Conference 7.286::digital

>>>>>
    	
    
	I have a similiar story regarding parts. A customer has a 2100,
	has a service contract, well their system is dead. A cable was 
	cut by one of the fans, well guess what, field service didn't have
	a replacement cable in stock, they were originally supposed to get
	one within one day. It didn't show up and they had to "take one" 
	from the only "2100" (in our demo room) we have here in the building. 
	So, now that 2100 is sitting dead. I'm told that the replacement 
	part will be here Monday (AM) and that our 2100 will be fixed. But,
	it has taken 3-4 days to get the right part? If we are going to 
	tout ourselves as being cable of supporting "mission critical" 
	applications, well, something needs to be done to support/backup
	that image we want to portray of ourselves. Words alone won't cut it!

	Rick

re: .0

Don't worry there are plenty of managers left to manage the problems you
mention.

:-)

bjm

    We will continue in this insane behaviour until one of our customers
    gets mad and successfully sues us for breach of contract.  Then
    management will wonder how they got into such a mess.
    
    Bob

    Mr. McCarthy's reply .2 has to contain the pithiest comment on
    outsourcing I've ever seen:
    
    	"How will we survive outsourcing?  Oh, we'll manage..."

    Re. .3 
    We will continue in this insane behaviour until one of our customers
        gets mad and successfully sues us for breach of contract.  
     
    I'm amazed this hasn't been hapenning every day. Are there a lot
    of law suits brought against our service?  You sure don't
    hear about them very often.

  Well, we are advertising that we will do "whatever it takes", so of course
we will do whatever it takes to fix the spare-parts problem. Except, of course,
hiring enough people to do the job.

    over here in U.K all the engineer are looking for other job because
    they are paid below market rates.
    give all manager a tool box
    
    charlie
    

    <-.1>and you can't even talk in your "Digital only" notes file
    
    martin

    Well, here in MPO I think they'll solve the headcount problem in DC by
    hiring...  In the past 6 months we've lost half our unit (approximately
    8 people who quit) but when I spoke to my manager a few weeks ago, he'd
    just received authorization to hire replacements.  They've been
    interviewing for a while.  
    

   Re: Note 3523.5 by CSC32::C_DUNNING
   

�    Re. .3 
�    We will continue in this insane behaviour until one of our customers
�        gets mad and successfully sues us for breach of contract.  
     
�    I'm amazed this hasn't been hapenning every day. Are there a lot
�    of law suits brought against our service?  You sure don't
�    hear about them very often.

   
   Sorry to disappoint y'all.  But our customers are taking a different
   tact.  They are simply not buying our service anymore.  
   
   I have one customer that has been ordered by an officer of his
   company not to buy service from Digital anymore (even though the
   system manager wants it).

    RE: -1
    
    I have the same thing going on...the system manager of the customer I
    talked about in my original note wants to keep Digital but in light of
    the recent event his boss is asking to move to a competitor to get
    break-fix service.
    
    The sys. mgr. wants us to give him something he can take back to his
    manager so they can keep using Digital.
    
    And there is nothing I can tell him...
    
    

    I sell and manage computer moves for MCS customers (formerly known as
    DECmove, now called Digital's Relocation Services).  This is a 
    fixed price per-event service for moving systems, peripherals, whatever.  
    
    Try getting an engineer to do a move on short notice (less than 10
    days)!!  I have yet to have to say "Absolutely Not!" to a customer, but
    I do (sometimes) have to escalate to get engineer power for my
    projects.  The effort involved in escalating is mind boggling. 
    I keep hearing engineers stating that they have difficulty managing
    DECservice 2 or 4 hour response because of their call loads, never mind
    fulfilling these per event activities!  
    
    I concur that we are definitely too thin in the engineer ranks, but I
    also gather that the headcount reductions were based upon call loads, so
    Headquarters won't yet support replacing those we have lost. I imagine
    that an unrealistic number of hours was used as an average to go with
    the call loads, resulting in a too-low number of engineers.  
    
    Sooner or later, the customer dissatisfaction that results in contract
    loss will show in MCS quarterly results, and HQ may finally get a clue, 
    I guess.  Of course, by then it will probably be too late to recover
    customer confidence in our ability to fulfill our promises.
    
