------------------------<snip>---------------------
The inflated issue gets given to the support team as a sev1 and may take
them away from sev2 problems (which may be mine!). And it may get you
known as an inflater. They aren't appreciated. I try to stay on good
terms with the service teams I work with (and am often not successful).
----------------<remainder snipped>------------------
In 35 years, I've had exactly 2 sev-1 problems. One involved the rush
install of new hardware when support code wasn't installed and the other
involved a system outage during the busiest part of the online services
schedule. (That was escalated to sev-1 by order of my senior management,
and I made that quite clear to the support staff when I discussed the
problem with them.) For reasons beyond my understanding, I NEVER was
refused access to support center duty manager on the admittedly very few
times I requested it.
When we purchased IBMLINK services, it was like a whole new vista had
opened before me. The various support center people that I had dealt
with were, in polite terms, less than conversant with the technical
language needed to fully describe a problem. With IBMLINK, I could enter
a full desciption of what I had diagnosed so far, with load module/csect
names, offsets, register contents, a short description of overall
conditions at the time, etc. More often than not, the only response I
got was the fixing PTF number, with a short description of the error
condition. And the ability to search the database for a similar problem,
without bothering anyone at level-2 support, was a Godsend; now if only
I had learned how to construct better search arguments, I'd have saved a
lot of search time as well.
And my local IBM marketing reps were wise enough to know the limits of
their knowledge; they gave me the tools, then stepped aside while I put
the tools to work. A rare quality and one to be valued highly.
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