Re: Metalink forums - effects of the outsourcing

Fortunately I haven't had to use Oracle support in about 6 years. That's one of the great things about this list

But I did have a problem those 6 years ago and my boss wanted me to get Oracle involved. I told him what would happen

1 - I call Oracle and eventually talk to an "analyst" who will pick out one to two buzz words from my description of the problem.

2 - The analyst will feed those buzz words into a search engine of Oracle white papers and it will kick out about 10.

3 - The analyst will mail those white papers to me with some sort of "Hope this helps" comment.

4 - The white papers will have absolutely nothing to do with my problem.

-------------------------End of the First Week
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5 - I call back and state that the papers didn't help.

6 - I am transferred to a 2nd level person who can actually understand what I'm saying.

7 - This person will point me at several sources which actually do have to do with my problem --- but I've already read them and they don't solve it.

8 - I call back and am told that someone will get back to me.

9 - Eventually someone from the development team or lab gets back to me.

EITHER 10a - They know exactly what the problem is and can give me the fix right then

OR

10b - They say something like "That's interesting ... " and call me back 2 weeks later with the exact fix.

TOTAL TIME - 2 to 4 weeks.

It played out exactly as I'd told my boss it would. I was fortunate in that the guy from the lab had just finished dealing with the exact problem that I had and it took all of 15 minutes to implement his fix which worked perfectly.

If you can get to that 3rd person (and you can afford to wait all that time) you get a good solution (without fail in my experience). However, getting to that last person requires patience, perserverence and the ability to not slam down the phone in disgust when lesser beings just can't seem to understand what you problem is, what you've already done, and what you'd like them to do.

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