I was asked to pop over to a new clients house this afternoon – they had had a competitor out who had ‘tried’ to fix the issues
Mainly these were connectivity issues; email and Internet. Something I see all the time…

Off I popped across this fair city of Leeds to distant climes.

As usual I introduced myself – we hadn’t met before and I’m nothing if not polite – and let the client(s husband and wife) explain the issues.

Internet Explorer would crash and ‘Search for a solution’ that never came…
It took me about 2 minutes to fix that one (and the client was VERY surprised!).

Outlook would fail sending email with a SMTP error…
That  one took a little longer, about 20 minutes (it was a little convoluted because of the interaction with the virus protection).

Whilst doing this I noticed that there was some spy-ware installed and a little house keeping needed
So I cleaned the systems, installed a couple of FREE applications, taught them how to use them, and left happy clients with speedy systems.

My new client had a rant about the other guys service – £300 bill and the systems were not fixed, but were WORSE than when they came!
There are  some real cowboys doing this job.

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Web Developers seem to be a different breed!

Before I go any further i HAVE to say – Jaimie from iNet engineers is a GOD SEND!!
A web dev who actually CARES about what he does, whom you CAN speak to, and who does what he says he will when he says he will!
AMAZING!!
(there’s a link to his blog on the  bottom right of the side bar…)!

Anyhow…

I have a client, he paid for a website.
The web developer built a website (not very good IMHO).
The client mentioned an update, which the developer developed.
OOPS – the client never made a formal request, the developer wrote the software off his own back.
When the authors of the software they use to run their business added exactly what the client wanted for free (the client knew this was coming but thought it might have been a chargeable update), they told the developer; Who promptly threw teddies out of pram…
Now my client is “of so little importance” that he doesn’t bother to turn up to meetings OR respond to the clients requests.

He’s lost the business to us now…

A special kind of stupid for this donkey award…

I popped in to the chippy t’other day, I had to pass a Police incident to get in…
The Police had arrested one guy and were man handling another to the ground.

The story made me laugh and laugh.
Apparently there was a guy in the chippy, just in front of two UNIFORMED Police officers.
The guy walks out of the chippy and decides to wheel spin out of the car park.
Unsurprisingly the Police stop said man – who is drunk driving!!

Arrested (and should have been neutered to stop him polluting the gene pool)

The other guy thought he’d make his feelings about the Police known – loudly.

Stupid, stupid stupid…

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We received a phone call yesterday morning – a clients Sage machine has given up the ghost AND it’s the year end.
A typical Murphy’s Law scenario! :razz:

Off I pop to the far side of York (My home town :) ), only to be told, when about 10 mins away, that the previous incumbent of the support had dialled in and ‘fixed’ it. (The PC was saying the license couldn’t be verified – that’s cos it’s NOT a valid license!! )
I had ulterior motives for going, so I continued on the way…
Gets there – does what is needed (we are going to do a full license and systems review) – finds all sorts of licensing anomalies – informs client.
I estimate they are looking at a £25,000 – £30,000 bill to rectify this!

It looks very much like the client trusted a ‘profesional’ IT guy to provide their IT systems company wide – he did so, using illegal unlicensed software (using product keys ‘stolen’ from the Internet). The client is now facing potential huge fines and even a prison sentence!

I REALLY hope they decide to ‘dob’ the supplier in!!

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It seems to be very obvious to me at the moment, that businesses in general are getting more and more unhappy with the state of their services.
I have heard 4 separate instances of businesses that are unhappy (to say the least in two cases) with the quality of their IT services in particular.

In one case, it looks like it’s going to cost approx £20,000 to fix the errors the previous company caused – that is EXCLUDING my costs!

Maybe it’s a sign of the times – businesses cannot keep paying for shoddy service and are becoming more savvy about what is out there. In our case THIS CAN ONLY BE A GOOD THING!

It’s about time the It industries had a little ‘cleaning up’ session and started getting rid of those rogues.
It’s something I feel passionate about.
Bad IT service costs ALL the professional IT people. I spent approx 16 YEARS to qualify to do what I do (I am an Electrician, did Electronics for 3 years, and am hardware AND software qualified – this all takes time!)

With this in mind I had an uncomfortable meeting with a client and had to tell them the bad news about the reality of their situation – suffice to say it wasn’t fun and the client isn’t happy (with their previous support people)

:neutral:

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