    M.
    

>    Try getting an engineer to do a move on short notice (less than 10
>    days)!!  I have yet to have to say "Absolutely Not!" to a customer, but
>    I do (sometimes) have to escalate to get engineer power for my
>    projects.  The effort involved in escalating is mind boggling. 
>    I keep hearing engineers stating that they have difficulty managing
>    DECservice 2 or 4 hour response because of their call loads, never mind
>    fulfilling these per event activities!  
>    
>    I concur that we are definitely too thin in the engineer ranks, but I
>    also gather that the headcount reductions were based upon call loads, so
>    Headquarters won't yet support replacing those we have lost. I imagine
>    that an unrealistic number of hours was used as an average to go with
>    the call loads, resulting in a too-low number of engineers.  
    

Just a thought...


 I wonder how the headcount determination was made. I know that
many of us would "stay 'til the job was done" many, many times
never complaining, or crowing about it - just do it. Could it be 
that this kind of effort was not recognized? Not taken into account?

 There are still many left here that will continue to do this
job no matter what but it seems that there comes a time when
shear determination just can't fill all of the cracks.

    re: -1 ...  Thanks for your support.  That's pretty much what I was
    attempting to say.  Additionally, there's probably some number out
    there that says the "average" system service call is "x" hours,
    including travel, "average" storage call is "y" hours, etc.  If the
    number HQ used for "x" was, for example, 3 hours, it probably should
    have been 4.5 or better!
    
    M.
    

    What is also I believe forgotten here is the amount of time it takes
    to repair a product goes up as we get rid of support, stock fewer
    parts, cut training, and etc.  This coupled with fewer engineers to
    respond to calls has an adverse effect on customer sat.  I have heard
    customers say they can't wait to get a survey this year so they can
    voice there opinion on had bad they believe our service has gotten.
    Customers log calls with remote support, log it critical, and still
    have to waits hours for a specialist.  I had a customer with a critical 
    Pathworks problem and it took days to get a call back from support.
    I don't mean to bash colorado, I believe most people there are very
    good, they are just spread too thin like the rest of us in MCS.  If
    customer sat is a priority, well I don't see it from here.
    

    Poor Colorado...
    talking about being spread thin...
    I had a fcustomer PATHworks issue and in 3 days I only moved up the
    queue 5 paces...at that rate it'd be a week or more before I heard
    back.  I never blamed them...I knew how hard they'd been hit by
    lay-offs...
    
    But my customer was more than exasperated, to say the least.
    
    Ahhhhh, I remember the good ol' days.  You called Colorado Springs and
    it was unusual for you not to get a person on the phone immediately to
    help you.  If not right away, the call back was within an hour or less.
    
    Now?  Days sometimes.
    
    And no, I don't believe it's their fault at all...
    
    

re.8:

>    <-.1>and you can't even talk in your "Digital only" notes file

Since when? Tell us more!

Thanks,
Dave.

    It's not Colorado if it's Pathworks, it's Alpharetta.  Of course, we
    are all one CSC now, right?
    

    re .16
    
    	You let a customer issue go three days?  You should have elevated
    the call...

Re: .19

>    re .16
>    
>    	You let a customer issue go three days?  You should have elevated
>    the call...


	Unless the customer issue is critical, please DON'T!  Or to be more 
precise, which of your other customers would you like us to hang up on in order
to deal with this customer.... 

	

	To give you a dose of reality...

	First of all, when a customer says, "I didn't get a call for three 
days", usually what they are neglecting to tell you is the previous 3-5 attempts
that were made when we missed them.  Frequently, we'll have customers call and 
make an "appointment"  (We have no contractual obligation to meet this appointment, 
but we like try.  For one thing it makes the customer happy.  For another, if they
honor the appointment, we can elminate a lot of phone tag.)  I can't tell you how
many times, we move heaven and earth to meet an appointment, the customer isn't 
there at the time of the appointment and then they call back and complain about 
response time!  Arrggghhh!  Or eleveate, be told they'll get a call within 15 min, 
please stay by the phone...  And when we call back 10 min later, they've gone home 
for the day!!!  (Etc, etc.  I got a million of 'em)

