Working in Chicago (oldish) and whatnot.
This was brewing for ages while I could find the words, analogy, and calmness to be at least somewhat objective about things without just yelling text out my ass.
Funny enough, I'm back in Dayton, OH doing more training this week, and then on vacation next week, so a nice long stint away from the job.
((Originally first went to Chicago to help end of May. Last trip up was in mid August.))
Working in Chicago.
Remember they MIGHT ask if I wanted to spend a DAY or TWO in Chicago to help out with a new client? Yea. ((Refering to this post))
That friday I was to meet with my manager to get some ID badge stuff done for some other thing and for him to get me a little gps navigator for the van. Slowly I heard that indeed, I was to be up there the whole week “monday morn to fri eve”. In digging for more details I find that because they never bothered to put me (just me) on the company card, for no reason other then they just never got to it, apparently I had to float the bill for the hotel, meals, and other expenses while I was up there.
This was... ok, I could do that, my boss was very apologetic about that mess but promised everything would be reimbursed. Keep in mind though, all I'm told is one contact of an assistant manager up there, and to be up there by about 8:30am ('there' being somewhere around Chicago, somewhere). Got a few things packed Sat night and finished up early Mon morn, left the house about 5:30am and made my way up to the area. ((For the record, I was fully repaid, not that that excuses having to bounce on my own credit, but at least that little bit ended happily))
Once up there, gave a ring to the local guy, who was all shades of busy, but he did what he could to bring me up to steam on what was going on. First thing, OH YEA, hey, we actually have a service manual for this client, with amazing things like parts and contact numbers for support and hints and tips and guidelines for completing service calls. Second, lo and behold, we're actually working 10 hour days up here - 8am to 7pm (because we have to accomidate our unpaid lunch break). Funny enough, I should have already made reservations somewhere magical they supposedly reserved for all visiting techs, with Memorial Day weekend fast approaching.
Fine, we'll work with that, because its what we've got, and I can always make the best of it. Most of that day was spent in wonderful awe and discovery! I could easily (really really easily) go on about how I quickly discovered that our major issue with this customer was getting replacement parts. I could mention seemingly endless calls where someone had ordered the first part number they saw, regardless if the description was even mildly close, instead of working on the problem, or the part that came in was a match except it had the wrong port, or was the wrong voltage, or was a part we didn't even have any stock in in all the States, OR, that there wasn't even a part listed at all for something we were responsible for fixing.
I'd do that, but I think I can make an effective if somewhat awkward analogy.
Imagine a car.
Imagine this car barely runs, is missing a noticeable chunk of its parts, was made by a company that no longer exists and even at best had a limited run. Imagine no mechanic knows anything about this car, and the last service it had was 20 years ago. Imagine a company comes along and says to those poor folks who own these things “Hey, we're a world renowned service company, we will promise to restore all of your cars to like-new condition, that there will always be a set number of dedicated mechanics to service your cars, who can't run any other service even if another customer's cars all exploded from something we did, and we will charge you less then it would be to buy even an economy new car! Best of all, we promise, in writing, that we will take care of any request for service within 24 hours, or you get to bitch to all hell to us about it and possibly get your money back!”.
Well... SOMEONE would be happy to hear that, but not I... I'm one of those mechanics.
Aside from then later discovering that the hotel they wanted us in was an old 'Hollidome' which not only featured noisy kids in the entertainment area which half the rooms backed up to, but also offered a pleasant sound of regular traffic on a major Chicago area freeway less then 100 feet from another quarter of the rooms, and all rooms featured regular roaring jets just blocks away at O'hare (it was even so lucky to be right under a runway approach/landing!). No, fuck that, you bitches are paying for a deluxe extended stay suite in Lombard for only a few bucks more a night.
Oh... right, aside from that, the week was spent with at least half each day trying to figure out where the service location was, if there were parts ordered, where they went to, if someone already picked them up, if they were the right part, if there is even any documentation whatsoever on what the flying hoo-haa half this equipment is or how it works.
So Fri comes around and boy am I looking to get out of there. Fortunately a certain two critters local to the area made the stay awesome! If it was not for them (Thank you Toby + Andrew!!!!), I'm afraid equipment (probably my cell phone first, followed by the genitals of whoever sold this service contract) would not have survived. More on those wonderful bastards later.
