If you are a Formatter, please find a new line of work- TODAY.
easier said than done. One day I was working as a sys-admin at a software company the next I was working at Stream. I survived for two years - the entire time I was looking for a new job. Finally a friend recomended me at another call center that pays more. If he hadn't I'd probably still be working there. Frankly I had no-where else to go. No savings, no place of my own etc.
I would think the companies using these "Support Centers" will suffer for their callous disregard for their customers.
you would but you'd be wrong. Sure Dell, Gateway, HP might become disgusted with the performance of a certian call center, but they'll just move to another. Again - while I was at Stream we picked up more than one contract from Sykes, ACS and the like from more than one disgrunteled company.
Oddly enough the pattern is the same for each contract - spend the first year making the client happy - around then start imposing draconian rules. For example (and I'm not making this up) fixing complex problems in a certian very famous graphics program made by a company in san jose in 14 minutes with 15 seconds to wrap your notes. You start saying things like "you're windows is broken" and "there's really nothing we can do here".
Ever wonder why HP techs try to sell support solutions on every call? They will be fired if they don't. You lose most all your points on a call monitoring - you could be the most brilliant tech on earth and be fired for not trying to sell extended contracts.
Really though if it wasn't for stream I wouldn't have got the job I have now since they wanted call center support. I've got 10,000+ calls of that.
It isn't just my use of hf spectrum that is important. Military, civilian (commercial ops), and amatuer radio operators use hf to communicate long distances - often in times of need without the use of wires, cell phone repeaters or internet.
The electro magnetic spectrum is a natural treasure. A) its the only one we have and B) its finite - we cannot go out and get more.
the portion of the electro magnetic spectrum bpl wants to destroy is also very important because its the only section of the spectrum that bounces off the inosphere (allowing for long distance communications) and its also the part of the spectrum with the least amount of bandwidth.
The electro magnetic spectrum. duh. If you had any idea how much of it is usuable by radio devices and how we cannot just go out and buy/mine/generate more then you'd realize what a waste bpl is.
The only one of those I would have any sympathy for is Military Communications and maybe CB Radio. The military has advanced equipment (they'd better with these tax rates) and they can change to a different frequency. I'm sure CB can be worked around.
This is somewhat sad that you'd be willing to throw away a natural irreplacable treasure to the bane of corperate profits.
Its being sold by rohn towers though - all the other auctions in the seller history are antenna and tower parts. For those who don't know they are big in the amateur radio community and they declared bankruptcy last year.
This is true - but the original post does suport some of the evils of outsourcing in general. And that is any time you outsource you have to give part of your company to another person or company. That company can be here in the US, Canada or in a country you have never heard of. And many times (depending on how the contract is written) its up to the actual outsourcer where that labor is performed - more often than not actually this is the case.
For 2 years I worked in an outsourcing company doing tech support - and pay rate really writes volumes on why tech support agents really truely don't care about you or your problems (for example they were starting people at 9$/hr to support graphics apps most people get paid 50-150/hr to use). The only goals in companies like this are a) to get customers to go away and b) look for a new job between calls (if you have that luxury). More than once I've seen people fired or repremanded not on just my contract but others for stealing, using, exchanging or sending confidential information to people they probably shouldn't have. Usually its details about the contract, what company uses what vendors for outsourcing, working conditions inside the outsourcing company and confidential knowledgebase/email docs on service and support. Many more times I've seen people take this information without anyone ever paying attention.
To me this is a rampant problem since - the only reason this is on slashdot is because someone noticed.
It is important in the sense that mankind's greatest, most historical journey (some would even argue technological triumph) at the very least took off from that very tower.
To me in that perspective yes it is an important monument to our legacy and the history of USA.
I personally don't think this is true. After working at Stream for 2 years and supporting graphics apps on both mac and windows I always found mac calls to take far longer than windows calls.
I found this to be true for Windows 98 and Windows 95 calls as well. Most XP/2000 machines were actually running perfectly fine by the time they called us.
I attribute a lot of this to the fact that Mac's are too easy to use. A lot of mac's I took calls on had tons of permissions issues (via the hfs permissions problems that are a known issue with OSX), users would go through and delete files they didn't think they needed (I don't need to share files why do I need a shared documents folder - actual quote from a customer). Installing a new font? They can go one of 3 places - I'll bet most people on here don't know that.