	We have about 65 people here during "prime time" taking calls.  At this 
moment we have 271 calls in our queues.  Average problem time is around 45 minutes.
that means, if the calls stopped coming in right now, in about 3.5 to 4 hours we'd 
be all caught up.  (Assuming that most of our people are here, most of the customers 
are there to receive our calls, the network doesn't go down again, they don't have 
another 45 min fire drill today or that too many of our people don't get caught up 
on escalations to Engineering.)  But the calls won't stop coming in.   They keep 
coming at the rate of about 600 a day. 

	And I don't even want to talk about the internals who call up and want us 
to provide people to go on site, or to provide support for customers not under 
contract (at no charge, of course) to fix a screwed up situation not of our making
(and deal with them first before our 271 waiting customers legally entitled to 
service, of course)...   

	Elevating in this situation is like beating a horse that's already on it's 
knees, it's just as likely to go all the way down as it is to get up and walk.

	By the way, for the person who said their customer only moved up nn slots in 
queue over some days.  That's not really meaningful information.   The queue is 
prioritized on service type, *customer defined* severity level and when the last 
attempt of the call was made.  I.e. a Severity one from a Mission Critical customer 
(a specific level of service for which they pay extra) will go in at the top of the 
queue.  (Once it's had an attempt it'll usually drop a spot or two, but will generally
stay pretty close to the top.)  Severity 3's from internals go at the absolute bottom.  
Calls move up and down the queue all day based on changes to severity, how many higher 
priority calls, have come in or been cleared and when the last attempt was made.  A 
call that's number 11 in the queue, might be the next one up for a call.  (How?  First 
10 calls have all unsuccessful attempts within the last  half and hour to hour.  Number 
11's next one up for an attempt.)  Because of all this, we generally do NOT tell our 
customers where they are in line. 

	(And also, by the way, MOST severity 1 calls get *at least* one attempt within 
an hour.  And ALL calls in our queue, no matter what the severity level, generally get 
contacted within a week.  So the comments about it'll take three weeks are exagerations.)

	We know we are understaffed. We can and have proved that we are understaffed 
to the point that we actually have open reqs (currently for contractors only, but we're 
trying to make the case for some permanent hires as well.).  I've seen so many BAD 
resumes I could spit.  I seen so many resumes that look good on paper, but when I call 
them these PC/DOS experts can't give me a reasonably adequate explanation of DOS memory.
(I'll not looking for every bit and byte.  But I don't think it's unreasonable to expect 
a DOS support person to recognize the terms UMB, HMA and loadhi.)  The "experienced 
PATHWORKS administrator"  doesn't know the difference between a disk and a file service, 
doesn't know the different types of access allowed on common, application and system file 
services, doesn't know the tuning tools that come with the product....


<Flame off>

	Well, I feel better for having vented now... :-) 

	Some advice for helping your customers get better service.  

1) USE DSNLink!  Many how-tos, workaround and most patches are available to be downline 
loaded.  Problems may be submitted electronically, allowing them to avoid telephone 
tag.  It also allows us to multitask.  While we're waiting for the customer on the phone's 
PC to reboot,  we can be typing a response to your customer in another window.

2) Don't ask for a specialist by name unless you REALLY want to wait for the person.

3) Don't log your customer's calls for them.  Unless you specify it's critical AND you 
are on site, you'll go straight to the bottom of the queue.  

4) Stress the importance of leaving accurate information.  We get wrong phone numbers.
Secretaries that never heard of the person even though the company name is correct, etc.

5) If they have a pager number, give it to us!

6) And if you REALLY need to escalate, do so. We have a Manager on Duty 24 hours a day.
And we'll do our best to get your customer taken care of.  But *listen* to what the MOD 
says!  If they say stay by the phone for the next 15 mins.  DON'T go to lunch for God's 
sake!


One of the people you get when you say, "I need to eleveate this call"...

