Tractor Posted July 14, 2019 Report Share Posted July 14, 2019 As some may remember I started out on my own going on two years ago. I'm happy to say its doing very well still, however there's something that I see daily and it boggles my mind. Its kind of convoluted so try to stay with me as I try to explain the madness. A bookstore business has some IT equipment broken or needs something installed, lets say a new WIFI access point. Their internal IT department makes the ticket, calls up the company A contracted to handle WIFI in their stores. Company A claims they do all that work, however they contract it out to company B, company B sold company A that they do that work as well, however they contract it out to company C. Company C then puts it out on an open market and then my little company gets the job here in my local area. I have instructions to tell the bookstore manager I work for company A in most cases and don't even talk to company's A or B directly. Many times it gets really convoluted when I do a job for company A for C or C for A or B for either of them. Each one states in their marketing material that they are experts with qualified technicians nation wide when in reality they all just outsource the work to an open market where some dude like me picks up the assignment. In my case I'm a very knowledgeable, professional, and very experienced person though when I'm out and about I hear feedback from the managers of the sites and even the dispatchers on the phones that many of the techs aren't that good. Its real fun when I'm there for the internet being down, but I'm only there to check it between the building's entry to the modem or T1 smart box, then I come back a few hours later working for a different company to troubleshoot between the modem and the firewall, and then again later for yet another company to troubleshoot the switch on the other side of the firewall. I had one this week where one firewall was before another and we had a conference call between myself, firewall A, and firewall B's tech support, and the internet provider. I guess it amazes me that there are so many layers of companies involved and I didn't realize this until I became self employed and started to work for them all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forrest Gump 9 Posted July 14, 2019 Report Share Posted July 14, 2019 And that’s how the economy is booming. Each company get a little piece of the pie without doing any real work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeitgeist57 Posted July 14, 2019 Report Share Posted July 14, 2019 Nature abhors a vacuum. If someone figures a way to integrate those steps to improve the business process with a meaningful result, then you’ll see a change. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tractor Posted July 15, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 15, 2019 And that is where it becomes fascinating to me. Each company claims to be a one stop solution. One is even named "one source" the marketing material claims they provide a simple "one contact" solution to your IT needs however they only manage tickets and outsource to others which get down to me eventually. The NDAs I get with each one states not to reveal to the others who I'm actually working for because they all want to look like the primary contact. In a growing number of cases I'm exclusive enough that I'm moving up the chain and will likely be outsourcing some of the work I get lol. Nature abhors a vacuum. If someone figures a way to integrate those steps to improve the business process with a meaningful result, then you’ll see a change. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tractor Posted July 15, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 15, 2019 I suppose on the high-level it's a bunch of sales people doing their jobs getting the contract with clients, project managers managing tickets and working with dispatchers. Then it's level 1 and 2 support engineers assisting me in the field. Each doing their little piece of the puzzle not really needing to know any of the big picture. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geeesammy Posted July 15, 2019 Report Share Posted July 15, 2019 But they are the one source because the company only had to call one place...lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmrmnhrm Posted July 15, 2019 Report Share Posted July 15, 2019 Each doing their little piece of the puzzle not really needing to know any of the big picture. I'll bet if any one of them had the big picture, the problem could be solved a hell of a lot faster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdk 4219 Posted July 16, 2019 Report Share Posted July 16, 2019 Most people have a hard enough time just doing their job, and thinking about other parts of the job puts them over the edge. People now are specialized in one specific field of work, and venturing outside their narrow range of knowledge is not their job. The fry guy only makes fries, don’t ask him to make a cheeseburger, he can’t do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmrmnhrm Posted July 16, 2019 Report Share Posted July 16, 2019 Most people have a hard enough time just doing their job, and thinking about other parts of the job puts them over the edge. People now are specialized in one specific field of work, and venturing outside their narrow range of knowledge is not their job. The fry guy only makes fries, don’t ask him to make a cheeseburger, he can’t do it. That may be true of fast food, but while my degree and job title may say "engineer," you better believe I can tug 500MCM, crimp RJ45, punch 66, and speak RS485 (on top of being able to edit configurations with vi(1), write a Niagara device driver, and splice high res graphics into Final Fantasy 7) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greg1647545532 Posted July 16, 2019 Report Share Posted July 16, 2019 My company is full of specialists and generalists both. Imagine that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
99StockGT Posted July 16, 2019 Report Share Posted July 16, 2019 All I want to know is, do they each send you a different shirt to wear so you are "Official" or do you have to go with a nondescript khakis and polo? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tractor Posted July 17, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2019 All I want to know is, do they each send you a different shirt to wear so you are "Official" or do you have to go with a nondescript khakis and polo? I carry a plastic badge holder on a lanyard and I have a bunch of photo IDs I insert and sometimes print them for the task that day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unfunnyryan Posted July 17, 2019 Report Share Posted July 17, 2019 at WOW we had a customer where we provided fiber service but the actual major fiber run was run by Company 1, the last mile Company 2, who actually was reselling Company 3, who had recently bought Company 4. We only found this out when a tech on site reported the company name listed on the equipment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tractor Posted July 17, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2019 I wish I was talking to you the other day. I had an engineer who argued with me for half an hour over the phone that a DB9 cable I had to make had the pins wrong. Pin #1 isn't usually marked on a connector and doesn't need to be since pins 2-5 are clearly marked on that row. It's was confusing them and They had me upload them several photos of it so they could tell me I was wrong. I used to play with those when I was ten. The day before that I was working on a guest WiFi issue at a book store and the wifi was uplinked through a CradlePoint. I did a quick check in my smart phone while introducing myself to the manager and told her it looks like a problem with the config in the access point.. after three hours of letting them walk me through testing layer one connections they finally found the problem in the config. Go figure, but I don't have access to that, I'm just the "smart hands" on the ground. I get a shit load of money to just act dumb and do what the guy on the phone says. Some times it's frustrating but I just add up what I'm gonna bill them and keep rock'n. That may be true of fast food, but while my degree and job title may say "engineer," you better believe I can tug 500MCM, crimp RJ45, punch 66, and speak RS485 (on top of being able to edit configurations with vi(1), write a Niagara device driver, and splice high res graphics into Final Fantasy 7) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tractor Posted July 17, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2019 Here in Myrtle Beach we still have a local Telecom that isn't owned by anyone and that confuses the hell out of everything. at WOW we had a customer where we provided fiber service but the actual major fiber run was run by Company 1, the last mile Company 2, who actually was reselling Company 3, who had recently bought Company 4. We only found this out when a tech on site reported the company name listed on the equipment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Second Gen Posted July 17, 2019 Report Share Posted July 17, 2019 Hmm another IT story. Been at it as a SME and a Manager for 20 plus years and still never completely understand it/IT. Mid June we let go of two good resources in Canada (Company decision) and just a week ago had to set one up as a contractor to help with the move. Guess this is just the odd world we are working. Oh figured I would throw out a couple IT terms since everyone else is in this thread hyper-converged Horcum HP UX SSD HPFM CEC Kernel Windows 2016/19 RHEL 7/8 Etc. Lets not forget hybrid cloud (Azure/GCP etc) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.