Hmm - my computer uses vacuum tubes - at least one and thats the monitor.
Also any time you listen to a broadcast station tv or radio chances are it uses vacuum tubes in the pa stage (some of these tubes are 3-5 feet tall). In the 50,000-150,000 watt realm They tend to deliver far more power in much less space.
If your a ham (like me) many of the more low profile linear amplifiers still use vacuum tubes. Funny thing about that - a lot of those used to use Eimac tubes which are commonly used in the driver stage of a commercial broadcast amp. If you bought a brand new amp from QRO like the 2500 - it comes with Svetlana tubes which are made in Russia. I suspect its because the Eimac tubes are getting harder to find.
So yeah tubes are on thier way out for some applications - I suspect we'll see them for years to come in others (mainly broadcasting)
Funny as I've never had any of these problems on windows or linux (and I've got several dual proc systems) - maybe you guys have scsi termination issues.
How about last week? I installed the latest build I could find and it was working great until I rebooted like 5 times then all I got was garbage in the section where it usually says its booting.
the funny thing is in most of these cars automotive engineers are frequently documented citing various design flaws in the cars themselves - only to be upstaged by managers who think they know more about cars.
Take the Corvair - the book "Unsafe at Any Speed" makes the case quite clearly that the engineers had designed the car properly and that it was the bean counters and management who changed it into a death trap.
it reminds me of when I was trying to get the automount dameon working on a linux machine down in california (I was in oregon) and inadvertantly caused the machine to kernel panic.
Ended up having to call someone who worked at the machine room to track down the crashed system and restart it:(.
As a gamer, I hated having NAV or McAfee VirusScan hog up 30MB of my memory, so I removed it. I make smart and conscious decisions, and have never had a virus on my computer for several years.
Looking at NAV CE 7.6 processes on my PC right now the largest memory size being used is around 1.2 megs...
I didn't think I had a virus either until one day I logged into my pc and got a bunch of red dots all over my screen - turned out to be this - that was an odd one mainly because mcaffee didn't detect it however nav did.
This has wierd effects though - I work in tech support and a few months ago I sent a customer a specialized driver (one you normally have to pay lots of money for) and thier email server took all the exe's and dll's out of the zip file. At least thats what he told me.
I ended up having to put this 700K program on a cd and mail it to him.
a long time ago a good friend of mine was big into the pirate software scene on the C64 (I won't say his handle here, but if you had a C64 you'd recognize it). So much so that he used various ITT numbers to dial bbs's in Europe to download the latest warez. Needless to say he did get in trouble eventually...
When the FBI eventually did take his C64, two 1541's, monitor, VCR, box of copied software and a book about telephone hacking - for some reason they never charged him with anything. Eventually returned everything except for the book, the monitor and the VCR.
What would you do? I mean back then a monitor and VCR were expensive items - but if he called the FBI to get his things back you know what would happen. If he hired a lawyer it would cost more than the VCR and monitor were worth.
I don't get this - I had a S3 Savage and for the most part it was a great video card. It compared rather well to the TNT it was up against. Plus S3TC made Unreal look really cool.
Their most recent video card reaches a good midpoint in modern video card benchmarks > http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/vga- charts-03.html
But avoid the new Nvidia cards unless you're not interested in being able to play Half-Life 2 when that comes out.
I get so sick of this. The benchmarks that they released were a) with old drivers and b) a beta video game - and you know what? The 5900 still kept a decent frame-rate. By the time half-life 2 comes out (if it comes out) the 5900 will be more than capable of playing it.
After replacing 3 broken 9500's (you can read about the 9500/9700 shim problem almost anywhere) - I'll never buy another ATI video card again... I rather have reliability over speed any day.
I switched from ATI to Nvidia - not because of poor performance but because of poor quality. After 3 broken 9500's I'm afraid to use the new one they sent me.
Slashdot Mirror
If you are a Formatter, please find a new line of work- TODAY.
easier said than done. One day I was working as a sys-admin at a software company the next I was working at Stream. I survived for two years - the entire time I was looking for a new job. Finally a friend recomended me at another call center that pays more. If he hadn't I'd probably still be working there. Frankly I had no-where else to go. No savings, no place of my own etc.
