Just another Hylander rant

[[AK]Hylander]

I'm venting, so if you don't feel like reading a long winded bitch about the declining customer service in the US, incompetence and the lack of dedication to ones job, then please mark as read and move on.

Sonic may relate to this, since its ATM related. FiServ (they drive our ATM network) is requiring that all ATMs on their network upgrade to 3DES encryption and we also need to update all ATM to meet ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) requirements which include all ATMs not only have braille keypads, but a headphone jack and voice menu / interaction system. I've been working on this project for about 2 months. We have a very small network that we own, only 6 units in the county. Two of our ATM were old Fujitsu 7005s which needed to be replaced with 7015s. The remaining 4 ATMs were 7015s that could just be upgrade with software and the headphone jack.

So I place an order with BVI for 2 Fujitsu 7015 replacement ATMs running Diebold 912 emulation and the upgrade for the other 4 units at a total cost of just under $40K. So I do my normal project planning and speak to our project coordinators at BVI and also CDC (Coin Depot Corporation) who needs to be there for the transfer of the money from one ATM to the other and the network balancing, etc. I confirmed with BVI last week 3 times, once by email - two by telephone that the schedule was the 2 installations beginning at 9AM today, and the other 4 upgrades being 2 a day tomorrow and Thursday. "No problem, we are set to go". Yeah, famous last words and I told my wife yesterday I expected problems due to the casual "no problem" attitude I was getting. Prior to this, myself, The President (my boss), the VP of BVI, and the 2 project coordinators had a conference call. The 2 new ATMs were to come pre-loaded with the OS and Applications software and all that was needed was the physical removal of the old ATMs (unbolting form the floor, etc) and installation of the new one, reload our DES keys, send a download from FiServ.. and voilÃ*. 2 hours MAX they tell me. "Yep, they will be ready to go".

This morning. I get up at 5AM and go into the office at about 7AM to catch up with voice mail, etc since I was off Thurs and Friday for a long weekend. No out of the ordinary voice mail messages, nothing from BVI or CDC concerning our project. 8:45AM I head down to the first installation site. 9:00, 9:10, 9:20 NOBODY has shown up. I call and check my voice mail and CDC called at 9:03 to say their employee got stuck in traffic due to an accident and should be there by 9:30. Nothing from BVI. 9:25 CDC shows up. 9:35 BVI contractor shows up with 2 new ATMs. Ready to install except for one problem, NO BVI TECHNICIAN. I call BVI, "he's on his way". 10:00AM. No tech. 10:30. No tech. By now we already started by removing the money from the old machine and put it into the new hoppers, etc. Removing old ATM and putting new one in place. 11:30 NO BVI tech. I call BVI again and they said they would contact the tech and have him call me on my cell. He calls ... he'll be there in about an hour. AN HOUR!! 9AM schedule start time and he'll be there are 12:30?? I get on phone and call VP of BVI and went off on him. First off, I confirmed 3 times for the 9AM technician arrival. Secondly, due to his delay to show up to setup the new ATM, CDC could not leave the site until the new money was put into the ATM, locked, and uploaded balance to network. Could not be done considering technician needed to be inside machine to attach networking, etc. So I called CDC and they sent out a Second technician to stay at the first site while the other went with the BVI contractors to begin the physical installation of the 2nd ATM. The technician from CDC was costing me about $900 for the day (to basically stand around), and now I have to pay for a 2nd one which ended up for 9 additional hours (including over time). Where do you think that money is coming from? Well, considering I'm personally sitting on the invoices from BVI and have not authorized payment on them yet... you can guess!!

But wait.. theres more! Oh yes... The ATMs came WITHOUT THE SOFTWARE INSTALLED! The machines weren't even prepped or ready. The technician did have the OS, applications, etc with him so he installed it which took about 45 minutes or so. Then he ran into a problem with the DES taking hold which took about 30 minutes to resolve. In the meantime I've made about 5 trips back and forth between the 2 sites because we didn't remove a device the technician needed from the old machine, but was on the truck at the other site, trying to re-coordinate, etc. We would have known this IF HE HAD BEEN THERE TO ADMINISTER THE ATM REMOVAL! THEN... we find out that although the ADA headphone jack is there.. there is no Sound Card installed because they don't have software for it yet. So not only did the 2 ATMs arrive with no OS or applications installed, they are not ADA compliant to begin with. Now, FiSERV is not ready to 'turn on' 3DES yet, but we needed to get it done anyways so we can simply enter the 3DES keys when FiSERV goes live. So... about 3:45 the technician finishes the FIRST ATM install and I do a couple of test transactions, etc. All working. This is important because this location is our number one transaction spot.

So we head to site number two. On the way there I call BVI again to yell about their incompetence and inquire which part of the schedule we discussed, I put into document form which was signed by them and returned to me, and further discussed several times last week didn't they understand?? "We apologize Scott, but we will get both done for you today - we promise". Uh huh. Technician goes to install OS on 2nd machine... seems OK, reboot.. BONK. Crashes. Tries again and for some reason the load takes like 50 minutes to install. BONK. Crashes again. It's now 6:30 and third attempt at OS install. About 6:50, BONK. No go. "Must be something wrong with the hardware". YA THINK!?!?!?!?