Fri morn I started early, getting everything packed back up to throw in the van, check out of the hotel, and make my rounds before finally heading back home. Mid-day, I'm talking with the assistant manager about some dot-matrix printers we just invented a part number for but our parts people have to go on the web and ebay to see if they even exist anymore... I mention being well ready to head back home soon, and I hear this silence. People... this silence is something you need to learn to recognize and more importantly, act on the instant you see it. This is the point you do something insane, like yell “FIRE IN MY GROIN!” really loud and hit the phone against the window until one or the other breaks or they hang up. I say this, because this is the point they begin to say something like “Uuh... no? You're on the schedule to work Sat and Sun as well, 8am to 7pm.”. Really?? Ain't that dainty! Well F U C K I N A B U C K E T. Or “I was asked to help out for a few days, which turned into the whole week, but at no time was the weekend mentioned.” To which I heard “Well we require each area to send someone to help for the whole entire week”. Hah, funny “I wasn't told that, if you have a discrepancy with scheduling then please talk with my manager”.
Did I say Fuck In A Bucket yet? It's really very applicable. Needless to say, I was conned into working Sat, but promptly left once that crap was over, and returned to life as normal back home. Funny enough though, since this customer had to have a dedicated number of techs doing nothing but these customer's calls, and since they hadn't... yea maybe I should underline this 'cause this is a kicker... and since they hadn't hired anyone at all to prepare for service for this customer, all surrounding territories were forced to have, at all times, one tech available to help out for at least the whole month of May. This, of course, shorted already stressed areas who's techs were seeing 60hr work weeks as-is. So folks come back from a full 7 day 10hr a day, 70hour work week in Chicago, right the next day into another full week of backlogged calls.
((End of old rant... who knew it could get worse))
And worse it got. Everyone was being promised there would be sufficient techs hired and placed to fulfill the account within a matter of weeks, but month after month local territories kept having to send off their already slim workforce to help polish this turd, which was only getting stinkier. FOUR MONTHS after this started, they finally have enough people to just barely fill in to make the needed coverage. Thats just... ehg... I'm embarassed.
Aside from that though, and another stupid with hotel setups, I was allowed my alternate hotel stays now finally on a company card. Eventually they beat together a working service manual and support enough to properly and reasonably maintain service. The last 2 times I was up there they had me on a night shift, meaning I couldn't play with the chitown critters anymore, but eh, we made it work.
Funny enough, from the wild dealing with that crap, its since gotten a little too quiet service call wise. I mostly find it funny... the usually quiet summer season we were running crazy, the emerging crazy holiday season and we're laying back or actively searching for things to fix.
Funny enough, I'm back in Dayton, OH doing more training this week, and then on vacation next week, so a nice long stint away from the job.
((Originally first went to Chicago to help end of May. Last trip up was in mid August.))
Working in Chicago.
Remember they MIGHT ask if I wanted to spend a DAY or TWO in Chicago to help out with a new client? Yea. ((Refering to this post))
That friday I was to meet with my manager to get some ID badge stuff done for some other thing and for him to get me a little gps navigator for the van. Slowly I heard that indeed, I was to be up there the whole week “monday morn to fri eve”. In digging for more details I find that because they never bothered to put me (just me) on the company card, for no reason other then they just never got to it, apparently I had to float the bill for the hotel, meals, and other expenses while I was up there.
This was... ok, I could do that, my boss was very apologetic about that mess but promised everything would be reimbursed. Keep in mind though, all I'm told is one contact of an assistant manager up there, and to be up there by about 8:30am ('there' being somewhere around Chicago, somewhere). Got a few things packed Sat night and finished up early Mon morn, left the house about 5:30am and made my way up to the area. ((For the record, I was fully repaid, not that that excuses having to bounce on my own credit, but at least that little bit ended happily))
Once up there, gave a ring to the local guy, who was all shades of busy, but he did what he could to bring me up to steam on what was going on. First thing, OH YEA, hey, we actually have a service manual for this client, with amazing things like parts and contact numbers for support and hints and tips and guidelines for completing service calls. Second, lo and behold, we're actually working 10 hour days up here - 8am to 7pm (because we have to accomidate our unpaid lunch break). Funny enough, I should have already made reservations somewhere magical they supposedly reserved for all visiting techs, with Memorial Day weekend fast approaching.
Fine, we'll work with that, because its what we've got, and I can always make the best of it. Most of that day was spent in wonderful awe and discovery! I could easily (really really easily) go on about how I quickly discovered that our major issue with this customer was getting replacement parts. I could mention seemingly endless calls where someone had ordered the first part number they saw, regardless if the description was even mildly close, instead of working on the problem, or the part that came in was a match except it had the wrong port, or was the wrong voltage, or was a part we didn't even have any stock in in all the States, OR, that there wasn't even a part listed at all for something we were responsible for fixing.
