Unruly Behavior

Ok, here is this morning's projections map for Gustav. Yet on TV they are reporting that it is heading directly for New Orleans. Now, I do see where with most of these tracks how New Orleans will get the 'Dirty Side' of the storm, but it won't be a direct hit like they are syaing based on these models. And check out the Yellow track, it goes RIGHT OVER MY HOUSE AND JOB! Crap! There is a meeting at 4 PM today for all our department managers, I'll find out after that if I get to go to San Antono tonight.

Labels: hurricane

Labels: exchange, hurricane

When I first started my current job, one of the first things I discovered was how much porn our users were storing in their e-mail. Windows Video, AVI and Power Point Show (PPS) files filled our mail database. So, I removed it all, 4GB of Porn, from about 70 users, was extracted. As a result of the file analysis, we decided to block multimedia from our mail server. So, today I get an e-mail from one of our Executive VPs (of which I think we have 80 in a company of 350). Now, this guy is smart, he has sent in e-mail complaining that there were puddles in his branch parking lot after a rainstorm, that the fan in he mens room was not loud enough and people could hear him shitting, and another time, after a hard freeze that plants were dead in his flower beds. Brainiac. So today, he printed out an e-mail on a color printer, wrote some notes on it, scanned it in as a .PDF file and e-mailed it to the wrong technician. His complaint? A Video File was blocked. So, I did a little research and found the following e-mail from the sender, who is technically, I guess, the bank's customer...

Hell yes it was a business email. It was a video of new television ad. Thought the bank would be interested. Seems that IT is running the shop. Might have been a multi-million dollar deal. I guess George Orwell would be delighted – big brother is watching. Tell the stupid a$$ bites that are trying to control life to go get a life and quit trying to stifle things. They don’t make the bank a freaking dime, but you sure as hell do. Sounds like a bunch of damn communist are running the show. Screw ‘em. Now you know how I feel about such bull$hit. Maybe they want tell me what to do. My number is below. Geez, does the bank hire trustworthy people to loan millions of dollars and think they need a bunch of snoops to do something that amounts to nothing. I’ll tell you what it amounts to, just a bunch bureaucrats that are job justifying their positions. How about this let ‘em go sign up to be democrats and get on the government tit. Why not get them to concentrate on just making sure the computers work. Wow, what a novel idea. Fire 90% and work more efficiently. Job justifiers of the world unite and go to Denver. Oops, your guys are probably already there. And that’s what I think. Have a great day.

So, in one e-mail this genius has called me:

1. A$$ Bite (but he is too fucking timid to spell ASS).
2. Comunist.
3. Job Justifier.
4. Democrat.

Ok, first, this e-mail came from a satx.rr.com e-mail address. Great company this guy works for, too fucking cheap to get their own e-mail domain, they depend on Road Runner for e-mail. For $100 per year you can register with Network Solutions, get your own domain and hosted e-mail for up to 50 users. So your company is too poor to afford this expense. Sounds like a great company.

Next, this is a 30 second TV commercial you wanted the bank to watch, how does this become a multi-million dollar deal for a car wash with 5 locations? Yep, more car washes, just what the world needs.

Oh, and I Googled your company name, not a fucking result till the second page. You don't even have a fucking website you dumass.

IT does not run the shop, I wish we did, maybe we could get some folks to pull their heads out of their asses. We're a $750M bank, with over 40 locations. I'm sure someone would like to sue us for Sexual This or That, or any other reason. IT has to be fucking diligent, our users are too stupid to not need protection from themselves. Ever heard of a read receipt? Probably not, your cheap ass Road Runner mail doesn't support this shit most likey, get some real fucking e-mail. I currently support 350 users on Exchange. Try that for a day you jackass.

IT may not directly make the bank any money, but without us these users would fuck themselves into oblivion. You would be amazed at their ability to hit DELETE and remove their most important documents. And they couldn't remember their goddamn password if it was tatooed backwards on their forehead and they were standing in front of a mirror. A bank lives or dies on it's data, and without us this place would have a lifespan of about 30 minutes.

Try this on for size, our users don't own the e-mail system, it is property of the company. I wish I could post your name for sending this e-mail, but I'd get fired, and I've got a wife and kids to feed. How do you think your customers would like me posting some of the racist, sexist, animal fucking shit that I found you had sent to our domain from your corporate e-mail? Shit, you sent us a picture of a dog fucking a dead dear. That would be beastiality necrohpilia, something I doubt you could actually comprehend. Get a fucking Gmail account and send your porn to our user's home address.

Rant over. Felt damn good.

Labels: end user, mail, stupid users

Lookout! Hurricane Gustav is coming right at me! The yellow, black and white tracks at least. Great, we're doing Network Upgrades and an Exchange migration this holiday weekend, and now we have to deal with a POSSIBLE HURRICANE! (Run!) The other tracks go to the New Orleans area, so this is a special message to the people of New Orleans - "Don't come here!" Ok? Nuff said? And just like for Hurricane Rita, I'll be staying here, and I have a Mobile Broadband card from Verizon now, so I'll blog about the Hurricane if it comes here.

Labels: hurricane

Recently one of my Direct TV TiVo gave up the ghost. I called Customer Servicer about this, and they said I could get a new HD DVR Plus at no cost, an upgrade of my dish at no cost, and keep my HD Tivo as a secondary receiver.

Great, scheduled this for August 9, 2008, technician to arrive between 8 AM and Noon.