Tracey Heffelfinger
System Support Consultant, PATHWORKS








 
	

	    
 
	   
 

    
    	Thank you, Tracey. You all better memorize that; especially those
    of you in sales and sales support 'cause it ain't gonna get a whole
    bunch better soon.
    
    		the Greyhawk

    re: .20
    
    Hmmm ...   begins to sound like "whatever it takes" should be changed 
    to "whatever it takes*" ...  I apologize in advance.  It's not fair to
    criticize the very people taking the heat for the support.  They need
    more support, IMO.
    
    Actually, what concerns me most is that the ad campaign seems to be 
    disjoint from things actually happening inside the company.  Seems to 
    me that appropriately increasing resources for customer support should 
    be the issue.  .20 leads me to believe that if Digital means what it 
    says in its ads, you should have more resources!
    
    Steve
    
    * - if we consider you to be a critical customer.

    Digital needs a *lot* of things before we can honestly say "Whatever it
    takes".  More support personnel is a perfect example, yes.  The CSC is
    understaffed.  CNS is understaffed (Computer & Networking Services, our
    internal MIS folks).  MCS Delivery is understaffed.  There are
    practically no sales (hardware/software) support folk out there
    anymore.  Each individual is being forced to become an expert in too
    large a multitude of subjects.  Since most people are more capable of
    being a "jack of all trades, master of none", this staffing crunch in
    support areas is deeply cutting into our ability to properly fulfill
    the promises marketing and the SLT are making.
    
    I am one of the few remaining subject matter experts, and very happy to
    be one.  I cannot count the number of times in a week someone,
    somewhere, thanks me for "still being there" or tells me that my
    process is one of the few that "still works", etc.  Of course, those
    that are saying this have no idea what my delivery folks and I are
    going through to ensure that, but that's exactly the point.  All of
    these support problems and issues should be transparent to the customer
    and to sellers.  When it isn't, we have a big problem.  Let's just hope
    someone wakes up from this bad dream soon!
    
    M.

    re .20
    
    	If the customer is paying >$130/hr, and the issue is preventing
    further progress on a project, you better damn well believe it's
    critical.  Otherwise, it is not an *issue*.  I am sure they were 
    impressed with the turnaround, critical or not.  Whether there are
    enough bodies to do the job at the CSCs is not my problem...

    Oh, but it is your problem.
    
    It is also mine when I m running a minimum of two tools sessions/day
    trying to get people taken care of.  it is ours when we find out that
    in addition to the 250 seperate products we support that three new ones
    got added without telling any of us who are supposed to support this
    stuff.  it is our problem when 7 people in a week leave the team in the
    CSC and take their expertise with them.  
    
    What to do?  I don't know, our first contractor lasted a little over
    two hours before the contractor decided the stress level in here is too
    high, and this is a comparatively light week.  We are understaffed at
    this point.  I don't think the senior staff in this comapny cares if
    networks people leave or stay, at least the general reshuffling and
    threats seem to tell me that maybe there is life after DEC.  
    
    But, if any of you out there are looking for a real challenge and are
    networks literate......
    
    
    meg

    ...and we havn't even touched on the subject of our PC and
    printer support. We don't have any on the weekends and evenings.
    Would it really be too costly to staff these hours? As a call
    screener I can't tell you how many times a customer has told
    me "I'm taking this back". Just last night my co-worker had
    a customer with a printer/pc set up question and when told 
    there was no afterhours support he became candid and said
    "you know, I had a gut feeling I shouldn't have bought this."

    .26
    I'm a call screener as well and that has been a major nit with me.  I 
    worked last Christmas and I can't tell you how many customer stated
    they just got a pc or printer for Christmas and needed help setting it
    up.  When I told them there was no support they stated no wonder you
    have a 30 money back garentee(sp).  Digital has yet to understand that 
    people are buying our pc for personal use and they are not at home from 
    8-5.  I am logging plenty of calls for Starions but I have never been
    told what the support stratgy is for this PC.  What I've heard is it's
    up to Sam's or CompUsa to provide the support, but they are the ones
    calling?   

    
    	I sympathise with after-sales support from my position in pre-sales
    support on the right side of the pond.
    
    	I only heard yesterday from an MCS guy with whom I used to work, that
    they are losing engineers every week (without any form of package), some
    of them without even a job to go to, because they are so hacked off with
    what is (or rather isn't) going on.
    
