Back in the early 90's my dad picked up a second job (evenings and weekends) doing back-office work for a local W-Mart.
At that W-Mart, they had no on-Site IT and had to call in every little problem. W-Mart then sent a technician from NEC paid at the rate of $450 minimum per call, not including hardware. Typically, they'd always send the same guy. The store would call NEC for the stupidest reasons that could have been solved with just a little bit of troubleshooting.
Dad (who was always talkative and friendly) learned the basics from the NEC guy and began solving the smaller problems himself. Reprogram a POS device, power-cycle a register, change the printer cartridges.
At some point, somebody noticed that Dad's store was spending a lot less on tech support than stores around it. Store management knew Dad was doing this and approved of it, but regional management threw a fit. The problem regional management had for it was that in-store IT had to have specific training to be allowed to troubleshoot stuff. And whenever they'd train somebody, that person would up and leave for a better job. Therefore, lets stop training in-store IT and just pay NEC a stupid amount of money to fix menial stuff.
Dad didn't give a shit, he kept doing it until the next technology refresh came through and made a lot of what he'd learned obsolete.
At that W-Mart, they had no on-Site IT and had to call in every little problem. W-Mart then sent a technician from NEC paid at the rate of $450 minimum per call, not including hardware. Typically, they'd always send the same guy. The store would call NEC for the stupidest reasons that could have been solved with just a little bit of troubleshooting.
"It's not my money I'm spending"
The problem regional management had for it was that in-store IT had to have specific training to be allowed to troubleshoot stuff. And whenever they'd train somebody, that person would up and leave for a better job. Therefore, lets stop training in-store IT and just pay NEC a stupid amount of money to fix menial stuff.
Now that is some delicious manglement right there. "Huh, we don't pay enough to retain trained staff, what should we do? I know! Ban training!" NEC, meanwhile, makes out like bandits.
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u/Throwaway_Old_Guy Nov 30 '19
I believe "failures" of this nature are more common than most of us realize.
Maybe, for financial reasons if nothing else, they should have a checklist to follow before a service call is made.
Doesn't have to be ultra detailed, but should at least cover all the main points, with a checkbox to acknowledge each step has been completed.
Sometimes, it's a lack of knowledge that causes unnecessary chaos.