How To Make People Buy New Equipment

[CodeDragon]

Just thought I should relate this one that made my getting up at 4:30am this morning on a call out that much brighter.

The phone rang - my supervisor telling me to haul a$$ to meet him onsite where the client's PDC had crashed. At this time in the morning, due to the client's business, it was starting to get a heavy load and the BDC was struggling to keep up.

Along we go, to find that the PDC is a system with a supremely old mobo, two dodgy P2s and an ailling HDD. The BDC, on the other hand, was fine (Athlon, tons of RAM etc.), but had been configured incorrectly. So, we reconfig'd the BDC, promoted it to primary controller and told them to get shut of the older system.

Their response was along the lines of "no, we can't be bothered and anyway you've done all the work, and that old system was fine til you got the support contract" (we'd never had to be called out before, let alone do any work on the PDC).

At this point my supe took the fire axe from the wall (why there was a fire axe in the server room beats me), and laid about the old PDC yelling "now you need a f***ing new one!".

For once I felt good about getting up at 4:30am.

CD

[NooNoo]

Oh boy, would love to have seen that, shame about the contract renewal with these guys though!

[Garak]

Sounds like fun
but as Noo posted, shame about the contract


But glad your felt better

[Commander Klarg]

* looks around for fire axe *

I got me several PCs that need replacing around here.

[edball]

Are you sure that wasn't just a very pleasant dream ?

[CodeDragon]

Originally posted by edball
Are you sure that wasn't just a very pleasant dream ?

Yup, cos we got the official complaint through this morning. And, best of all, someone (not me thank god) has to go out and install the new BDC.

Don't know what's gonna happen to my boss though.

CD

[Stalemate]

The stuff dreams are made of...

[Outcoded]

Dammit, now I got beer on the screen.

[-Senectus-]

Tell your boss, He has geeks all over the world cheering for him.

[FatalException0E]

I got the axe at work today
Oh, I'm sorry. Are you OK?
Sure, but that friggin server isn't feeling too well!

[Bigdog632]

wish i could have done that to some of the freaks i dealt with on phone support

[-Senectus-]

hey code dragon... how did he go?
(your boss)

[CodeDragon]

Originally posted by -Senectus-
hey code dragon... how did he go?
(your boss)

Well, he has very big pink teeth marks in his a$s this morning (his words not miine), but he still has his job. He wouldn't say more than that, but my guess is that he's been put on probation by the powers that be.

Incidentally, the company called us up again today. After some of our guys went out and installed the new BDC for them, they decided that they knew better thna us and decided to take it off of its UPS for some reason. When the power failed during a storm last night... Well, you can imagine what happened when the PDC's UPS (which is old and crappy) ran down. Still, they got both call-outs FOC because of what my boss did the first time round.

CD

[-Senectus-]

Give him our best..
though I don't think I would have handled it that way.. I admire his guts :-)

[Fubar]

Your boss did the right thing and was acting in the best interest of the client! Trouble his the *perception* is that he is one unstable SOB. Remember, perception rules over everything else. It was perceived that the Enron guys were doing great until SEC got hold of them.

What he should have done is issued a memo to upper management stating his reasons for suggesting an upgrade of equipment. The memo must go to *upper* management rather than the guys that show up at 4:40AM because those guys are way too involved in the situation and think it makes them look bad not to have suggested it first. Also this sort of suggestion is taken much more seriously when presented by an outsider. The "Idiot" rule still applies.

"Idiot Rule"
Anyone, particularly PC guys, that has worked here more than two years is an idiot and should not be listened to. The CFO's son has a better take on things than anyone we employ.