    	Not only this, MCS managers are just saying that "we can take on a
    temp to replace the people leaving."  When they do this, I'm told, the
    temps that they get "can't tell one end of a spanner from the other!"
    
    	Not a good situation to be in at all!
    
    				Malcolm.

    And yesterday I heard of the following situation:  one of our more
    successful sales colleagues has had enough and is going to a direct
    competitor.  Even so he's been asked to interview candidates to take
    over his job, and to do a customer handover.

    re. .6, .9 etc.
    
    Of course they'll start hireing people now: they can count on a mass of
    people on the dull competing for a job, available to accept below
    standard conditions and to work harder than ever. 
    
    Once they got rid of the old employees, who had become over the (good)
    years  a bit "over-weight" with experience, self-esteem, high wages
    etc. - 'cose that was they standards thei got bread into - DEC will
    finally be able to dive into the human resources market, shop around to 
    pick and choose nice fresh and mouldable meat to forge into the new
    generation of 'post-revolution DEC workers'.
    
    Smart thinking, isn't it?  
    Same 'biological law' driving so many midle-aged men, bored with their
    faithful wives to fall in love with young sparkling chicks, attracted
    by their money and 'experience'.
    
    Small detail: we're talking about human beings, here, and not of some
    cheap disposable commodity...
    
    
    	Livia

    
    	You hit the nail right on the head, Livia! It's one thing for this
    company to decide to dive headfirst into the commodity marketplace, but
    we are treating intelligent people as commodities too. Where is it written 
    that one logically follows the other?
    
    Regards,
    
    	Jim K

>    Small detail: we're talking about human beings, here, and not of some
>    cheap disposable commodity...
    
Livia, 
  We are struggling over the definition.  They already started this defining
process by labelling people as "core" and "commodity" in my organization.
See note 3238.* and 3447.* for more information.

This is the first step towards classic labor-management stratification.
Our white collars just got a whole lot bluer.

Mark

    perhaps the most frustrating thing is the total denial by certain
    management types that this is happening. or, as i've seen over the last
    few years here at dec, we get flooded with statements insinuating that
    this is how employees are being treated by all the other companies in
    this industry. we seem to justify treating employess shabbily by
    sticking our heads in the sand stating "its like this everywhere".
    that's rubbish. i am very skeptical about this company turning around
    if we don't re-establish the employee as a valued asset. some of the
    horror stories over the last few years, many detailed in this
    conference, are simply incredible. its not hard to see why many have
    developed an attitude that says "the hell with everything else, what's
    in it for me"? that's an extremely unhealthy attitude for turning a
    company around. but i see it everyday.

    .33
    Unfortunately, a lot of truth in your remarks.
    
    What's the reaction of management?  Commission of an employee survey. 
    I don't know about your organization, but my management has yet to
    address results of survey with its people.
    
    But even if they did, it probably would not make any difference with
    your individual contributors who have seen both themselves and
    customers get trampled upon in the dash for getting rid of the red ink.
    
    It's taken many years and many problems to get Digital in the condition
    it's in.  Rampant out of control hiring in the "glory days", throwing
    people at problems, was an issue.  Unfortunately, because of the sorry
    state of the internals systems of Digital, it was necessary to have a
    lot of manual effort.
    
    The systems still aren't fixed but the people that were the "plugs in
    the dikes" have been removed, leaving the corporate body known as
    Digital slowly bleeding to death.  You don't take the tourniquet off
    until you have the necessary means to fix the source of the blood
    letting.
    
    That's probably the most frustrating aspect of dealing within Digital
    in the past 9-12 months.  The survivors are trying to hold up the
    weight of the bulge in middle management with antiquated systems, no
    office supplies and antique computer equipment.  
    
    I've stopped getting angry at any individual Digital employee who
    doesn't return a voicemail or answer a Decmail.  Why?  I know all of us
    have our 10 fingers and 10 toes in various leaks in the dike doing our
    best to put out the "fires of the day." 
    
    If not fixed soon, Digital will implode from the weight of its internal
    systems and bleed to death from the debilitating blows that the
    individual contributors keep absorbing.