So I leave site at 7:30 now totally behind schedule, scrambling to get new motherboard, CPU, hard drive, software copies, etc sent to that site by morning and then still find a way to complete the 2 "upgrades" tomorrow - which the technician said he hadn't received the kits for yet but would have a 2nd technician bring them with him in the morning. Yeah, they were kind enough to send a 2nd technician tomorrow (after I made it clear I would accept nothing less) to play "catch up".

Long fricken and frustrating day. Now, I expect problems and I know things don't always go as planned. I'm not blind or irrational with my expectations. But this company flat out LIED to me and told me this, this and this would be done, had already been done, and none of it was. If the machines had arrived as instructed and promised, and a problem arose - we would have had plenty of time to address it. But since their technician showed up 3 1/2 hours late, and nothing was loaded ahead of time, its painfully fricken obvious they didn't test the machines before sending them out to us! (AS THEY SAID THEY WERE).

The worst part of the 2nd ATM install? It's at a liquor store and I don't drink!!!!

Excuse me while I put a dressing on my exposed nerves.

One positive out of the day... Pres informed me the Board approved my promotion to Assistant Vice President of Administration. Should go into effect sometime this month - If I'm not in prison for pummeling our vendors.

[[AK]Clay]

Would this be a bad time to post that I had a great fricken day at work today?

The presentation of my high temperature non-ideal solution ionic dissociation reaction equilibrium theory and reactor mathematical modeling results at work (I'm a chemical engineer) left a lot of people finally impressed that I really do know what the Hell I'm doing - and I'm doing stuff that nobody else in the building can even touch.

Ego Rush!

-Clay

[[AK]Sonic Boom]

AAAHHHHHH!!!!

Certainly some things that I've dealt with before. I've had more trouble with armored car companies than you can possibly imagine. (okay, I'm sure you can imagine it...)

I'd consider backcharging your vendor and then arguing about it with them Ex Post Facto . Also, $10k a pop for floor-mounted ATMs sounds awfully expensive to me.

I'm glad you survived the ordeal. I'll have to tell you some of my stories if we ever get to sit down over a sasparilla someday.

[[AK]Hylander]

AAAHHHHHH!!!!

Certainly some things that I've dealt with before. I've had more trouble with armored car companies than you can possibly imagine. (okay, I'm sure you can imagine it...)

I'd consider backcharging your vendor and then arguing about it with them Ex Post Facto . Also, $10k a pop for floor-mounted ATMs sounds awfully expensive to me.

I'm glad you survived the ordeal. I'll have to tell you some of my stories if we ever get to sit down over a sasparilla someday.

Yeah, they've only received about $18K of the $36K - so I'll certainly be 'negotiating' prior to any more funds being disbursed to them.

The $36K (I actually think it's a touch under for everything) consists of 2 refurbished Fujitsu 7015s, the installation/upgrades of those 2 ATMs, and the 4 upgrades including the required hardware for ADA, etc. BVI is definitely not the cheapest (we had some slightly lower bids with diebolds from a few other vendors - but we wanted to stick with Fujitsu), but since they are our second line provider, we tend to make our purchases from them so we have leverage when there are problems.



This looks pretty much like what we have, except we have the slide reader, not the dip. We also are cash dispensing only, no deposits.

[[AK]StitchJones]

In the middle of all of this, did you get VMware working yet

[[AK]Hylander]

In the middle of all of this, did you get VMware working yet

You bastage! And no, I also haven't messed with the V:H Error message in SuSE yet either!

[[AK]StitchJones]

your V:H is still hosed. geesh, you can't even get a 14" monitor to display a KDE session (ha ha ha). U need another vacation badly, your starting to get grumpy like Squidly!

[[AK]Squidly]

I'm not grumpy. In fact I'm downright giddy with happiness. Don't read anything into my posts when I don't shower them with angels and hearts and kissy faces.

[[AK]Hylander]

U need another vacation badly, your starting to get grumpy like Squidly!

Oh god, am I getting THAT bad??

[[AK]Squidly]

Do you need another huggie?

[[AK]Hylander]

Do you need another huggie?

[[AK]Devil_Dog]

I need a huggie, Hylander never turns on his messenger anymore....

[[AK]Rocks]

Maybe you should cover your ATM's with that chemical stuff Clay is working on and use the insurance money. Clay how many arms do you have, and how long does it take for them to grow back?

[[AK]Devil_Dog]

Maybe you should cover your ATM's with that chemical stuff Clay is working on and use the insurance money. Clay how many arms do you have, and how long does it take for them to grow back?

ROFL....

[[AK]Hylander]

I need a huggie, Hylander never turns on his messenger anymore....

Well I haven't been the last week since last weekend was a 5 day 'holiday' for me and I did alot of yard work, running around, etc so I wasn't on much. Then if you read this post, you could understand why I haven't been on during the day the last 2 days.