[150104] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Common operational misconceptions
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Owen DeLong)
Fri Feb 17 14:46:24 2012
From: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>
In-Reply-To: <596B74B410EE6B4CA8A30C3AF1A155EA09CD0ACB@RWC-MBX1.corp.seven.com>
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:42:31 -0800
To: George Bonser <gbonser@seven.com>
Cc: "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
I have found that the best solution to persistent hounding goes about =
like this:
"Sir, I'm doing everything I can to resolve the problem as quickly as =
possible. However, I can focus on giving you status updates every 5 =
minutes, or, I can focus on resolving the problem. I cannot do both. =
which would you prefer?"
As to the internal vs. external question, most organizations I've worked =
for have just wanted the problem solved. They didn't so much care =
whether I was taking a lot of time to solve it or the vendor was taking =
a lot of time to respond to me, they wanted the problem fixed and I was =
the one they could fire.
As such, it was in my interest to usually learn most of the systems =
better than the tech support folk at the other end of the phone.
YMMV
Owen
On Feb 17, 2012, at 11:35 AM, George Bonser wrote:
>> A tech trying to troubleshoot it and fix it themselves is going to be
>> hounded every five minutes for status updates and won't be able to =
get
>> any work done because every five minutes (I kid you not, I have =
worked
>> where that is a requirement) he has to pull his head out of what he =
is
>> doing and answer a bunch of questions from the PHBs. And you always
>> get "how long is it going to be" and you want to say "10 minutes =
longer
>> than it would have been if you hadn't interrupted me" but you bite =
your
>> tongue.
>>=20
>=20
> Though the flip side of that is that if someone has been neck deep in =
a problem for hours, you should force them to take a break, go get a =
drink of water, step outside for fresh air or a smoke if they do, or =
just talk to a colleague for a moment and review the problem. In my =
case, the stepping away for a few minutes has sometimes allowed the =
answer to the problem to suddenly snap into focus or in the process of =
describing it to someone else the forming of the thoughts to describe it =
often allows a new aspect of the problem to become visible that you =
hadn't noticed before.
>=20
>=20
