Bad computer business tactics. Makes me wanna cry.

[Saturn2888]

[UPDATE]: Efer posted the transcript here: http://www.3dgameman.com/forums/showpost.php?p=555495&postcount=12

Okay, I've seen this happen a few times, but I couldn't believe this.

You all need to hear this Security Now! Episode 72 (http://media.grc.com/sn/SN-072.mp3) because it really rings true since we are all computer users and some of us have jobs in that field. What I want you to do is listen until he starts reading the guy's letter which is around 4 min and 50 seconds in. It's really really sad. I can't believe people are THAT greedy.

This makes me really darn mad. What do you think?

[tanman_sg]

Geez!

IMO, billable hours would not be as valuable to a business as great service.

I'll bet that old lady recommended the company to all her friends afterward...

[Saturn2888]

So sad. I'm sure she did. And the guy got fired! That's the worst thing. What really gets me is that I'm almost glad he got fired because if the company is like that, I'm glad he stood up for himself and did the right thing. Too many times is it that someone becomes unhappy with themselves when things like that happen, and they just go along with it. That is one guy there that we can say will not cause us another Holocaust. Seriously, that's how that stuff happens. If no one revolts against the wrongs like that, then certainly it is very probable to thing that it will happen again.

[StylesCD]

wow...due thats seriously evil

[JesterX]

Well, if you listen to my friend, he makes Geek Squad sound as bad as this. They made him replace his mobo and PSU and that wasn't even the problem.

[StylesCD]

Well, if you listen to my friend, he makes Geek Squad sound as bad as this. They made him replace his mobo and PSU and that wasn't even the problem.
hahaHa....geek squad....LMFAO

[JesterX]

Yeah, hes a noob, I suggested that he build his current computer, but he ended up getting a Gateway Gaming computer. Its not bad, a C2D E6700, 2GB RAM, Dual x1950, he just over paid for it.

[Saturn2888]

That's so wrong. I just realized now. All those people for Bestbuy get ripped off then! I know this too, it happened to a friend of mine, but I went w/ her there and told her what to say, and now she's really good about calling me up for things so they don't rip her off. Could you believe, they even said there was no problem until I stepped in and forced them to look at it. No, then when they "fixed" it, they put something else in there. Dell does this too I've found, but I'm guessing Dell does it out of incompetence if it's the business world, not the home consumer. They'll probably rip off the home consumer any day.

Still, I think what the company was gonna do was the worst. Money cannot replace all of that data nor can it replace a person's heart.

[Kindom934]

That's so wrong. I just realized now. All those people for Bestbuy get ripped off then! I know this too, it happened to a friend of mine, but I went w/ her there and told her what to say, and now she's really good about calling me up for things so they don't rip her off. Could you believe, they even said there was no problem until I stepped in and forced them to look at it. No, then when they "fixed" it, they put something else in there. Dell does this too I've found, but I'm guessing Dell does it out of incompetence if it's the business world, not the home consumer. They'll probably rip off the home consumer any day.

Still, I think what the company was gonna do was the worst. Money cannot replace all of that data nor can it replace a person's heart.

Something in like some other software?

Not surpise. I guess it's one way to have extra income with "sponsers' software being installed by the company doing the repair.

[nighthawk15]

Jeez man, That's messed up. Getting fired for doing your job RIGHT and taking 10 frickin extra minutes....that's about as messed up as it comes.

[Kindom934]

Jeez man, That's messed up. Getting fired for doing your job RIGHT and taking 10 frickin extra minutes....that's about as messed up as it comes.

Well...

Sometime people do things for the moeny, something I think I can never ever understand or think of doing. Most people would be like 'Sure, extra 10 more minutes to save the data is no problem'. The only time I can see them deleting it VS extra 10 more minutes of work is if somebody is going to die for not using a computer...

[efernandez_98]

Okay, I've seen this happen a few times, but I couldn't believe this.

You all need to hear this Security Now! Episode 72 (http://media.grc.com/sn/SN-072.mp3) because it really rings true since we are all computer users and some of us have jobs in that field. What I want you to do is listen until he starts reading the guy's letter which is around 4 min and 50 seconds in. It's really really sad. I can't believe people are THAT greedy.

