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My company has rolled out our web-based timesheet software to hundreds of large companies. Usually it is for the use of a department or two, or for one division. Yet as people start to use our technology to understand their costs better, other departments want in on the action and buy licenses too.
When these follow-on departments do their rollouts, it happens in one of two ways:
1. They start all over and do it the way they want it.
2. They have some central and more experienced group roll it out on behalf of the new department.
We’ve found that in many cases the second way works better. In fact, I’d call this a best practice for rolling out successive phases of a large software installation. Have a central team do it so the learning can be captured and processes more easily repeated.
- Curt Finch, Journyx CEO
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Hello children. It’s time for another installment of “The Grumpy IT Guy,” or what I like to call, “Why the Hell Can’t People Just Do Their Jobs?”
This month’s installment comes to you courtesy of a large telecommunications company who, for anonymity’s sake, we will refer to as “XO Communications.” We discovered last month that when you call our fax line from an XO line, it doesn’t answer. It rings forever. When you call from anywhere else in the world, it answers. This was a new development; it had been working just fine three weeks ago.
Now, this occurred right near the time that my Veep of Sales likes to call “End of Month.” Being March, it was also what my Leadership Team likes to call “End of Quarter.” They also seem to like to have these things called “sales” which do things like “fund payroll” and other minor details. Since I am strongly invested in my ability to continue paying my bartenders after work, it peaked my interest to hear, “THE FAX IS DOWN! THE FAX IS DOWN! NO ONE CAN SELL!”
Alright, well, that’s not really true. Our sales team is top-notch, man, and they can sell all day long, fax machine or no fax machine. However, I will admit that it is remarkably difficult to get the orders to them if, say, the fax machine is not working. I crawled out of my cave into the bright fluorescent-lit world of my colleagues and stumbled over to the fax machine. I dialed out, and it worked. I dialed the number with my cell phone, and it worked. I wondered why the sales team felt the need to turn my place of work into a House of Lies. I dialed the fax number from my office phone. It rang about 30 times before I gave up.
“Aha!” I said to myself. I liked the sound so much, I said it again, out loud this time. “Aha!”
I picked up the phone and called XO Communications. It also rang 30 times, but being used to that, I waited. At about ring 9,283,182, they answered. I explained my situation and they said they’d get right on it.
I received my ticket number via email and a few minutes later, I received a second email telling me the ticket was closed. “It’s a Time Warner number,” they said. Annoyed, I went to the online helpdesk and tried to re-open the ticket to explain the situation. This is not possible at XO Communications, you see, because once they kill a ticket, it stays dead.
I opened a new ticket, fully explaining the situation. Their response was that this is a Time Warner problem, and they closed the ticket again.
Irritated, I opened yet another ticket and waited. A day or more. Then I came in one morning and saw an email stating that the problem was resolved. Okay, not bad, I thought. Only 1 1/2 days to get this fixed. I picked up my phone and dialed the fax number, which rang… and rang… and rang. And, some say, if it’s very quiet at night and there is a full moon, you can still hear the ringing today!
Flabbergasted, I went to re-open the ticket. Oh, right. So I submitted a new ticket, explaining the situation again. It got closed. The problem was not fixed. I think we’re four business days (Thurs/Fri, Mon/Tue) into the process at this point; it is now April and a new quarter. I decided to call my sales rep over at XO. He got someone to call me back, they got a good line on the problem and they told me it should be fixed by morning. The next morning, I came in to find another email saying that the problem had been resolved. Yay for getting my sales guy to help! I picked up my phone and happily dialed the fax number.
Yes, you know where this is going.
I called my rep back and left him a voicemail. Left several that day, in fact. Left several more later that week. A week later, after I left a message telling him to come get his equipment and that we’re contemplating suing for breach of contract, he called me back. All of a sudden, XO decided to take me seriously, and I got some real techs on the phone. I was finally working with someone who had a clue!
After several technician phone calls (and two more closed, unresolved tickets later), here’s what we know. If you’re calling my fax line from an XO.com VOIP line, you’re not going to get through. Even though you did back around March 25th. They have, at least, conceded that this might be on their side of things.
And you wonder why IT is grumpy?
-The Grumpy Journyx IT Guy
Get these and other useful tidbits at: http://journyx.com/rss/support/tips/
Get these and other useful tidbits at: http://journyx.com/rss/support/tips/
Get these and other useful tidbits at: http://journyx.com/rss/support/tips/
Get these and other useful tidbits at: http://journyx.com/rss/support/tips/
Get these and other useful tidbits at: http://journyx.com/rss/support/tips/