Comment Re:You'd be surprised where else (Score 1) 1065
I'll second the parent's story with my own experience at one of /.'s favourite multi-national computer companies.
It used to be (pre-2001) that IT support was handled by our own local people. You'd walk over to their office, tell them the problem and they'd fix it. Then they decided to centralize this. So our local IT office only did UNIX stuff. All the Windows and networking stuff was sent to a central office, still in the US, run by reasonably competent people (2002-2004). It was a little slower, they weren't down the hall, but they still (eventually) got stuff fixed. Now, enter the third round of cost-cutting: they moved all networking support to Brazil (I work in the US), and all Windows support to Bangalore, India. None of this would be bad (relative to remote US people) if they actually hired competent people there. Apparently though. in order to maximize their "savings" they hired the very cheapest "IT" people in Brazil and India, in other words, people who have very little training and know nearly nothing.
Bottom line: it took me 2 MONTHS! to get a bad ethernet port fixed, despite daily phone calls and frantic appeals to management (response: "we all need to go through the right channels for support"). The amount of my time lost during those 2 months was probably 2/3, working from home was the only thing that really worked. My net cost to the company is $100/hour. This "cost saving" philosophy is short-sighted and idiotic beyond belief. Recall this is at the largest IT/hardware/software company in the world.
So my point is simply that hiring technically incompetent people to do "IT support", even when paying for lost time at a fairly high rate, is absolutely not limited to Best Buy. It is the result of extremely bad and short-sighted management decisions, made by managers who themselves are (technically) clue-disabled, and only understand "the bottom line" and powerpoint presentations.
God help us all.
It used to be (pre-2001) that IT support was handled by our own local people. You'd walk over to their office, tell them the problem and they'd fix it. Then they decided to centralize this. So our local IT office only did UNIX stuff. All the Windows and networking stuff was sent to a central office, still in the US, run by reasonably competent people (2002-2004). It was a little slower, they weren't down the hall, but they still (eventually) got stuff fixed. Now, enter the third round of cost-cutting: they moved all networking support to Brazil (I work in the US), and all Windows support to Bangalore, India. None of this would be bad (relative to remote US people) if they actually hired competent people there. Apparently though. in order to maximize their "savings" they hired the very cheapest "IT" people in Brazil and India, in other words, people who have very little training and know nearly nothing.
Bottom line: it took me 2 MONTHS! to get a bad ethernet port fixed, despite daily phone calls and frantic appeals to management (response: "we all need to go through the right channels for support"). The amount of my time lost during those 2 months was probably 2/3, working from home was the only thing that really worked. My net cost to the company is $100/hour. This "cost saving" philosophy is short-sighted and idiotic beyond belief. Recall this is at the largest IT/hardware/software company in the world.
So my point is simply that hiring technically incompetent people to do "IT support", even when paying for lost time at a fairly high rate, is absolutely not limited to Best Buy. It is the result of extremely bad and short-sighted management decisions, made by managers who themselves are (technically) clue-disabled, and only understand "the bottom line" and powerpoint presentations.
God help us all.