I would think the companies using these "Support Centers" will suffer for their callous disregard for their customers.
you would but you'd be wrong. Sure Dell, Gateway, HP might become disgusted with the performance of a certian call center, but they'll just move to another. Again - while I was at Stream we picked up more than one contract from Sykes, ACS and the like from more than one disgrunteled company.
Oddly enough the pattern is the same for each contract - spend the first year making the client happy - around then start imposing draconian rules. For example (and I'm not making this up) fixing complex problems in a certian very famous graphics program made by a company in san jose in 14 minutes with 15 seconds to wrap your notes. You start saying things like "you're windows is broken" and "there's really nothing we can do here".
Ever wonder why HP techs try to sell support solutions on every call? They will be fired if they don't. You lose most all your points on a call monitoring - you could be the most brilliant tech on earth and be fired for not trying to sell extended contracts.
Really though if it wasn't for stream I wouldn't have got the job I have now since they wanted call center support. I've got 10,000+ calls of that.
It isn't just my use of hf spectrum that is important. Military, civilian (commercial ops), and amatuer radio operators use hf to communicate long distances - often in times of need without the use of wires, cell phone repeaters or internet.
The electro magnetic spectrum is a natural treasure. A) its the only one we have and B) its finite - we cannot go out and get more.
the portion of the electro magnetic spectrum bpl wants to destroy is also very important because its the only section of the spectrum that bounces off the inosphere (allowing for long distance communications) and its also the part of the spectrum with the least amount of bandwidth.
The electro magnetic spectrum. duh. If you had any idea how much of it is usuable by radio devices and how we cannot just go out and buy/mine/generate more then you'd realize what a waste bpl is.
The only one of those I would have any sympathy for is Military Communications and maybe CB Radio. The military has advanced equipment (they'd better with these tax rates) and they can change to a different frequency. I'm sure CB can be worked around.
This is somewhat sad that you'd be willing to throw away a natural irreplacable treasure to the bane of corperate profits.
Its being sold by rohn towers though - all the other auctions in the seller history are antenna and tower parts. For those who don't know they are big in the amateur radio community and they declared bankruptcy last year.
This is true - but the original post does suport some of the evils of outsourcing in general. And that is any time you outsource you have to give part of your company to another person or company. That company can be here in the US, Canada or in a country you have never heard of. And many times (depending on how the contract is written) its up to the actual outsourcer where that labor is performed - more often than not actually this is the case.
For 2 years I worked in an outsourcing company doing tech support - and pay rate really writes volumes on why tech support agents really truely don't care about you or your problems (for example they were starting people at 9$/hr to support graphics apps most people get paid 50-150/hr to use). The only goals in companies like this are a) to get customers to go away and b) look for a new job between calls (if you have that luxury). More than once I've seen people fired or repremanded not on just my contract but others for stealing, using, exchanging or sending confidential information to people they probably shouldn't have. Usually its details about the contract, what company uses what vendors for outsourcing, working conditions inside the outsourcing company and confidential knowledgebase/email docs on service and support. Many more times I've seen people take this information without anyone ever paying attention.
To me this is a rampant problem since - the only reason this is on slashdot is because someone noticed.
It is important in the sense that mankind's greatest, most historical journey (some would even argue technological triumph) at the very least took off from that very tower.
To me in that perspective yes it is an important monument to our legacy and the history of USA.
You should keep in mind these are the same kinds of radio waves used to cook food.
I found this to be true for Windows 98 and Windows 95 calls as well. Most XP/2000 machines were actually running perfectly fine by the time they called us.
I attribute a lot of this to the fact that Mac's are too easy to use. A lot of mac's I took calls on had tons of permissions issues (via the hfs permissions problems that are a known issue with OSX), users would go through and delete files they didn't think they needed (I don't need to share files why do I need a shared documents folder - actual quote from a customer). Installing a new font? They can go one of 3 places - I'll bet most people on here don't know that.
Hmm - my computer uses vacuum tubes - at least one and thats the monitor.