    Remember - "Whatever it takes...By whomever is left...In as much time
    as it takes...Until all the customer's leave...Or all the money is
    gone...Whichever comes first."
    
    -OFWAMI- 

    "We're Digital, and we're sorry."

           <<< Note 3523.33 by HAAG::HAAG "Rode hard. Put up wet." >>>

>>    we get flooded with statements insinuating that
>>    this is how employees are being treated by all the other companies in
>>    this industry. we seem to justify treating employess shabbily by
>>    sticking our heads in the sand stating "its like this everywhere".

And what a bunch of BS.  I'm one of the lucky ones going to Oracle via the
sale of Rdb.  The Oracle folks did a slide presentation and one of their
slides said in big, bold letters that it was their "...Goal to make support
THE place to work in Oracle".  As a support specialist I cannot express
how good that felt.  That was the Digital I joined 10+ years ago.

Liz

RE: Last few, Services

I see some of the thinking here that got us in the trouble we are in. We
knew 10 years ago that the hardware content was being reduced and that
the days of systems needing repair every few weeks would be over. We knew
many years ago that the number of parts in a system were going down and that it
was more economic to swap 2 boards than figure out which one was broken (and
that you did not need a guru to find and swap those boards). 

Yet we never started to manage the numbers and the required skill levels
of people (with few exceptions in some districts or Countries) till the
search for that remaining 11/70 or 780 was on.

We are, today, very clearly in a situation where we don't have the time to
travel to sites, 3-year warrenties (since it hardly ever breaks and who
would buy a maintenance contract?), servers replacing larger systems,
shrink-wrap the standard etc. And I see people look around and say: Hey, there
is still a 780 there! How come we do away with all those people? People, get
with it. When will *you* look at what it takes 1-2 years (not to speak
of 10) from now and judge management (and your) action in that light?

I hear people say: Why don't we find people-intensive work so we can
keep everybody busy? But then we would not be in the same business anymore,
is it? We would be in the keep-the-people-busy-business. Sure, there could
be profit in it, but I guess that the Digital Management decided to let
someone else rake it in. I mean, if the business and the profits are there,
someone is bound to go for it and the papers will be full of wanted adds. 

The problem is: We must pay overnight for decisions we did not make many
years ago. The discussion is: What can we do to limit the impact on the 
individual? This is where the unions and do-good people can help. I saw
some clever ideas in France. There is money to support good ideas.
And I continue to believe that there are few people anywhere in Digital that
get get a kick out of putting people on the streets with a minimum of help.
Notwithstanding the pictures being painted here of a bunch a Scrooches taking
over. [Happy note: Christmas is coming].

This leaves the terrible operational problems documented here. I have a 
lame excuse and it is a personal opinion: If we did not squeeze out all the
profit and cash, where we could, like we did, we'd all be looking. 
I hope and trust that they will be fixed before *they* become the reason
for major revenue declines. BTW: It remains to be seen if it continues, but
did you notice revenue going UP, despite all the bleeding that apparently
goes on? Maybe we are not dead yet, eh?

Speaking for the Services and especially the Delivery part of it: We set enough
in motion and are far enough along that we can not fail any more, even if
we can not get it right the first time. It is a matter of getting there
sooner, rather than later, and get time, energy and money to address the
operational problems as well.

Sorry if this got long - Al

  whatever It takes .. It won't give back. It controls us. It strikes from
  behind. It shows no mercy. It is among us. It is within. 

  beware .. next you may be It ..

>It remains to be seen if it continues, but did you notice revenue going UP, 

Upward revenue <> job security.

Why?  We are in the midst of a purging program that is scheduled, despite
short-term gains.  The program is aimed at long term results.  Upward
revenue just make the results sweeter for those who are not part of
the purge.  In other words, they are asynchronous and unrelated events,
even though there is no doubt that job insecurity is definitely related
and synchronous with downward revenue.

Someone next month may ask, "Why am I being laid off if revenues are up 
and we're turning the corner?"

For those who will continue to work at Digital, upward revenue is
comforting.  For those who will not continue, it is meaningless at
best and a false hope at its worst.

