Before I start this rant, let me say, I understand the benefits and advantages of staying current with software. I understand the need for upgrades. Anytime I hear about how old a certain piece of technology is, you're preaching to the choir. Yes, I have an odd fascination with old and outdated technology, but when I sit down to my computer, I'm not running my stuff with windows 3.1. When it comes to my music hobbies, I'm looking to get as much stuff onto high resolution flac files as possible. I'm not storing my ripped CDs onto optical platters in an HP juke box.
But....
I don't make the decisions on purchases and upgrades when it comes to my job. I don't approve a budget, approve purchases and upgrades, order parts, and make the things happen. I have a job to do, and that job is to make the stuff I am provided with work, and keep it working.
Meanwhile, the fine assholes at Symantec seem to also have a job to do, which involves making my life a fucking living hell! I'm convinced at this point that the mission statement for Symantec is to try their hardest to prevent the customer from getting any actual help from them.
This all started earlier this week, when I got an email from someone in one of our other locations about a folder that mysteriously disappeared. Well, no problem, that's what we have backups for. So, I remoted into their file print server, took a look at the backup jobs, and saw lots of red X's.......uh.....uh......oh shit!
Yeah.....would've been nice if the people at that location that are responsible for monitoring these things would actually check if the backups are running and report any problems to me, instead of just changing tapes, and then going back to their sandbox they've had installed in their offices so they can go bury their heads in it. So, now I've gotta sort out, what tapes they have, and what's on them. And when I go to look at a tape, I can't seem to get anything to work right to show me the contents of the tapes properly.
Ok, whatever, time to call in Symantec support here, so we can take a look at what's going on here, what's on the tapes, and what can be restored. So, I call up their support number, as I've done several times before, and go to open a ticket.
"What version are you calling on?"
"Veritas netbackup 6 MP 4"
"oooooh.....that went out of support....."
"Oh, ok then, I guess that means my end users don't need their data anymore, thanks for your help, asshole"
"Well, hold on now, let me see if I can open up a courtesy case for you"
hold music
"Oooooh.....sorry, you opened one a few weeks ago"
(which I was still working on, due to a backup of our windows NT 4 SP 6 box not working right, which after weeks and weeks and hours of going around in circles, the tech gave up on. Before you start screaming about how outdated this all is, I HAVE NO CONTROL OVER THE EQUIPMENT I AM REQUIRED TO KEEP WORKING, SO SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LET ME DO MY DAMN JOB, I NEED THIS PAYCHECK)
Well, I still need this data restored. We have a support contract with you assholes.
The VSN number you gave me expired in November of 2011.
We renewed it.
That's not in our system, do you have another number perhaps?
So, I talk to my supervisor, who forwards me a quote from our 3rd party vendor we purchase the support contract from. I pass this info along to the douche bag on the phone, who is unimpressed at this information since it still doesn't have a customer id that shows up in his system. I ask him if he could look up the 3rd party vendor in his system, but the only thing he wants is a number.
So, after going around in circles, we call in the 3rd party vendor, who gives us a number. I give them that number, and they inform us, nope, that id number only has support for the anti-virus, no netbackup support on it.
Mind you, we paid probably around $20,000 for support. I find it highly offensive that after spending money like that, these douche bags would treat us this way instead of providing us with support for our money.
So, after a few days of going around in circles and having the vendor research things, mind you this is a few days that one of our departments is sitting there without any of their data and work, we figure out that apparently symantec failed to tell the vendor when we purchased our upgrade that they weren't allowing service contracts to be updated unless we updated our version of netbackup. They took our money, but no one told us this, no one told the vendor this either. So, yeah we paid, but we weren't given a contract or support.
Meanwhile, the vendor is trying to do their best to get us support since we paid for it. The contact was like, open a paid case with them, and we'll take care of the charges.
Well, Symantec won't even open paid cases for our version of veritas.
Now, it's not like all of a sudden overnight all their techs lost the ability to work on this version. As it is, I was still working on my other courtesy ticket. They have the means and ability to help us. We are paying customers of theirs. We came to them, basically telling them, we need to use our backups, we lost data, we need it back, we have tapes, help us restore it. Despite the fact we bought their product, bought their support, and were even willing to pay them for their time to get the problem solved, while we worked towards sorting this whole mess out, they turned their backs on us and left us out to dry.
Meanwhile, the vendor came back telling us that, with our support we are eligible for an upgrade, so if we call them back, and don't press any buttons until we get an operator, we can ask to have help upgrading from versioni 6 to 7 (yes, that's right, we're only 1 fucking version behind, and they act as if we're trying to use windows 3.1), and then we can get support with the upgrade, and THEN, and only THEN, finally, we can get our data back with the help from their support.
So, I do as instructed from the vendor, keeping in mind the vendor supposedly got this info from symantec on how to do this. I get to an operator, explain the situation, and the operator is all like.....but, you haven't purchased the upgrade.
MIND YOU, WE'VE GIVEN THESE ASSHOLES $20,000 FOR SUPPORT AND UPGRADES!!!!!!
So, I'd just like to take a minute to say to all you fine people with Symantec...
FUCK YOU!!!!!!!
FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU
YOU ASSHOLES ARE WORTHLESS PIECES OF SHIT!!!!!!
At this point, there is nothing I'd love more than to never touch a piece of symantec software again as long as I live. But, once again.....I don't make the decisions around here.....otherwise, I'd be working on installing arcserv instead of typing this rant.
P.S.
For the record, once I get a case open, the techs are quite helpful. The tech that tried to help my NT backup issue was quite helpful and went above and beyond. And once I did finally get in touch with a tech about upgrading and restoring, he didn't even care about the version issue or the upgrading, and helped me check out the contents of our tapes and sort things out.
But....god, it was a fucking pain in the ass to get to a tech, the people responsible for opening the tickets are just awful, and work very hard to prevent you from opening a ticket and getting help from the friendly helpful techs.
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