Also any time you listen to a broadcast station tv or radio chances are it uses vacuum tubes in the pa stage (some of these tubes are 3-5 feet tall). In the 50,000-150,000 watt realm They tend to deliver far more power in much less space.
If your a ham (like me) many of the more low profile linear amplifiers still use vacuum tubes. Funny thing about that - a lot of those used to use Eimac tubes which are commonly used in the driver stage of a commercial broadcast amp. If you bought a brand new amp from QRO like the 2500 - it comes with Svetlana tubes which are made in Russia. I suspect its because the Eimac tubes are getting harder to find.
So yeah tubes are on thier way out for some applications - I suspect we'll see them for years to come in others (mainly broadcasting)
Wow you work at Stream International too?
Funny as I've never had any of these problems on windows or linux (and I've got several dual proc systems) - maybe you guys have scsi termination issues.
What do you mean by this? I used to do type support and both Tahoma and Verdanna have actual printer outlines...
Information will be made available only to law enforcement agencies, and on a need-to-know and right-to-know basis.
and the Seisint employees in Florida - who we can all trust as well right?
How about last week? I installed the latest build I could find and it was working great until I rebooted like 5 times then all I got was garbage in the section where it usually says its booting.
Same machine installed ms-dos 6.2 just fine.
I swear I've never had a freedos installation actually work for more than 5 reboots. Its kinda sad :(.
the funny thing is in most of these cars automotive engineers are frequently documented citing various design flaws in the cars themselves - only to be upstaged by managers who think they know more about cars.
Take the Corvair - the book "Unsafe at Any Speed" makes the case quite clearly that the engineers had designed the car properly and that it was the bean counters and management who changed it into a death trap.
it reminds me of when I was trying to get the automount dameon working on a linux machine down in california (I was in oregon) and inadvertantly caused the machine to kernel panic.
:(.
Ended up having to call someone who worked at the machine room to track down the crashed system and restart it
As a gamer, I hated having NAV or McAfee VirusScan hog up 30MB of my memory, so I removed it. I make smart and conscious decisions, and have never had a virus on my computer for several years.
Looking at NAV CE 7.6 processes on my PC right now the largest memory size being used is around 1.2 megs...
I didn't think I had a virus either until one day I logged into my pc and got a bunch of red dots all over my screen - turned out to be this - that was an odd one mainly because mcaffee didn't detect it however nav did.
This has wierd effects though - I work in tech support and a few months ago I sent a customer a specialized driver (one you normally have to pay lots of money for) and thier email server took all the exe's and dll's out of the zip file. At least thats what he told me.
I ended up having to put this 700K program on a cd and mail it to him.
a long time ago a good friend of mine was big into the pirate software scene on the C64 (I won't say his handle here, but if you had a C64 you'd recognize it). So much so that he used various ITT numbers to dial bbs's in Europe to download the latest warez. Needless to say he did get in trouble eventually...
When the FBI eventually did take his C64, two 1541's, monitor, VCR, box of copied software and a book about telephone hacking - for some reason they never charged him with anything. Eventually returned everything except for the book, the monitor and the VCR.
What would you do? I mean back then a monitor and VCR were expensive items - but if he called the FBI to get his things back you know what would happen. If he hired a lawyer it would cost more than the VCR and monitor were worth.
I don't get this - I had a S3 Savage and for the most part it was a great video card. It compared rather well to the TNT it was up against. Plus S3TC made Unreal look really cool.
- charts-03.html
Their most recent video card reaches a good midpoint in modern video card benchmarks > http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/vga
But avoid the new Nvidia cards unless you're not interested in being able to play Half-Life 2 when that comes out.
I get so sick of this. The benchmarks that they released were a) with old drivers and b) a beta video game - and you know what? The 5900 still kept a decent frame-rate. By the time half-life 2 comes out (if it comes out) the 5900 will be more than capable of playing it.
After replacing 3 broken 9500's (you can read about the 9500/9700 shim problem almost anywhere) - I'll never buy another ATI video card again... I rather have reliability over speed any day.
I switched from ATI to Nvidia - not because of poor performance but because of poor quality. After 3 broken 9500's I'm afraid to use the new one they sent me.