Help! What can you do if Tech Support is not doing their job?

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deepeye

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#98726 5-Mar-2012 13:39

Hi, at the place where I work, there are around 200 computers and we have two on-site technicians. Every year after Christmas, the computers would be re-installed and the logins would be updated. Then they wound tell the management how much work they’ve put in and what a good job they’ve done. However, every year, the same story, we won’t be able to work on computers because there has always be something wrong. (A lot of things – most of the time). For example – this year,

No anti-virus program installed
90% of logins are not working in the first week, still 10% not working after 5 weeks
Essential programs are missing – still missing after 6 weeks
Software Product Key are not entered – still on trial mode after 6 weeks.
Email server down for 1 day since start of the year (5+ days last year)
Printer drivers not installed
Users cannot see their network drives
Users files been randomly rolled back, happened in previous years and tech support blame the user for not keep their password safe (which is not true).
$30,000 Firewall we brought last year – they tried to set it up Nov last year and blocked EVERYTHING. So they had to shut it down and it has been doing nothing ever since.
And lots more…

When the users call them about something not working, quite regularly they would refuse to attend to the problem because they are “doing setting on the servers” or “setup the laptops”. The users are getting no help.

I’ve got computer science background so I could tell they are lying to other people all the time and I really had enough (worked here for 5 years). So I list down all the faults and gave it to the management. Tech Support asked me to be there at meeting to discuss about my report. We had this kind of meeting before but not as formal. They re-direct the topic to personal attack (we are targeting them), lack of resources (more technicians/money), or need to keep positive (!@#$!@).

I couldn’t find much information about the law or the responsibilities for tech support that they shouldn’t be lying, Incompetent or lazy. Has someone got any points that I can make in the meeting on Friday?

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#590643 5-Mar-2012 13:42

Change IT company

deepeye

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#590663 5-Mar-2012 14:03

They are employees too (of where i work).

johnr

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#590669 5-Mar-2012 14:06

deepeye: They are employees too (of where i work).

Who manages them?

Ragnor

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#590674 5-Mar-2012 14:08

Two IT guys for 200 user workplace, sounds quite under staffed.

If they are doing all desktop support, server and network administration you'll probably find they just don't have time to do things properly.

deepeye

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#590676 5-Mar-2012 14:10

Their manager has many duties and he doesn't understand IT at all. So he can only trust what the head of tech support tells him. He's the one who gave me the speech about be postive(Life isn't perfect etc...).

johnr

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#590678 5-Mar-2012 14:12

A manager does not need to understand IT, My manager does not understand Unix and many other systems I help look after

John

stevenz

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#590680 5-Mar-2012 14:12

Wow, if we were even half that hopeless we would've been given our walking papers a long time ago.

A $30k firewall is probably a unit that requires fairly specific knowledge (Cisco cert or similar) - if they don't know how it works, then questions need to be asked as to how it got authorised in the first place.

Reimaging 200 computers over a short period every year seems a bit unnecessary, and also is going to be prone to more problems than I'd expect if they were done in a drip-feed fashion, but I can understand why some firms might want it done this way.

Your only option by the sound of it is to get their superiors to look at it, if they don't get anything done then _maybe_ you have grounds to get the DOL or somesuch onto their case - but IANAL.

@KnightNZ

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Ragnor

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#590681 5-Mar-2012 14:13

deepeye: Their manager has many duties and he doesn't understand IT at all.

Quite common for managers to not understand the specifics but they certainly should understand cost/benefit and lost productivity.

deepeye

15 posts

Geek

#590689 5-Mar-2012 14:20

You guys are making very a good point here. Maybe the management is partially responsible. 200 computers is a big number. But they are all using the same Ghost Image. They set the Ghost Image up - where the problems are. And our Tech Support used their budget to get part-time people to ghost all the computers.

freitasm

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#590692 5-Mar-2012 14:24

Reimaging those PCs *every year*? Gosh, talk about some people trying to justify their feeble existence.

freitasm

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#590694 5-Mar-2012 14:25

Moved to correct forum.

deepeye

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#590697 5-Mar-2012 14:29

The ghost image has never been done correctly. The management would get on their case and they always promise the problems will go away in the "Next Ghost Image". So new ghost every year.

keewee01

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#590715 5-Mar-2012 14:52

Ragnor: Two IT guys for 200 user workplace, sounds quite under staffed.

If they are doing all desktop support, server and network administration you'll probably find they just don't have time to do things properly.

+1 - they're over worked.

The correct course is to take it up your line of command (so take to you manager and they take it to their manager... etc) so it then comes downs from the very, very top where hopefully the right questions will be asked.

xpd

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#590736 5-Mar-2012 15:09

We have approx 150 staff across the country and there are 5 IT staffers (inc the IT manager) - so yes, theyre potentially overworked.

We look after everything to do with IT from the little things such as plugging in a mouse, to rewiring the infrastructure of some of the buildings.

$30k for a firewall system sounds like one of two things to me :

1)The company you work for has some extremely high level confidental contracts.
or
2) The manager heard of some great fantastic new firewall and went out and purchased it without further research.

Overall, the IT guys need another hand or two, AND a proper IT manager to report to (or at least a senior IT staffer to report to).

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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deepeye

15 posts

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#590756 5-Mar-2012 15:28

I think it's more like
The management "We have to stop virus and facebook"
Tech Support "Lets get the best firewall"
The managment "Paper ticked. Problem Solved."

I personally have seem 2 techies managing 500 computers before (running the same image and ghost remotely). All they need to do is to make the image perfect for the working environment and there will be no trouble for years. Maybe this experience made my standard too high here. So workload is a possible issue as well.

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