Quality of IT contractors? Expectations?

[avgas]

Sounds unmotivated. He exchanges cheap rates and going the extra mile for not being pressured. He probably walks away from customers that "need it now" (even though they dont).

There is actually a point here.

As an engineer my time is charged out, and lately I have been getting lazy.
I can't be arsed doing things or chasing jobs.

The only thing I can put it down to is my charge out rate has dropped, and with my current company I am being charged out at half of what I was 3 years ago (previous company). I have no value in my work, so I add none.

If you want him to improve in any way. Put your money where your mouth is - set up a proper service agreement where he gets paid more, providing he improves his service.

[Gremlin]

Just to give you another perspective, which Stranger touched on (I work for a company that businesses outsource their IT to). I can plan a day of work nice and beautifully, get one call in the morning, and throw out my day.

I love to plan, but even after years, estimating how long a job will take (unless its something easy) is difficult and complex. Then one rings with an urgent job, so unfortunately, others have to wait, or, I get "Oh, while you're here..."

On the bright side, I wake up every morning, having no idea if my day is going to go according to plan.

The squeaky wheel gets the oil, we're all human, and sometimes something can drop off the list, if it's come by txt, or call. I often ask my client to send me an email with the details, as I use my emails heavily.

Communication is vital, so everyone is on the same page.

[Oakie]

One thing I find difficult to deal with is getting to site to fix something, then you get to site and find there are 3 more problems they want fixed.

Guilty as charged although we never ambush him with big stuff..

[The Stranger:Me]

Guilty as charged although we never ambush him with big stuff..

They never do, just 3 or 4 small jobs that weren't worth mentioning that take an hour or 2. Pretty much throws the whole day out and leaves the next guy wondering why the computer guy is never on time.
Hey, not complaining, just informing - it's the nature of the beast right.

[scott411]

we have a similar arrangement with a contractor, he is sometimes late, but always fair with pricing, i can do most of the easier stuff so he does not get called in to much, he also has remote access so if we have urgent stuff he can check up,

at one stage he did try to get bigger and employ someone else, the guy he employed was useless at actually fixing stuff, so he has gone back to a one man band and the service is better, i am happy with his service and if he is told it is urgent we are always there pretty quick,

the bigger company we used before was hopeless, they would send young guys out and they would attempt to fix the problems, normally cause something else, claim it was not them and try to leave, my opinion was always, the problem was not there before you came, so it is your fault, we used to test the sytems before he was allowed to leave the building,

The other difficulty is that computers are not like say an engine. With an engine there is pretty much a finite number of possibilities to go wrong. The number of possible combinations of software packages, service packs, operating systems, drivers and hardware etc is enormous. It is very difficult at times to accurately estimate how long you are going to spend at a job and therefore what time you will get to the next job.

with electrical ignition systems, carbs/injection, and now computers controlled efi and engine management it can be just as hard to sort out engine faults as well,

its lucky microsoft does not build motorcycles, "yes they just fall over sometimes, just pick it up and restart it, that normally fixes it"

[The Stranger:Me]

with electrical ignition systems, carbs/injection, and now computers controlled efi and engine management it can be just as hard to sort out engine faults as well,

Yep, not trying to put trivialise their work or put machanics down or something, but load Norton Antivirus on the engine computer then then take it into the shop and see how they get on. That shit can stop anything working properly.

[scott411]

Yep, not trying to put trivialise their work or put machanics down or something, but load Norton Antivirus on the engine computer then then take it into the shop and see how they get on. That shit can stop anything working properly.

having had my battles with Norton in the past as well I know that well,

[Gremlin]

That shit can stop anything working properly.

Including it's own uninstall... Sometimes it just doesn't want to go away...

[Oakie]

They never do, just 3 or 4 small jobs that weren't worth mentioning that take an hour or 2. Pretty much throws the whole day out and leaves the next guy wondering why the computer guy is never on time.
Hey, not complaining, just informing - it's the nature of the beast right.

