Joys of working from home20:59 Apr 27 2023
Times Read: 321
I've been absolutely fortunate to have a career that provides me the ability to work from home which I am incredibly thankful for.
For the past year, things have been incredibly smoothly and perhaps I took the dependability of my internet connections for granted. Now that I am on the receiving end of intermittent issues, and with a very heavily background in computer science and specifically networking, it irks me to no end having to go through the gauntlet of customer support to have issues address.
No, it isn't the router. No, I know it isn't customer-side ingress on the upload line. You send a tech out who sees slight fluctuations at the end of the line, so you're sure its ingress. You redo all of the connectors but the issue persists (how about that). You monitor the feed going into the residence, oh how awkward, the fluctuations are still present. You redo those connectors as well. The issue persists (how about that). We walk the property to find where the underground cabling meets the tap. You climb the poll, see corrosion there (and apparently you saw issues before hence why you replaced the connectors, sure, maybe). You notice the fluctuations on the upstream channels there too, as I said was the issue in the initial support ticket (including changes in db rating, repeatable ways to produce errors in the router log, etc). So you send out a late night crew to fix it. Receive a text message this morning that your tap issues have been resolved. Okay wonderful. Now here I am going through that same techsupport gauntlet again, just to be told they want to send a refresh signal (which doesn't resolve the issue), and now you're having your regional dispatch contact me to address the issue.
I really hate how many steps there is to get to the tech tier that can address issues. I probably have more experience (both in terms of years, industry, and credentials) than most people, and yet they try to give me the same run of the mill crap. It really is tiring, especially since the last time there was an issue, I was able to forward the specifics of the problem and it was remedied the following day, and was wonderful for over 10 years. But they don't offer direct channels anymore.
COMMENTS
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LayersOut
21:12 Apr 27 2023
I worked for a company who was run strictly from home offices (outside of warehouses) and whenever there was a tech issue, they would openly complain about it being something other than what it was.
For instance- My account when made, was made without proper certifications needed for the job I was performing. So without those certifications, I didn't have the permissions to access what I needed to in order to complete my job. For eight months it was a back and forth issue until I quit. A week after I quit, they called me back to re-offer me the position I had, with an embarrassingly slightly higher pay, because they realized the entire time I was telling them that my certs weren't authorized on the account and all it would take was the district manager approving it, was exactly the issue. 8 months to figure out something I had been telling them from day one. LOL
immortalxkiss
21:17 Apr 27 2023
I'm sorry, love. I know how frustrating it can be, especially since you know what your talking about, just to be dismissed. Hopefully the issues can get resolved soon and that it doesn't impact your work.
ColdSun
21:29 Apr 27 2023
Absolutely, it can definitely be very frustrating for the presenting problem and even provided resolution to be ignored. At least your experience hopefully resulted in higher pay (unless you found an even better job).
As far as it impacting my work, it has slightly, but I've been getting creative in addressing the challenges. I am apprehensive about my connection shitting the bed when shit also happens to be hitting the fan, but we shall see.