Computer Owners Bill of Rights

"Steve" wrote in message
...

Excerpts from Ed Foster's GripeLog. Think this would be worth
anything?

============================

Of course, no law by itself is going to solve the problem of bad
technical support, but the Computer Owners' Bill of Rights (S. 563,
introduced by Senator Mark Dayton of Minnesota) is an attempt to take
some reasonable first steps that would help. It would mandate the
Government Accounting Office conduct a consumer study of technical
support to better understand the scope of the problem, and it would
have the Federal Trade Commission develop basic industry standards for
both hardware and software, free and paid technical support.

Yes, the FTC sets up standards all the time, and they are often
ignored. But having them on the books can help when consumers are
trying to deal with egregious situations. It would put at least a
modicum of pressure on the worst companies to clean up their act.

It is too bad that Senator Dayton's bill is unlikely to be seriously
considered, because he has hit on an issue that is far more important
to this country's productivity than his colleagues realize. Every day
untold numbers of small business and home office users are unable to
do their jobs because they can't get anyone to help them.

It's a refrain I hear on the GripeLog all the time - the hardware
folks won't help because they say it must be a software problem, and
the software companies will only help if you pay them ungodly amounts
of money. It may not be as obvious as the spam problem, but I wouldn't
be surprised if the technical support problem is actually the more
serious.

So you might think about dropping your Congressman and/or U.S.
Senators a line. ...ask them to take a look at S. 563. If enough of
them take notice, perhaps the Computer Owners' Bill of Rights can at
least get a hearing. And don't our elected officials at least owe us
that?


If this bill passed, and had any measurable impact, it would only serve to
increase prices for complete computer systems and software. The problem
boils down to money. You won't get competent technical support for hardware
or software, unless wages to LEVEL ONE technical support representatives is
increased by at least 200%. The cost of the average computer system might
increase by hundreds of dollars to cover the necessary wage increases.

The bottom line: It would increase the popularity of home-built computers
and dramatically increase software piracy. -Dave

"Dave C." wrote in
thlink.net:


You won't get competent technical
support for hardware or software, unless wages to LEVEL ONE technical
support representatives is increased by at least 200%. The cost of
the average computer system might increase by hundreds of dollars to
cover the necessary wage increases.

200%!? Holy Buckets! I can't even imagine paying $75k/year for one L1 tech.
Either you're exaggerating for effect or wages are REALLY depressed where
you are.

200%!? Holy Buckets! I can't even imagine paying $75k/year for one L1
tech.
Either you're exaggerating for effect or wages are REALLY depressed where
you are.


Actually, wages in technical positions are pretty high in my area, due to
high cost of living. But sadly, if you increased wages for L1 techs by
200%, it would be nowhere near $75K/year. L1 techs are lucky to beat
minimum wage by a good percentage, at best. The problem is, to be a good L1
tech, you need many years of college PLUS years of paid FIELD SERVICE (or
large company network support) experience PLUS superlative written and
verbal communications skills. This practically guarantees that the only
people who would make good L1 techs would laugh at the pitifully low wages
offered by the position. If the techs in your area are making $25K/year
(1/3rd of $75K?), then even in YOUR area, they are way underpaid for the
education, skills and experience required to do the job well. Thus, the
only people desperate enough to take the job are often ummmm, not very
helpful. The only way to get good technical support is to dramatically
increase wages. It obviously aint gonna happen anytime soon. So if you
need to use a PC regularly, you'd better learn to maintain it yourself, or
marry someone really sharp. If you need good technical support, don't look
to the manufacturer. -Dave

"Dave C." wrote in
link.net:


200%!? Holy Buckets! I can't even imagine paying $75k/year for one L1
tech.
Either you're exaggerating for effect or wages are REALLY depressed
where you are.


Actually, wages in technical positions are pretty high in my area, due
to high cost of living. But sadly, if you increased wages for L1
techs by 200%, it would be nowhere near $75K/year. L1 techs are lucky
to beat minimum wage by a good percentage, at best.

I started in tech support at $12/hour in 1996 and was making $16/hour
before I left the floor for bigger and better things 6 years later. This
was all pretty much the going rate for Austin at the time. Obviously things
are very different where you live.

The problem is,
to be a good L1 tech, you need many years of college PLUS years of
paid FIELD SERVICE (or large company network support) experience PLUS
superlative written and verbal communications skills.

I would have to disagree. Speaking as someone who has been an L1 and
trainer of L1s, the job is just not that hard. Anyone with those kind of
qualifications would be bored stiff working as an L1 and worse than that,
their skills and talents would be wasted.

I've trained people with those kinds of qualifications to fill L1 postions,
and the only reason they even applied was because they couldn't afford to
be unemployed looking for network administrator positions anymore.

This
practically guarantees that the only people who would make good L1
techs would laugh at the pitifully low wages offered by the position.
If the techs in your area are making $25K/year (1/3rd of $75K?), then
even in YOUR area, they are way underpaid for the education, skills
and experience required to do the job well. Thus, the only people
desperate enough to take the job are often ummmm, not very helpful.
The only way to get good technical support is to dramatically increase
wages.

That's a pretty simplistic view, even if I were to accept your premise
which I find faulty as I mentioned above.

