What the hell is this shit? (long)
Background: I’m the Network Administrator and Phone Admin for a small startup company. We’ve gone through some downsizing, so my department has gone from two full time people to one part time (myself), while the size of the company has gone from 100 employees to about 60. So I now have more work to do in less hours, and it’s all technical.
During our rapid growth over the past 6 years we have expanded into 5 buildings in town, but with the recent slowdown we have been consolidating into three buildings. This means lots of phones need to be moved, their lines forwarded or disconnected, etc. There are many computer migrations as well, but I’ll stick to the phones for the purpose of this rant.
Pac Bell Hell:
When I first called PacBell about moving the lines, they said “Sure, just give us a call and it can be done in two days.” Why do I believe them? Because they seem like a grown-up company. They are big, they do this sort of thing all the time. Once I knew the date of the move I called them and they said sure, all that can be done on Friday morning, so I call our Phone Guy (who does all the internal wiring) and schedule him for Friday afternoon.
Fast forward to Friday, I get a call from the Phone Guy, he says PacBell hasn’t set anything up at the new site. Call PacBell Rep, she says Well Golly, they should be there, wonder what happened. After an hour I call her back and she says well, they came by but there was something preventing them from doing the work, they’ll be in next Tuesday to finish the job. So I send Phone Guy off, with a re-schedule for Tuesday afternoon.
These delays don’t just happen once, it actually takes 5 WEEKS to get all the lines forwarded/disconnected/etc.!!! I have an entire building full of people who couldn’t communicate with the outside world (well, some have cell phones) in a normal way. They’re better now, all the phones are in place and they can communicate as needed. But in the process, I found out that several numbers were listed as being at the wrong locations, and several numbers that were never included in the move were moved nonetheless or disconnected! So, somehow the person setting up lines wrote that they were at the WRONG LOCATION!!! Sad, pitiful state of affairs…
Now for Part Two, AKA Lucent Hell:
Back when Lucent was Lucent, we purchased a voice-mail system that took much of the load off the front-desk person and sent all callers into Voice-Mail Purgatory for varying lengths of time. Life in the front lobby became much more humane, Love was in the air and we began to feel like a Grownup Company.
Today, I walk in the front door and the receptionist says “Oh good, you’re here - the phones are down!” Hmmm… is this the normal OverReaction I get every day (“My Computer’s Broken!” means, “I left the caps-lock key on!”) or something more sinister? I go to my desk, my phone is on and gets a dial-tone, but when I go for my voice-mail it just rings & beeps. No “Welcome,” no nothing, just beeps. So, the phone works for calling out, but no voice-mail system.
I headed for the electrical closet, turned on the monitor for the phone system and saw… nothing. LED on monitor blinks, LED on Unix box for phone system is on, but no sounds. I hit the power button and get… nothing. I hit it again, more LEDs turn on, hard drive whines, and then… nothing. Several more attempts and I give up - time to call our Rep.
Lucent is now Expanets and Avaya.
Expanet’s Rep’s voice mail says she’s at an installation all day, gives number for emergency service, I call it and get a guy who has caller ID - “You’re This Guy with That Company, right?” Yep, sounds like he has his act together, I explain situation and he has me transfer the phone to the system so he can look things over.
10 minutes later I realize he probably can’t call me back through the normal channels (When I tried the main # it just rang forever) so I call back, explain the situation to a new person and they say “Sounds like a hardware problem, a tech will be there by 2:30 this afternoon.” Great, it’s 9am and we’re guaranteed no phones until late in the day. Mass email entire company with the news, receive several sympathy returns and prepare myself for grueling day.
Tech guy (for Avaya) shows up at 12:30, looks at machine and says “yep, it’s a hardware problem. I have to go into town to get parts, meanwhile I’ll set up the system so at least incoming calls go to the receptionist, who can transfer them just fine.”
It’s now 3:45pm and he still hasn’t figured out how to make it work for the interim. Apparently when Lucent broke off Avaya and Expanets, they didn’t bother to give anyone at either spinoff the records for our company, and every install is handled according to the whims of the installer. TechBoy also informs me that I’m missing several parts of the kit I should have received with the voice-hell system, including the Catastrophic Recovery Tapes and the installer’s notes. He also found out through an associate that he didn’t have all the parts needed to fix the system, he’s having them overnighted to his office, so he can’t fix the system today anyway.
Common Thread:
These two fucking telecom companies are incapable of communicating between different departments, tech setup and tech support are completely on their own for details about any customer who calls!!! PacBell had numbers listed at the wrong locations, included numbers that were never mentioned in the moves, and took an absurd amount of time to get the job done. Lucent/Avaya/Expanets have completely seperated their duties so the hardware tech couldn’t set up the software without charging us for the time, and he wasn’t able to do the job anyway because I didn’t have the Installer’s notes!
I will be inviting the asshole who sold me this stuff over for lunch on Monday, and will not be wiping my Hairy Ass all weekend (perhaps some Habanero Peppers Sunday night will add to the horror) so I can TIE HIM DOWN AND SIT ON HIS FACE!!!
My spleen is much happier now, thank you.