I'd do that, but I think I can make an effective if somewhat awkward analogy.
Imagine a car.
Imagine this car barely runs, is missing a noticeable chunk of its parts, was made by a company that no longer exists and even at best had a limited run. Imagine no mechanic knows anything about this car, and the last service it had was 20 years ago. Imagine a company comes along and says to those poor folks who own these things “Hey, we're a world renowned service company, we will promise to restore all of your cars to like-new condition, that there will always be a set number of dedicated mechanics to service your cars, who can't run any other service even if another customer's cars all exploded from something we did, and we will charge you less then it would be to buy even an economy new car! Best of all, we promise, in writing, that we will take care of any request for service within 24 hours, or you get to bitch to all hell to us about it and possibly get your money back!”.
Well... SOMEONE would be happy to hear that, but not I... I'm one of those mechanics.
Aside from then later discovering that the hotel they wanted us in was an old 'Hollidome' which not only featured noisy kids in the entertainment area which half the rooms backed up to, but also offered a pleasant sound of regular traffic on a major Chicago area freeway less then 100 feet from another quarter of the rooms, and all rooms featured regular roaring jets just blocks away at O'hare (it was even so lucky to be right under a runway approach/landing!). No, fuck that, you bitches are paying for a deluxe extended stay suite in Lombard for only a few bucks more a night.
Oh... right, aside from that, the week was spent with at least half each day trying to figure out where the service location was, if there were parts ordered, where they went to, if someone already picked them up, if they were the right part, if there is even any documentation whatsoever on what the flying hoo-haa half this equipment is or how it works.
So Fri comes around and boy am I looking to get out of there. Fortunately a certain two critters local to the area made the stay awesome! If it was not for them (Thank you Toby + Andrew!!!!), I'm afraid equipment (probably my cell phone first, followed by the genitals of whoever sold this service contract) would not have survived. More on those wonderful bastards later.
Fri morn I started early, getting everything packed back up to throw in the van, check out of the hotel, and make my rounds before finally heading back home. Mid-day, I'm talking with the assistant manager about some dot-matrix printers we just invented a part number for but our parts people have to go on the web and ebay to see if they even exist anymore... I mention being well ready to head back home soon, and I hear this silence. People... this silence is something you need to learn to recognize and more importantly, act on the instant you see it. This is the point you do something insane, like yell “FIRE IN MY GROIN!” really loud and hit the phone against the window until one or the other breaks or they hang up. I say this, because this is the point they begin to say something like “Uuh... no? You're on the schedule to work Sat and Sun as well, 8am to 7pm.”. Really?? Ain't that dainty! Well F U C K I N A B U C K E T. Or “I was asked to help out for a few days, which turned into the whole week, but at no time was the weekend mentioned.” To which I heard “Well we require each area to send someone to help for the whole entire week”. Hah, funny “I wasn't told that, if you have a discrepancy with scheduling then please talk with my manager”.
Did I say Fuck In A Bucket yet? It's really very applicable. Needless to say, I was conned into working Sat, but promptly left once that crap was over, and returned to life as normal back home. Funny enough though, since this customer had to have a dedicated number of techs doing nothing but these customer's calls, and since they hadn't... yea maybe I should underline this 'cause this is a kicker... and since they hadn't hired anyone at all to prepare for service for this customer, all surrounding territories were forced to have, at all times, one tech available to help out for at least the whole month of May. This, of course, shorted already stressed areas who's techs were seeing 60hr work weeks as-is. So folks come back from a full 7 day 10hr a day, 70hour work week in Chicago, right the next day into another full week of backlogged calls.
((End of old rant... who knew it could get worse))
And worse it got. Everyone was being promised there would be sufficient techs hired and placed to fulfill the account within a matter of weeks, but month after month local territories kept having to send off their already slim workforce to help polish this turd, which was only getting stinkier. FOUR MONTHS after this started, they finally have enough people to just barely fill in to make the needed coverage. Thats just... ehg... I'm embarassed.
Aside from that though, and another stupid with hotel setups, I was allowed my alternate hotel stays now finally on a company card. Eventually they beat together a working service manual and support enough to properly and reasonably maintain service. The last 2 times I was up there they had me on a night shift, meaning I couldn't play with the chitown critters anymore, but eh, we made it work.
Funny enough, from the wild dealing with that crap, its since gotten a little too quiet service call wise. I mostly find it funny... the usually quiet summer season we were running crazy, the emerging crazy holiday season and we're laying back or actively searching for things to fix.