It obviously aint gonna happen anytime soon. So if you need
to use a PC regularly, you'd better learn to maintain it yourself, or
marry someone really sharp.

Assuming that everyone who uses a PC regularly will eventually need
maintenance, which is also not a good assumption.

I started in tech support at $12/hour in 1996 and was making $16/hour
before I left the floor for bigger and better things 6 years later. This
was all pretty much the going rate for Austin at the time. Obviously
things
are very different where you live.


I would have to disagree. Speaking as someone who has been an L1 and
trainer of L1s, the job is just not that hard. Anyone with those kind of
qualifications would be bored stiff working as an L1 and worse than that,
their skills and talents would be wasted.

I've trained people with those kinds of qualifications to fill L1
postions,
and the only reason they even applied was because they couldn't afford to
be unemployed looking for network administrator positions anymore.


That's a pretty simplistic view, even if I were to accept your premise
which I find faulty as I mentioned above.

Assuming that everyone who uses a PC regularly will eventually need
maintenance, which is also not a good assumption.


So you started at almost double minimum wage. After six years you were
making a little more. I think you just proved my point. If you had the
skills needed, you were WAY underpaid, even before you left that position.
If you don't have the education and experience, then you are (basically)
just qualified to read a book and follow a flow chart. That is NOT helpful
at all to people who need to call technical support. So while the pay might
match the skills (in many cases), the skills don't match the job
requirements. The fact that many L1 techs would be "bored stiff" tells me
that they aren't allowed to think. THAT right there tells me that you and
most of the techs you were familiar with at L1 level were under-qualified to
be truly helpful. Oh, and the assumption that everyone who uses a PC
regularly will eventually need maintenance is a valid assumption . . . at
least as long as most PCs run windows. -Dave

"Dave C." wrote in
hlink.net:

I started in tech support at $12/hour in 1996 and was making $16/hour
before I left the floor for bigger and better things 6 years later.
This was all pretty much the going rate for Austin at the time.
Obviously
things
are very different where you live.


I would have to disagree. Speaking as someone who has been an L1 and
trainer of L1s, the job is just not that hard. Anyone with those kind
of qualifications would be bored stiff working as an L1 and worse
than that, their skills and talents would be wasted.

I've trained people with those kinds of qualifications to fill L1
postions,
and the only reason they even applied was because they couldn't
afford to be unemployed looking for network administrator positions
anymore.


That's a pretty simplistic view, even if I were to accept your
premise which I find faulty as I mentioned above.

Assuming that everyone who uses a PC regularly will eventually need
maintenance, which is also not a good assumption.


So you started at almost double minimum wage. After six years you
were making a little more. I think you just proved my point. If you
had the skills needed, you were WAY underpaid, even before you left
that position. If you don't have the education and experience, then
you are (basically) just qualified to read a book and follow a flow
chart.

It's pretty obvious that you have never been an L1 tech and therefore don't
really know what you are talking about. By the way, when I started in tech
support there were no flowcharts. We had to troubleshoot using a logical
thought process backed up with some basic knowledge of how things are
supposed to work. That is more than enough to be really helpful to people
who need to call tech support. Because the people who need to call tech
support don't have world shaking problems. They have simple hardware
failures that can be fixed by simply replacing parts. They have file
corruption that can fixed by replacing the files. People who call tech
support don't need someone to help them design their Novell network, not at
the L1 level. They don't need someone to help them design a new
motherboard, just get the old one fixed.

That is NOT helpful at all to people who need to call
technical support. So while the pay might match the skills (in many
cases), the skills don't match the job requirements.

You really have no idea what the job requirements are.

The fact that
many L1 techs would be "bored stiff" tells me that they aren't allowed
to think.

What I actually said was (as you quoted above), people with the
qualifications you cling to as a minimum for L1 support would be bored
stiff. But it's not from a lack of thinking, it's from taking a step back
to the simple types of problems from the early part of their careers. You
don't seem to understand that helpdesk work is an entry level position, not
the culmination of a career. Another example that you don't know what you
are talking about. Your position is essentially, that if little Johnny is
having problems calculating the terminal velocity of a falling object in
his high school homework, the only person qualified to help him is a
mathematics professor at the local university.

THAT right there tells me that you and most of the techs
you were familiar with at L1 level were under-qualified to be truly
helpful.

Until and unless you deal with me in a tech support role for an L1 type
problem, I deny you have any idea how well qualified (or not) I was for the
job. And since I've never given my counter-position of what L1
qualifications are, here they a Knowledge of basic problem solving
strategies (i.e. define the problem, identify causes, narrow down to likely
solutions), a firm grasp of logic and causality, experience and training of
how computer software and hardware are supposed to work (i.e. what are
drivers for, which cables go where, etc.), and effective communication
skills. In my experience, the ability to be helpful for the customer has a
lot more to do with the techs people skills than their technical skills.

Oh, and the assumption that everyone who uses a PC regularly
will eventually need maintenance is a valid assumption . . . at least
as long as most PCs run windows.

Okay, true enough, I'm willing to call that maintenance. On the other hand,
most software issues are pretty easy to resolve, now that the install
process is so highly automated.