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Software Technical Support Lines Most software companies have a technical support line customers can call if they have a problem with software they have purchased from the company. Problems range from simple tasks that the customer could have tackled by themselves if they had just read the manual before contacting technical support to severe bugs in the software that could disable critical functions such as making reservations in a hotel or calculating and printing out customers' bills. A customer support department within the company usually handles the calls that come in over these lines. The workload in these departments often follows a pattern of no new incidents at all followed by a sharp spike of incidents at critical periods of time like the end of the week or month. Cooperation among support engineers is important in these departments. If one customer support engineer can't solve a problem, others with more specialized knowledge of the problem domain probably can. Also if some unforeseen event arises that prevents an engineer from manning the line during his alloted time, one of the people on his team can sub for him. |
Most of the people working in the customer support department of National Robotics Software Company had been working for the company for years, so when the department hired two new employees all of a sudden it was a surprise. Everyone wondered what they would be like.
One of the new employees was named Evelyn. She wore glasses and tried to be friends with everyone. She hung posters around her cubicle and always stopped to chat when she bumped into someone in the hallway. Her cubicle was meticulously neat. Everything was in its proper place, but sometimes it seemed like she spent all her time putting things in order. The other new hire was named Paul. Paul always seemed to be in a rush. When he was at his desk there were papers and manuals strewn all over the desk. When people tried to interrupt him to ask a question he always seemed to be busy. When he passed people in the hall he'd nod and say hello, but never stopped to talked. His intense work habits also seemed to pass over into his personal life since he left the office promptly at 6 o'clock every night with a determined look on his face.
The workers in customer support were under a lot of stress since the software they were supporting was in its beta version and there were a lot of problems to be fixed before the final release. Dan the customer support manager came to appreciate both Evelyn and Paul's contributions to the group. Paul never seemed to waste a second and was a master trouble-shooter, narrowing the problem down to it's most likely solution in a matter of minutes. Evelyn had a more rambling style in her problem-solving. She often worked late into the night after a day that seemed to be consumed in chatting to others. But if one looked closely she might be seen to be hanging posters in her cubicle or talking to some customer on the phone leaning back in her chair, sipping coffee.
Anyway, one morning Evelyn was late for the early morning shift that covered customers calling in from the East to the West Coast for the first three hours of the day on the East coast. When the secretary on duty at the time noticed that Evelyn wasn't manning the customer support desk like she should have been, she called up one of the other staff and asked them to sub for her. Harry a Senior member of the staff volunteered and any potential problem was averted.
Next week, it was Paul's turn to man the early morning customer support desk. The secretary on duty at the time noticed his absence a little later than she had noticed Evelyn's the week before and when she called the other members of the support team to ask them to substitute, all of them either seemed to be busy or didn't answer their phone.
The phone at the support desk seemed to be very busy this morning and the secretary began to panic. What would she do? It turned out that the whole system of the company's most important client had shut down last night. The production lines had been shut down for several hours already and the lost revenue was enormous, mounting up with every passing minute. The secretary saw no other choice but to call the president of the company since she couldn't get ahold of the customer support manager Dan either. The president was irate and swore that whoever had put this major account in so much jeopardy would get what he or she deserved.
So when Paul came rushing in the door at 11 o'clock everyone's eyes looked at him and then at Dan's office where the president was sitting. They motioned him to go into the office. Not knowing what to expect Paul opened the door of the office to see what awaited him.