Can happen the other way too. Our guy came in the other day to finish one of his projects. After he finished I said, "Hey come and look at a monitor for me. It fell of it's desk in the earthquake. The surround is broken and apparantly it doesn't work now. You just need to stand at the door look at it and tell me it's broken so we can tell the insurance company our IT guy said it's broken and needs to be replaced. Instead of just doing that though, he fired up the attached PC, worked out the guy's password and spent 10 minutes getting the display working including a check of the video card. Probably at no charge. I think sometimes they enjoy a challenge, even if it does make them late for the next job. Oh, I did come up with a timekeeping incentive for him a couple of months back too. Told him I'd make him a cup of tea of he got to us by 3.30pm. One day he even turned up early so he got a biscuit with his tea that day. Milk, no sugar.

[Latte]

Yep, not trying to put trivialise their work or put machanics down or something, but load Norton Antivirus on the engine computer then then take it into the shop and see how they get on. That shit can stop anything working properly.

+1 - norton used to have a "definition of a virus" on their home page - impossible to remove, degrades system performance, sends information without authorisation across the internet - and some other stuff..... funnily enough it described their product to a T.

[scracha]

too. Told him I'd make him a cup of tea of he got to us by 3.30pm. One day he even turned up early so he got a biscuit with his tea that day. Milk, no sugar.

LOL. Fresh coffee, friendly ladies and biscuits are all good incentives for IT types.

That said, I nearly* always ring customers if I'm going to be more than 15 minutes outside the appointment. I don't think its asking too much for any service agent to call up as soon as they know they won't be on time. Convey this to your IT guy.....you may be pleasantly surprised.

Tell your IT guy to use some form of online invoicing/time tracking software. That way he's not coming back at 7pm to do an hour of paperwork and the customer can see how long it takes to note down all these technical details. If he's anything like me, he'll have probably seen 10 different customers, had 25 emails, 10 text messages (I hate customers that text), a couple of dozen phone calls and not remember what he did 2 hours ago, never mind the details of the job in the morning.

As for comments about unprofessional, poorly documented jobs. There's good and bad. I've seen both excellent and hellish work done by major IT firms. Some (not all) of these large firms can be the prima donna's who are extremely difficult to work with. Some even tell the customer a pack of lies and try and pin all the faults on small outfits like mine**. A lot of it still depends on the guy/gal on the ground and if you've got somebody you can work with who's competent, honest and charges reasonable rates then my advice is to stick with them.


Outsourcing to India. Yeah...a few customers have responded to the phone calls and emails from "Mr Smith in Bangalore". Most come back.

Umm...Norton. I've actually found Norton Internet Security to be a reasonable product for the last couple of years. Bloody awful from about 2000 to 2008 though.

*I'm human...sometimes I get so engrossed in fixing something I lose track of time
**not that I don't make the odd fuck up...but I put it right and don't go out of my way to badmouth and highlight other firms mistakes.

[Oakie]

Umm...Norton. I've actually found Norton Internet Security to be a reasonable product for the last couple of years. Bloody awful from about 2000 to 2008 though.

True. It was a resource hungry dog back then but when I got it on my new PC 15 months back I was pleasantly surprised. So surprised that I paid for it when the trial period ran out and happily renewed the licence last month. This from a guy who used free AVG for years.

[pete376403]

. I think sometimes they enjoy a challenge, even if it does make them late for the next job. .

Some IT guys need to know when to give up - I've seen many cases where "I'm not going to let it beat me-itis" occurs and then the job ends up with a charge that far exceeds its value - printers are a prime example. More than an hour or two and it becomes cheaper just to buy a new one. Not too good for the planet but accountants don't seem to care about that.

[warewolf]

with electrical ignition systems, carbs/injection, and now computers controlled efi and engine management it can be just as hard to sort out engine faults as well,

Computers have a much larger set of possible systems/components and connections, and therefore things that can go wrong. They are very much built to a price in the sense that they are not made to interact with everything else out there, in every possible way, but rather it is expected they are administered by ppl who know what they are doing... ain't always so. Motor vehicles are quite crude, simple and robust in comparison. And they only tend to break individually...

[warewolf]

Some IT guys need to know when to give up - I've seen many cases where "I'm not going to let it beat me-itis" occurs and then the job ends up with a charge that far exceeds its value - printers are a prime example. More than an hour or two and it becomes cheaper just to buy a new one. Not too good for the planet but accountants don't seem to care about that.

You get the opposite as well, not wanting to spend on capital but happy to pay expenses. I recently handed off a job as wasting everybody's time & money, trying to get a (different) printer working like an existing one, which the next engineer eventually did sort out. Would have been better to buy another printer the same as the first one, for lots of good reasons.