Frontline Tech Support

Lessee, it's been nearly two weeks since I posted last... but how do I trump wry insight and pictures of Gizmo the Office Wonder Puppy? Answer: I don't even try... so it's time for a mild rant instead!

Out at work we (meaning mainly me) are trying to upgrade some server software before we expand the user base by 4 times its current size. I won't say what software, because it wouldn't mean much to anybody that reads this, but it's one of those "industry standard" sort of things. Out of an abundance of caution, I decide to do a "test" install on an old server over the past weekend. Things go smoothly on the install, reboot everything (like stuff in Windows-land always seems to require), go to administer the server and... get nasty, programmer-level error messages.

In particular, the chain starts off something like "bad image format" and ends up with "memory access" errors... the sort of thing that should NEVER happen in a professionally-coded product (memory access errors mean the program's trying to interfere with memory locations that don't belong to it... and likely belong to somebody else). Anyways, I try a few tricks at my command to make sure that it's not an issue with my configuration or permissions, then give it up and email it in to their support department.

Monday morning rolls around, and... no response. I go check the mail logs (when you run your own mail server, you can see what, in a broad sense, everybody's tried to do with it), and see that their support department tried to email me, but failed... because their mail systems aren't set up properly. I'm already getting a warm fuzzy out of this.

So, I let them know their problem... and they get back to me... by Hotmail. I'm trying to think of an appropriate analog in the real world... maybe if you went and bought a high-end car with a service contract, had a problem, and the mechanic came to you by public transit, because his Escort was giving him problems. Anyways, they try to put off on permissions maybe being the issue, and conveniently describe those memory access errors in terms that make them seem like they might be caused by some other program installed on the server (which doesn't work on so many levels that I won't even try for an analogy).

So, I've politely (much more so than here) called their bluff, given them as much information as I can on the system in question... and we'll see where it goes from here.