MM

> I see some of the thinking here that got us in the trouble we are in. We
    
    Yeah, yeah, I know.  "It took us a long time to get in this mess, and
    it's gonna...", "The New Digital is...", etc., etc.  Wake up, compadre,
    these are pat, trite little answers that don't take into account the
    fact that we've got a brain drain going on around here.  That sucking
    sound you're hearing is Oracle, Amdahl, our client base, and others
    sucking out the best talent they can find.
    
    Next time you go to the doctor, I hope it's at a clinic where many of
    the "commodities" (used to be "doctors") have been "right-sized" (was
    "fired") during the last "right-sizing" (was "sell-off" or "shutdown")
    and the ones left are at a "high utilization percent" (overworked),
    your nurse is a "channel partner" (was "third-party vendor"), and the
    proctologist is from the "variable workforce" (meaning "We hope to God
    he knows which end the tube goes in").
    
    Have fun. :^]						Tex

    re -.25
    
    	If I have a problem with support, I elevate the call.  That way,
    your managers know that something must be done to alleviate your
    'overwork' load.   How will they know if I sit on the issue for 3 days?
    And don't think for a minute that I am unsatisfied with your
    organizations efforts, quite the contrary actually.  I think you folks
    in the CSC do great work!   Do I think Digital has done the right
    things with regards to support? No.  Can I do anything about it? No,
    except to push back on the MODs when I have to.
    
    Brad.

    I agree completely with my colleagues Gene Haag and Ron Warrenfeltz
    (much to their surprise), and as someone on the cutting edge of
    outsourcing I appreciate their support.
    
    I cannot think of anything else to say that wouldn't get me in trouble.

    ... except that Topic 3525 is humiliating...

    re:38

    	At some point in the not so distant past, I was being told the same
    sort of things with the addition of "We're going to be a software
    company". This was what I was told by my immediate management at the
    time. So I went and got a BS in CS.

    	Over a software products life cycle, my college text books
    indicated that only ~30% of the time that goes into a software product
    is actual design, build, and trouble-shooting time. More than double
    this percentage of time supposedly winds up supporting the product till
    end of life (i.e. fixes, enhancements, updates, etc.).

    	So if we had in fact followed this path to being a software
    company, hardware services would ramp down as expected, but would have 
    been replaced, to some degree, by software services (i.e. O.S., Network, 
    Layered Prod., and Applications/Solutions support). 

    	Although Digital will obviously be involved in software, it appears
    it will not be to the degree that it was portrayed, to me anyway. So,
    I don't believe that people have a hard time reading the writing on the 
    wall (as .38 indicated) as much as trying to read between the lines for 
    the unwritten words.

    	Ray

    1. The check is in the mail.
    
    2. I'll still respect you in the morning.
    
    3. Digital is a software company.

    It's a basic fact of business life that a company strategy will go
    nowhere without the hearts and minds of the "people". It's a basic fact
    of business life that management needs the people to carry out their
    wishes in order to acheive their desired aim; they cannot do it alone,
    no matter how clever the strategy.
    
    It's a basic fact of business life that in order to engage the hearts
    and minds of the people, the management must communicate their aims to
    them, and they must involve the people enough in the decision-making
    process to make them feel involved, to make them feel part of the
    process.
    
    It's a basic fact of human nature that in order to give of themselves,
    people need to know what the strategy is, how it's intended to reach
    the target, and what their role in that is. Above all, they have to
    feel that their contribution, whatever it is, is a) valued, b) expected,
    c) encouraged, and d) expected to improve with personal initiative.
    
    I don't think I need to say any more.
    
    Cheers, Laurie.

    FWIW:
    	TFSOing will not stop with just improved revenue or profits.  I may
    slow when Digital is making enough profit to satisfy the SLT.
    
    my $.02

    
    	Let me try to inject some reality here (although it no gonna be
    easy, Tex has got me laughing so hard).
    
    	Digital is a struggling old-line computer manufacturer. It has new
    management trying to reverse a negative trend (both financially and
    in the marketplace) built up over years. We can analyze this puppy to
    death, but only time is going to determine whether we make it, or not.
    Everything else is supposition. None of us has a clue - for every
    bright spot, there is a disaster somewhere else. What can I tell you;
    such is life - you pays your money, you takes your chances. Your bet is
    time, good or bad, your choice.
    
