I'll never say anything bad again......

[John G. DeArmond]

I'll never say anything bad again about ISC support... Well, maybe not for
a few days at least :-)  I've just emerged from a bout with the Support
Demon from HELL, otherwise known as Novell.

Background:  I used to be a Novell ISV and big-time network programmer
	before I shed my sinful ways and took up the Unix religion.

I had a real simple consulting job - Install Novell SFT 286 on a server
and bring up 6 PCs.  Piece'o'cake.  Only one problem.  A disk was missing
from the distribution, a set which is at least as massive as a PC Unix.
So, I says, I'll call up Utah and get a replacement.  So starts the 
adventure.  My old number did not work.  Directory assistancce (which,
incidently, knew enough about Novell to ask what department I wanted - 
must really be a one horse town.) got me the switchboard where Marie
Osmond herself answered and sang me a greeting.  Got the 800 number for
tech support.  Dialed in and encountered the Voice Messaging System from 
HELL.  I poked through a couple of advertising heirarchy until I hit
tech support.  Before getting tech support, the sing-song recorded lady
told me to have my credit card ready, as they required a $100 payment UP
FRONT in order to talk to me!  The Digimama voice added that they really
don't want to talk to mere customers and would really rather we people
spending the cash talk to our local dealer.  

I hung up and dialed Marie on the switchboard again and asked for customer
relations.  Got customer support, which is apparently separate from
tech support.  Fair enough.  Described the problem (gensys asking for a 
disk not in the set.).  The droid interrogated their bill of materials 
database and informed me that my Novell did not come with a disk by that
name and that I should call tech support and that I'd have to pay.

So I figure I'm a pretty good schmoozer so I get on the 800 number and
descend into Telephone Hell again.  I go through door "1" and get this
human robot who listened to my story and replied as if from a script "I'll
be glad to enter an incident report but I'll need your credit card number."
Leaping back out of Telephone Hell with a slam of the receiver, I dial Marie 
Osmond up again.  I get a different direct-dial-but-toll number for a 
different "customer support".  

This time I got a nice lady who pulled up the same BOM database
and told me that the disk did not exist but that what I probably really
needed was this other disk and that she'd be happy to send me a new 
copy.  The happy part is that it came this morning by fedex!

As I laid the phone with the now smoking touchtone pad aside, I looked up
and noticed that 4 hours had passed.  I began to remember why ISVing
for Novell had begun to look so tarnished.

So!  Unix vendors unite!  Give us a satisfaction guaranteed warranty and
real support, preferably over the net and give us an un copy protected
product that will give PCs reliable virtual drives and we'll shoot down 
Novell like picking ducks off a pond!

John


-- 
John De Armond, WD4OQC        | "Purveyors of speed to the Trade"  (tm)
Rapid Deployment System, Inc. |  Home of the Nidgets (tm)
Marietta, Ga                  | 
{emory,uunet}!rsiatl!jgd      |"Politically InCorrect.. And damn proud of it