Why having staff on call/site during rollover is tokenism.

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We're seeing more and more instances of businesses, utilities and emergency services having extra staff on call or on site during the rollover period, and good for them, I say. What I'm NOT seeing is much noise about those staff being on call or site for the next few weeks. This is pretty bizarre if you think about it.

If there's no problem, there's no need to have them on call at all.

If there's systemic problems, they'll be needed for weeks.

The only circumstances that would require staff on hand for one night are non-problems, or gonzo stuff, i.e. a system resetting but then coming back up again and working fine, or at most a breaker tripping or a putton push being required to restart. Anything bigger than that WILL NOT be fixed in one night. Actual software problems will take several weeks, minimum, to fix.

It's not hard to see what's really going on. Pay the money to put them on call for one night, and then take it one day at a time. That's fair enough, it's a sensible strategy. But no one is saying that. They are saying "No problem, but if, IF, there is one, our hard working and dedicated staff will fix it right away. Buy our stock!"

Just something to bear in mind if you get the chance to ask a "fully confident" PR flak about her company's contingency plans. How long can they sustain the staff levels they plan for rollover, IF THEY HAVE TO?

-- Colin MacDonald (roborogerborg@yahoo.com), November 18, 1999

Answers

Absolutely correct. It's windowdressing, to keep skittish investors in the fold. And right at the moment, with the DOW hovering around 11,000, I must say it seems to be working.

-- I'm Here, I'm There (I'm Everywhere@so.beware), November 18, 1999.

Exactly, this is just the same as announcing that we "have contingency plans in place". Most of the time no one except the person/s who wrote them have even seen them. But it's a nice thing to talk about.

-- wondering (wondering@nottoo.far), November 18, 1999.

Colin --

I am one of those 'dedicated, hard-working, intensely loyal, etc. etc. staff who will be on-site during the rollover. (Actually, from early on Friday, 31, Dec. until late on Sunday, 2, Jan.)

In case you haven't seen my diatribe about this, the company I work for has hardware that is known to be broke, as well as software the same. Some can be fixed in place, some can be upgraded, the rest must be replaced. The customers have done nothing. No upgrades, for the most part, no replacements.... it's going to be a 'wild ride'.

And when I asked, 'What am I supposed to do about broke hardware halfway around the world?' the answer was, and I quote, "Oh, you'll think of something." Now, is that a hoot or what?

-- just another (another@engineer.com), November 18, 1999.


In case you haven't seen my diatribe about this, the company I work for has hardware that is known to be broke, as well as software the same. Some can be fixed in place, some can be upgraded, the rest must be replaced. The customers have done nothing. No upgrades, for the most part, no replacements.... it's going to be a 'wild ride'.

And when I asked, 'What am I supposed to do about broke hardware halfway around the world?' the answer was, and I quote, "Oh, you'll think of something." Now, is that a hoot or what?

Why do you still work there?

-- (duh@duh.duh), November 18, 1999.


In the case of my company, it is partially to protect the poor slob who would have pager duty that weekend. If we get 100 tech support calls and have only one person getting paged for them, that would suck.

Of course, our boss has gotten a mandate from corporate that we are to have a contingency plan in case our customers can't reach us by phone, cell phone or email! Our votes have been for homing pigeons and smoke signals.

Celestine

-- Celestine (maxcel@swlink.net), November 18, 1999.



I suppose there are some processes that could be stopped before they get too far out of control -- a hand on the master breaker in case the needles suddenly peg, that sort of thing. Beyond that, I don't see why people can't be on call rather than physically present.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 18, 1999.

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