[ale] Linux the $400 Operating System

[F. Grant Robertson]

Having done support in various capacities for 4+ years, and considering it a
fabulous primer to my current career (multi-purpose, self-employed
consulting)..  I do have to say, your getting weak and useless support.
Strong support is always worth paying for.

I've been "contract" support and I've been "point of purchase" support, at
several different large firms, I can definitely say that "paid" support is
far better. Furthermore, if your without an in house tech who is proficient
at researching problems, retainer based consulting is almost essential to
success.

Any tech who's first answer is to reload obviously doesn't have your best
interest at heart.  Troubleshooting is, as far as I've seen, an art form..
Someone with the correct skills and attitude can consistently out perform
someone lacking either.

-G
F. Grant Robertson
404-388-9797c 770-579-0859o
mailto:f.g.robertson at alexiongroup.com



-----Original Message-----
From: Irv Mullins [mailto:irvm at ellijay.com]
To: ale at ale.org
Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 5:29 PM
To: ale at ale.org
Subject: Re: [ale] Linux the $400 Operating System


On Wednesday 21 August 2002 04:53 pm, you wrote:

> Guess I should have been more clear, as someone else emailed me privately
> about this...
>
> I was *not* saying that the conversation didn't take place.  What struck
me
> as ridiculous and brought the whole story into question was the notion
that
> you returned the equipment after just one bad support call.  No mention of
> talking up the chain of command (asking for supervisors, etc), no multiple
> calls, nothing - just one bad tech support call experience, so you
returned
> the product.
>
> Hell, I wouldn't have *anything* if I returned it because of one bad
> experience.

The truth of the matter is that this was after having an Apple support
contract for about 3 or 4 years - we had 12 Mac's, so we made plenty
of calls. Usually the answers were on a par with Microsoft's support,
mainly, "reload the operating system".  We quickly learned to do this
before calling, but that seldom fixed the problem. Sometimes they
were helpful, often not. I don't fault them for this - remote diagnostics
can't be easy. That "Apple wire" question was the just the last
straw; the owner decided he wasn't getting his money's worth.

I was in favor of calling that person's supervisor and reaming a new one,
but the owner, being more polite than I am, just wrote a letter explaining
why he wanted his money back.  To Apple's credit, they didn't argue.

Irv



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