·:[ Jason On A Shtick ]:·
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I worked for IBM for nearly thirteen years.  Sometimes I wonder how the company actually makes money.  I can tell so many stories as examples of how a giant company can be too big to function.  It is as an IBM customer, however, that I may have the best story of all.

At school, we get matching grants credit toward hardware from IBM.  Thanks to some generous alums employed there, we usually have enough credit to buy several computers each year.  This summer, we decided to use our grant money to get a server for managing backups.  Like everyone, we are tightening our budget belts so using the credit for this need seemed like a great idea.

Here is a time line of events surrounding our IBM server order…

• June 27-28: I spec out a server on ibm.com for the order.  This process takes a while because the form to customize the server is partially broken.  It gives an error for not having picked an OS to be installed, but gives no option to pick an OS when I select a certain configuration.  I end up saving the spec as a quote and having it e-mailed to myself.
• June 29-30: I exchange several e-mails with our matching grants representative.  The e-mail quote generated by the ibm.com site uses four digit “feature codes”, but nobody inside IBM can process these.  She has to send it to a special group known as Techline to convert the four digit numbers to seven digit numbers.
• July 1-2: Techline responds with a completely different configuration because they cannot translate some of the four digit numbers to any seven digit part number equivalent (I can only tell you from having been there that part numbers are a complete fiasco).  I spec out a new machine and try to use options that I know they can convert.
• July 3: Eventually, I settle on one and e-mail the rep a PDF scan of the filled out grant form with my signature (they have accepted this for previous orders) but later I am asked to fax it because they cannot accept a PDF scan.  I finally send the fax at the end of the day.
• July 13: After a week with no word, I send an e-mail to the rep to confirm receipt of the fax.  I get an auto-reply saying she is out until October and to contact her backup named Angie.  I send an e-mail to the address given in the auto-reply, but get another auto-reply from Arthur, so the rep’s auto-reply is wrong.
• July 15: I ask a friend still employed by IBM (they are getting fewer and fewer with all the layoffs) to look up Angie in the directory.  He finds her and gives me her contact information.  I e-mail her and explain the situation.
• July 17: Angie replies that the order was never placed by the first rep, but that she will take care of it and expedite it if at all possible.  She is very apologetic and helpful.
• August 11-12: I send Angie an e-mail asking for an order status.  She can only tell me that the order has been placed and she will try to find out more.
• September 10: I receive a paper mail from IBM with a confirmation of the order and a breakdown of the included server options (with seven digit part numbers).  The letter is dated August 22 and states that the order has been processed, we should allow four to six weeks for delivery and since parts will be shipped based on availability, we may receive several shipments (there’s nothing like ordering a server and having to assemble it yourself).
• Evening of September 10: I receive an e-mail from Angie saying that the server model is now end of life and that I need to select a new one and place another order.

Now I ask you: if I have this much trouble ordering something that I basically get for free, why on earth would I spend real money on IBM hardware after this experience?  What really gets under my skin about this whole episode is that those of us in the trenches at IBM saw very broken things like this process and tried every way possible to convince our bosses that it needed to be fixed.  But such is the way in a huge company – crap only flows in one direction.

Anyone know of a trade market for IBM matching grants dollars?

After a year and a half as an IT director, something has happened that I never imagined: I don’t really like technology anymore.

When I first took the job, it was a big challenge and I was up for it.  The school had some aging infrastructure and older software; it was an appealing idea to design a fresh strategy.  But after a while, it became clear that the only strategy one can have with technology is to mount a continuous battle of keeping it updated.  There is no stable, settled mode – there is always something new, something to update, something to fix.  The decisions we end up making are less about what will be beneficial and more about what we can live without or what can wait to be fixed.

This constant churn is made worse by the realization that technology is no longer simple for anyone.  Nothing is easy – even a new computer right out of the box is daunting for most people.  It will surely be missing something that they need or they won’t be able to figure out how to use it.  And nothing seems to work on the first try.  We find ourselves taking second and third passes at things that should be simple, and we are the staff that the campus relies on for answers!  If it is hard for us, how can it be easy for  the average user?

Some say that you bring the churn on yourself, that it is your decision to update and upgrade.  But you simply cannot afford to just get things working and leave them alone.  It would be one thing to forgo features and functionality in return for stability.  But in our great software era, you risk the one thing that you absolutely cannot afford to if you stand still: security.  There is always an update or patch that simply must be applied if you want to protect yourself.  And hardware fails – period.  It is inevitable and you must plan for it and deal with it.

Add to all this a budget crunch that brings focus on how many IT people you have, not on what they do to keep things running, and it makes you wonder if you are fighting a battle that can never be won.  We rely more and more on technology for everything, yet we seem to be “pissing up a rope” in trying to manage it all.  How long can you keep that up?  I am getting old and my aim is not that good anymore.