They'll save a lot of money in the short term, but you've got to have a real solid maintenance plan in place or you'll pretty quickly end up with impassable roads. It's not expensive to maintain them (gravel isn't expensive)--but it is labor-intensive.
Hopefully this decision for a labor-intensive style of road is meant to take advantage of Michigan's unemployed citizens.
I lived in southeast Michigan until 3 years ago and the nearby counties had plenty of dirt and gravel roads among the farms that had never been paved. They were just fine for driving on in the winter and summer.
I made a rule that I can never turn down a social activity for a game.
It doesn't prevent me from getting stuck playing a game every possible moment for a few weeks, but it does force me to take some breaks and see there's other stuff going on.
No doubt that's frustrating, but it's hard to avoid.
My company has a high rate of churn for tech support, so you wind up with those situations where new techs are asking irrelevant questions or repeating the same steps because they're lost.
It takes something like six months for a tech to become efficient at their job or leave. After that six months it's hard to hold on to the good employees and still remain competitive with outsourced solutions.
I like it when the tech has been doing their job so long they have it down to an efficient routine, but the customer assumes they are reading from a script.
And if you don't check the basics you get burned, regardless of the customers skills, background or knowledge.
Paraphrased example:
Customer's Tech: "Our DSL light is off. I've checked the connections and our phones work. How soon can you get a tech here?"
ISP Tech: "I'll be glad to send a tech out, but can you check a couple things for me first? Locate the phone cord on the back of your modem. Now trace it to the wall. Is it plugged in securely?"
Customer's Tech: "Yeah, whoops, no. It's working now!"
A picture frame fell on the phone cord earlier and pulled it out of the jack. We could have sent a tech out to fix that problem and cost the company hundreds of dollars or we could ask the basic questions regardless of how confident the person making the call sounds.
Some techs leave horrible notes and other techs don't read the notes anyway. The ISP I work for doesn't have one continuous ticket that stays open, but each call is an individual ticket. It's stupid, but it's the way they work.
Most calls are supposed to be resolved on the initial contact and if it isn't you're encouraged to take ownership and follow-up.
Customers with repeat or intermittent problems tend to get burned by this.
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They'll save a lot of money in the short term, but you've got to have a real solid maintenance plan in place or you'll pretty quickly end up with impassable roads. It's not expensive to maintain them (gravel isn't expensive)--but it is labor-intensive.
Hopefully this decision for a labor-intensive style of road is meant to take advantage of Michigan's unemployed citizens. I lived in southeast Michigan until 3 years ago and the nearby counties had plenty of dirt and gravel roads among the farms that had never been paved. They were just fine for driving on in the winter and summer.
I made a rule that I can never turn down a social activity for a game. It doesn't prevent me from getting stuck playing a game every possible moment for a few weeks, but it does force me to take some breaks and see there's other stuff going on.
No doubt that's frustrating, but it's hard to avoid.
My company has a high rate of churn for tech support, so you wind up with those situations where new techs are asking irrelevant questions or repeating the same steps because they're lost.
It takes something like six months for a tech to become efficient at their job or leave. After that six months it's hard to hold on to the good employees and still remain competitive with outsourced solutions.
I like it when the tech has been doing their job so long they have it down to an efficient routine, but the customer assumes they are reading from a script.
And if you don't check the basics you get burned, regardless of the customers skills, background or knowledge.
Paraphrased example:
Customer's Tech: "Our DSL light is off. I've checked the connections and our phones work. How soon can you get a tech here?"
ISP Tech: "I'll be glad to send a tech out, but can you check a couple things for me first? Locate the phone cord on the back of your modem. Now trace it to the wall. Is it plugged in securely?"
Customer's Tech: "Yeah, whoops, no. It's working now!"
A picture frame fell on the phone cord earlier and pulled it out of the jack. We could have sent a tech out to fix that problem and cost the company hundreds of dollars or we could ask the basic questions regardless of how confident the person making the call sounds.
Some techs leave horrible notes and other techs don't read the notes anyway. The ISP I work for doesn't have one continuous ticket that stays open, but each call is an individual ticket. It's stupid, but it's the way they work. Most calls are supposed to be resolved on the initial contact and if it isn't you're encouraged to take ownership and follow-up. Customers with repeat or intermittent problems tend to get burned by this.