I love to bag on Comcast (oops, I meant Xfinity) as much as anyone, but my *anecdotal* experience is that if you get to tier 2 support, they hand shit pretty damn well. The key is to get beyond the tier 1 "script reader" to someone who knows their shit. The last two times I had to reset my cable card, it literally took 30 seconds for the tier one person to hand me off to the next tier, and less than 3 minutes to get it all programmed up (the reset was due to flaky as fuck Tivo hardware needing to be replaced).

But I will grant that they do go down hard for 30 - 180 minutes at least once a month, which is shit service.

Yeah, and I used it in 2005ish, so, it WAS a company then...

Ah, Cognos. I first got my hands on it in the mid aughts, and as a mid sized company (~$500M in revenue) I was given full access. It was quite useful, usable, and perfect for me, the data gleaner. I am sure it has become more encrusted with cruft and MBA candy since, but back then it was pretty cool and extremely valuable.

Since then, I have been forced to use mostly Oracle BI, and that is a homeless abortion of a product.

My world for some mod points to vote this up...

I normally wouldn't answer this, as it is a great point. But in CEO speak, Productivity doesn't mean "getting more done with less" that we in the trenches think.

Instead it is a simple calculation. (Total revenue) / (headcount} = Productivity. Since revenue is shrinking, the ratio turns less, and that is really what Wall Street cares about.

"but just fire the weenies in marketing, and sales, and support staff and it all gets better". Sure, that is the easiest way to balance that equation, but what happens in the real world is that without that ecosystem of marketing/sales/support staff, revenues fall further, and more pressure happens on the almighty CEO Productivity metric.

My anecdotal data. When I moved to Arizona in 2003, I took a half day off of work anticipating a long day at the DMV. I needed to get my driver's license, and transfer the title and registration for both my car and 2 motorcycles. I grabbed a number, and before I could sit down, it was called, and in less than 15 minutes, I walked out with three license plates, my new physical license (hard with my picture and all) and the three new titles and registrations AND I had been registered to vote. In less than 30 minutes from leaving the office, no appointment, I was back in the office with all my business transacted.

When i moved from Phoenix to Tucson (in 2012), I could do all the updates on line, and even move my voter registration.

Easy Peasy

God damn, that tickled my funny bone!

Wish I had mod points...

I wish I had mod points.

I will be 57 this year, in a good position, I do meaningful work, I am appreciated. The company I work for doesn't pay top scale, but it ain't bad, I get enough RSU's to be interesting (but not a significant fraction of my pay, a'la Amazon) and the benefits are great. Stress is manageable, and when the office reopens next month, I *might* go in once every couple of weeks, but I have been super productive being remote for two years, so me and my boss are not feeling like I have to return to 4 days in the office like I did before Covid.

I guess this will kick me in the arse to move to O365 for her stuff.

She gets like 30 emails a year, but they are important, and at this point I am looking to get Google out of my life as much as possible (I know it is a losing proposition) so off to a different provider.