss on the T-1s and a tech was being dispatched. When we got word that the issue was resolved, I called back everyone with the problem. Miraculously, it had been fixed for all of them.
It took longer to type out that worthless email than it would have taken to check the stats on that part of the network. At the very least, he might have checked to see if we’d already done the things he wanted done. He might have read the email that said all THREE of us were seeing the same problem. Instead, we had to sit around and take more calls until someone finally convinced them to look into the issue. This is dumb netadmin behavior. If you ever get in a position to be a netadmin, work smarter than this. It will save you a lot of time.
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