    	Personally I would prefer to see baseball players taxed at the 70%
    level (like anti-trust exemption, it would be their own personal tax
    law), and all children loved.
    
    		the Greyhawk

    re .19
    
    I DIDN'T let the customer issue go three days!  I would never!  I
    called every single day (I was on-site) and told them I was working on
    a customer issue, that it had a deadline, etc.  In fact, I called
    several times a day and while I was sitting next to the phone, I was
    trying to fix the problem myself!  I even dialed in and went through
    notes files in an attempt to fix it.  I kept calling and was
    consistently told, after the apology, that no, I had not moved up in
    the queue, although after a day and a half  I did move up one...
    FINALLY on the third day...a Friday...I got a manager on the phone she
    elevated and we got someone on the line.
    
    I do not hold it against my under-staffed comerades...
    
    re .20
    I reiterate that I was at the customer site...and I remained by the
    phone for three days..we did not miss a call-back.  After my third or
    fourth call in one day (spaced 1-2 hours apart) and hearing I had not
    even moved up in the queue, I was worried.  Not to mention feeling the
    way I did on behalf of the customer...
    
    re .30
    The problem with replacing older experienced consultants with
    starving-fresh-out-of-college-and-will-work-for-dirt-we're-desperate
    people...
    well, let's see...no experience...
    let's see...have you ever sent one of them to a customer who is from
    the old school?  They look them up and down, realize they can't talk to
    them...and think they are so young they can't possibly know what to do,
    or understand the politics of the "old school" companies, like GM, and
    although a customer should assume we are sending a "specialist"  on
    site...
    If they are young, and inexperienced, text-book smart isn't going to
    help them...
    
    It smells like EDS...
    
    re .49
    I think we should stop spending so much effort and time "analyzing"
    what caused the problem, what the problem is, how big it is, where it's
    more concentrated, etc etc...
    God, we'll end up like Congress with their endless pointless committees
    which analyze a problem to death without even coming close to solving
    the problem...and all at a cost to the tax-payers who rarely see
    anything other than a bunch of words in writing telling us what we
    already know i.e. "The national debt is rather large..."
    
    I think we all know what's wrong and why.  I'd like to know if we're
    going to do anything about it?  I'd like to know what kind of answer I
    can give my customer when he asks me to commit that we will service his
    equipment on time. 
    
    I am not bashing anyone in DEC (CSC or Atlanta or Field Service)
    I was bringing up something I'm hearing more and more from my customers
    and hoping to get some answers or insight.  I know we're doing our
    best, in our ever-fewer numbers, to provide the same service Digital was
    known for in spite of the staff reduction.  The thing is, eventually we
    won't be able to keep up...
    
    Are we going to do something about that?
    
    
    

    Next time, if it is preventing the customer from making progress,
    elevate the call to the manager on duty.  Don't hang up until you 
    get an answer...

    MY neighbor brought up an interesting point the other day, he's a
    customer at a rather large aluminum company, regarding work-force
    "churning" and the fact that our workforce (here in Syracuse anyway)
    has not really "churned" for many years. Only 1 engineer in the past
    10 years or so has left to go outside DEC (and he runs a bar!).
    
    We've had layoffs alright, and we are getting streched thinner and
    thinner, but we are still here. Steve's point is in the area of, "When
    the workforce turns over every year or so, management will figure that
    the pay is low enough and the conditions bad enough that things are
    the way they want."
    
    I see this attidude coming down the 'pike, and for out 'valued'
    customers and their satisfaction, this is *not* an appropriate route.
    We hear all kinds of harping about the 'survey results' and why we are
    slipping, but I sure don't see anything but words rolling downhill.
    Actions speak *much* louder than words, and the actions we take today
    bespeak a lessening of support in all areas.
    
    I could rant and rave all day about this, but from the bottom of the 
    pile out here in the field (service) all I see is the great bloated
    underbelly of an incredibly huge, complex and management heavy
    organization. 
    
    "We'll manage"
    
    .mike.