At Noon, no tech had arrived, so I called Direct TV, I got the message I get EVERY SINGLE TIME I CALL DIRECT TV "We are sorry, due to high call volumes...". They aren't sorry, they're too cheap to hire enough employees in their support system. They got in touch with their local company that does the work, no tech till 2 PM. At 2 I got a call, he will be there in about 10 minutes. An hour later he was here. 3 PM for an 8 - Noon appointment. I'm impressed.

So, the tech starts installing my new dish, while he is doing this I unboxed the new HR21-100 HD DVR Plus and got it up in the rack with the rest of my gear. After about an hour or so, the tech comes in and informs me that the guy that loaded his truck this morning forgot to load masts for the dishes, so they are sending someone out with one. So we had to wait half an hour while the guy comes out from the warehouse. The tech wasn't particularly fast, but he was doing really nice work, my cabling and the whole install looks great. Eventually, around 6:30 he comes in and says things should be working, we turned on the box, and he went through the activation with Direct TV. Only problem, the box gives an error for some channels.

So, around 7 PM he gets back on the phone, we need B-Band blockers. He doesn't have any, but a tech in a nearby neighborhood has some. He explains that he has had it explained to him that they aren't required any longer. He'll go get them. The trip took about an hour, and he came back at 8 with the blocker and installed it. Everything is working great, so at 8:30 PM, 12 hours after my appointment was supposed to start, it is over.

My wife and I played with the system a little, then switched it off to watch a DVD.

Got up on Sunday morning, nothing, no signal, no Direct TV, so I called Direct TV and heard "Sorry, we are experiencing unusually high call volumes..." on a Sunday at 9 AM. You aren't sorry. I know this for a fact. After near 45 minutes on hold, I got told that the installer didn't install the dish properly. After 5.5 hours? They told me it had to have a second satellite line attached for it to work. Here is the number to our service company, you should call them yourself. And we will throw in 3 months of free Showtime for your troubles.

So, $27 for over 12 hours of my time. I understand how Direct TV regards me now, as an easy mark, not a valuable customer.

I hooked up the second line myself from the old HD Direct TiVo that I still had installed. Now I have a working DVR.

Tuesday night, I realized that about 1/2 of my channels were no longer working. So, another call to Direct TV "Sorry, we are experiencing unusually high call volumes..." Ok, if every time I call, I get this message, either I have the worst timing in the world, or you need to hire more people. I'm voting for the later. So, I spend about half an hour on hold, followed by another half our of "testing" with Direct TV, now I appear to have all my channels.

So, I start scheduling recordings both on my unit and from the Direct TV website on the internet. Things are great, except that bout half of my recordings are just a black screen and the question about deleting this show now.

Finally, this morning, I set my DVR to record the European Grand Prix Formula 1 race on Speed HD. When I got up and tried to start the recording, it was a blank screen. I tried to directly tune Speed HD, I got a "Searching for Satellite 1 771" error message. So I tried to put on Noggin for my kids, same error message. Reset the machine, things started working.

So I called Direct TV again. No sorry message, maybe they hired some more people. I get a nice lady on the phone, she tells me this is a known issue that has been happening for about a month. WTF? You sold me a defective product. Assholes. So, I asked if I needed a B-Band blocker on both inputs, as the tech had made several other errors. She told me that the B-band blocker might be the problem, that they were not supposed to be used on these units.

I'm going to be filing a complaint with the Texas Attorney General's office today for deceptive trade practices for selling me something that does not work.

Let's sum this up:

1. Inital call to Direct TV to setup upgrade - 0.5 hours.
2. Upgrade install visit - 12.5 hours.
3. Call next day to support - 1.0 hours.
3.5 Reroute cables to have second input hooked up on DVR - 0.5 hours.
4. Call to support for missing channels - 1.0 hours.
5. Call to support for defective recording feature - .5 hours.

So far I've invested 15.5 hours with Direct TV on a system that doesn't work. They have offered me products totaling $27 in value in compensation. Yep, I'm Direct TVs mark.

The unfortunate part is that I don't have much other choice around here. I could switch to Dish network, but I don't want the multiple dishes they require for HD. My father in law got Comcast HD recently, and it looks just horrible. AT&T does offer U-verse here, but it is still in it's infancy, and I have an MPLS network at the office they can't make work, so I'm wary of buying anything from them.

The one good thing is that we are watching much less TV now. More time for XBOX 360!

UPDATE! 9-2-2008

The DVR is still not working properly, so as I got ready to call Direct TV today, I logged into my account. I now have things added to my bill that I have never authorized.

Leased Receiver - Charge $4.99
DIRECTV Protection Plan - Charge $3.19
HD Access - Charge $9.99

That is $18.17 per month in new charges on my bill. Now they are telling me that the Protection Plan is only a partial month charge, and that it will be more in the future.

WTF Direct TV? $4.99 a month for a "FREE" receiver is not free, it is $60 per year. And, it does not work.

Adding a monthly "Protection Plan" to a device that hasn't worked right since delivery is a realy rip off.

And $9.99 for HD when it has been $0.00 for the past several years on my bill is just plain deceptive.

After arguing for about 15 minutes, they are giving me credit towards the DVR service. As of August 24th. No, wait, they can't do that, now it is $5.00 off my base package for the next three months. They did credit me for the "Protection Plan" and removed it. I'm looking at AT&T's Uverse site now.

Labels: bad product, bad support, direct tv