This makes me really darn mad. What do you think?

For those of you unwilling to download the mp3 and listen to it... I believe Saturn is talking about this bit...

Steve: ...I thought, since this is sort of a special holiday episode, I would share a wacky one that I received. It’s literally, the subject of this email, I just recently received this, it was “Steve, your SpinRite software got me fired.” True story. The guys says it, hyphen hyphen true story. And first I was a little confused. Then I realized this was this person – I don’t see his name here. But it’s this person who is recounting a SpinRite 2 adventure he had. So that would make it about...

Leo: A long time ago.

Steve: About 15 years ago, yeah. Anyway, he says, “This happened in Rockville, Maryland. As a service tech in the MFM/RLL days” – so of course that’s Modified Frequency Modulation and Run Link Limited are those acronyms.

Leo: I remember those.

Steve: Yeah, remember those, MFM, yeah. He says, “I was called to an old people’s community organization. Their disk needed a low-level format. The nice old lady said, ‘Thank God you’re here....’” And actually this guy writes really well, which is the other reason I wanted to share this. Says, “‘Thank God you’re here,’ begging me to fix her computer, and told me of all the sad terrible things that would happen to the old people if their data were lost. Being newly hired by the service company, I was accompanied by a senior tech from the same outfit. He was happy I recognized that the drive needed a low-level reformat. I got out my trusty personal copy of SpinRite 2. The other tech had never heard of nondestructive low-level formatting. ‘See, this reads the track before reformatting it, then it formats the track, instead of writing zeroes as sector data. It uses the original data so they don’t lose any. Isn’t that cool?’ I said.”

Leo: It is cool. That was always the best thing about SpinRite.

Steve: It was very cool. And so he says, isn’t that cool, he says, wide-eyed and innocent. Okay. “Then the other guy, the senior tech says, ‘But won’t that take twice as long?’” And he says, “I looked at the old lady wringing her hands hopefully on the other side of the room. She couldn’t hear us. ‘It will take 20 minutes instead of 10, but will save their data.’ I assumed it was a no-brainer. ‘No,’ he said. ‘This is a service contract.’ ‘So what,’ I asked? ‘So we already have their money, just format their drive, and we can bill that 10 minutes at the next job. We’re not a charity organization.’”

So this guy writes, he says, “I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. I thought about what to say. I thought about my professors at college and how much I missed them.” And he says, so our guy says, “‘No, I can’t do that,’ I said, and continued with SpinRite. It took 22 minutes.”

Leo: Good for him.

Steve: He says, “After rebooting, the system was back up, and the old lady was ecstatic. ‘What’s your name, young man?’ she asked. ‘David.’ ‘God bless you, David,’ she said. Well, get this. Afterward, out in the parking lot, we almost got into a fistfight over it, but agreed to take it to the company president. The president agreed with the senior tech and fired me on the spot.”

Leo: Unbelievable.

Steve: “There was no other reason, just this. As I left, the other tech smiled smugly.”

Leo: Wow, what a depressing story.

Steve: SpinRite got him fired.

Leo: Oh my god. And you know, I have a feeling that same kind of stupid shenanigans still goes on.

Steve: Well, it’s funny because I read to – prior to meeting with you last week, Leo, in Toronto, I met with the Nerds On Site guys and hung out with them for a couple hours, and I shared this story with them. I didn’t have it in front of me, but I remembered it because I had already put it together and posted it. And I read it, I told them the story, and they said, “Who is that guy? We’ll hire him.”

Leo: Yay. Now, I like Nerds On Site. They’re going to buy some ads on TWiT, so I like them even more. But that’s good to know, and that’s the kind of thing I want to hear. I don’t want to recommend a company that’s going to look more toward the billable hours than toward the customer’s satisfaction. That’s a shortsighted way of doing business.

Steve: And wouldn’t just reformatting the drive be faster than performing data recovery.

Leo: I’m willing to bet that company is out of business and long out of business. That is terrible.

Steve: We can hope.


The complete transcript can be found: http://www.grc.com/sn/SN-072.htm

I laughed, I cried.

[Kindom934]

Yea, it's a long pod cast but I FF to that location. Argh...

