On Wed, 18 Sep 2002 06:22:02 -0400 Alex Chudnovsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > And yes, you may get fully professional support from somebody who > knows both Linux and Windows.
You are probably right that Windows knowledge does not automatically
erase ones brain (evidence to the contrary notwithstanding :-), so
one can still provide good Linux support alongside Windows --
Assuming he has good Unix/Linux knowledge already!
However, to gain any level of knowledge in Unix/Linux someone has to
dedicate significant amount of time (and it has to be absorbed over
time -- not very compressible). So taking 90% windows people without
prior (long) knowledge and make them support Unix/Linux does not work!
> I don't believe it's worth for the ISP to keep dedicated Linux support person, for
>several reasons :
> - Linux users are usually highly literate and may take care of their problems
>....
> - There is no reason to keep highly literate person for pretty high salary
>....
> Literate person costs a lot of money to train or hire. For the vast majority
> of Israeli computer users, "support monkey" is more than enough.
Good arguments. Let's start with the last one, because I tend to hear it in many
other contexts (Good programmers are expensive, let's throw more "monkeys" at the
problem.... "the mythical man-month revisited" :-)
What I think is that:
- It's important to put "support monkeys" on 1'st level support, to filter
and save the precious time of the "gurus".
- But if one has an ISP (or any other "high-tech" venture for that matter)
than this company must have some "gurus" for its own operations (proof
is left as an exercise).
So now the problem is -- how to correctly use the "guru" resources we have:
- The *internal* support expert can receive Linux support calls (not
directly, only through callback through 1'st level support filters).
- As you pointed out. Most of these calls would be cluefull enough to
help the provider diagnose his problems, so he only gains from this.
- If the support load is too high (many calls), than this ISP is big
enough to "justify" another support expert...
> Unfortunately, THEY would avoid YOU . Your resume just wouldn't pass their
> incoming "filter", if it bears no certification. Remember that those are HR
> people who do the initial filtering, and not IT people.
I know all that too well. That's why all these companies were bringing people
via word-of-mount ("Haver Mevi Haver") when they *really* needed them.
HR method of selecting people via buzzword-checklists is useless and doesn't
bring the right people for the job.
So now we have a (temporary) situation of "surplus" in high-tech people (but
also the big and costly HR departments are getting shrunk...). Don't let it
blur the view -- There aren't so many *good* high-tech people, and when you
need one, you don't find them via students lists of MCSE nor RHCE;
> It depends. The certification may be very valuable gem for the HR person, who
> does the initial CV filtering, and may as well mean nothing for the IT person
> who happens to be your manager.
Then this IT person let's the HR people make the rules for selecting *his team*
I know this is very common. I also know where it leads to...
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Oron Peled Voice/Fax: +972-4-8228492
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.actcom.co.il/~oron
"Windows is NOT a virus: a virus is small and efficient."
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