EDIT : re-read...sleep need. It's odd how the president agreed with the him....Corruption. It makes me wonder if things like these still go on today. Lucky we have ourselves that fix our OWN systems.

[Tivon]

That's just dumb. If you can save the data then give the customer the option to pay a little more for the extra time in order to save the data. It's a win win.

[JesterX]

‘This is a service contract.’ ‘So what,’ I asked? ‘So we already have their money

Thats the issue, they signed a contract and got the money, so no matter how much work they do, they dont get any extra probably. So obviously they want to do the least amount of work possible.

[Tivon]

Speaking of Spinrite I should get the update and make a boot cd. We used to use that on older floppy drives and system critical windows boxes before formatting them. It's still a 50/50 program because sometimes the drives are dead. Still better to use than formatting and losing your data permanently. That's not always a bad thing if there was a nasty virus though... More likey data corruption because of overheating or bad sectors, bad memory, bad PSU and ect..

[Tivon]

Thats the issue, they signed a contract and got the money, so no matter how much work they do, they dont get any extra probably. So obviously they want to do the least amount of work possible.

And there is lyes the problem.. she got lucky that day and he got fired. Good deeds do come back in the end.. someday.. I'm sure someone will see his kindness and reward him. As for the company, you can't last very long thinking only about the money and giving spotty service.

[Saturn2888]

Well in the next episode, some people said they'd hire him. They're some Geek organization or something. Yeah, you're right about that Tivon.

Btw Efer, thanks for posting the transcript! Should I just copy and paste that in the main post so everyone seems it?

[Drizzt]

I would simply put a link to Efer's post like this:

Click the little post number in the corner of Efer's post, then copy the url of the new window that opens (single post view).

It's a neat little feature of VBulletin ;)

[efernandez_98]

Meh, whichever way is fine. But quoting the verbage which you are referring goes a long way if you're going to talk about something from another site. Not everyone wants to click a link out of 3gm.

[eire1274]

Rolling back to the first post...

Well... sad as it may sound, I've been fired three... well, maybe four, considering my latest issue with Ziepke Motors... for spending too much time on a problem.

Why should I be worried, huh? Get it done right, I say. Making more money by doing it in even the slightly laziest manner is... dishonest! There is no person who can make me short change the task I've been given. If I see the solution, and I can complete it, I go for it. END OF STORY.

Sorry, but I am in an extremely honest (chemically induced, perhaps) state. Live with it.

[JesterX]

Well, I'm sure customers are very happy with that, but short sighted supervisors are not.

[Kindom934]

Rolling back to the first post...

Well... sad as it may sound, I've been fired three... well, maybe four, considering my latest issue with Ziepke Motors... for spending too much time on a problem.

Why should I be worried, huh? Get it done right, I say. Making more money by doing it in even the slightly laziest manner is... dishonest! There is no person who can make me short change the task I've been given. If I see the solution, and I can complete it, I go for it. END OF STORY.

Sorry, but I am in an extremely honest (chemically induced, perhaps) state. Live with it.

Yea, I'm kinda of like that. I believe in Quality rather then Quantity.

It's just that everybody in the world of business is more concern making more money then rather doing a good job at problems the consumer's have.

[JesterX]

Yea, I'm kinda of like that. I believe in Quality rather then Quantity.

It's just that everybody in the world of business is more concern making more money then rather doing a good job at problems the consumer's have.

The sad thing is that Corporate America is all about profits, especially short term narrow sighted profits. You should hear the people over and DSLReports talk about how short sighted ATT is by not deploying early and especially not deploying FTTH. The fact is that FTTN will make ATT a quick buck while FTTH is more of a long term investment but with great returns.

[Saturn2888]

Erie, if that's still happening, I'd rather start my own business you know? Seriously, the only way to change the industry is to do it yourself.

[JesterX]

Heres yet another one of those awful stories about "customer (dis)service"

Sprint refuses to cancel the cellphone service of a reader's dead brother. The most they'll "bend" for reader M is to "put the account on vacation," at $5.95 a month.

http://consumerist.com/consumer/complaints/sprint-refuses-to-cancel-dead-brothers-cellphone-229520.php

[Saturn2888]

WHAT! That's insane. That's like AOL, but not even close to as bad.

Still. So what happened in the end?