PhoenixFire55, on 13 June 2017 - 04:29 AM, said:
LOL ... they always do what they can. Somehow that always ends up being nothing.
I mean, look, we've both lived long enough to know how customer service works at times. "Your call is very important to us, we will do everything in our power to yadda yadda yadda". Then nothing happens. Its not like this is the first time it happened, and its not like there is any different issue that is causing the problem in the first place. Same old backwater cheapskate servers ...
Sorry, but I only smell fish, tons and tons of rotten fish.
Well, let me stay amicable, because I understand the frustration quite well. When I play on NA, I am affected all the same.
Lemme talk about something I am clear to talk about because the NDA ran out.
I worked for the German government, as on-site junior admin of a Federal Ministry. This ministry coordinated efforts spanning the country, and as the landscape in Germany is, operates from two cities, Berlin and Bonn. These cities are across the country, one in the West, one in the East. To connect these two sites, the government established the information exchange Berlin/Bonn, IVBB for short (obv. a German abbreviation, but, you get it).
During an exercise named "state-spanning crisis exercise", (LÜKEX), where the actions and abilities of ministries working in conjunction to combat the crisis at hand (this one was for a european wide pandemic), the IVBB provided the connections upon which the two sites interacted, and where outside nodes were patched into the network. The network is also secured, etc., yadda-yadda. We, the on-site IT staff, only provided minor assistance, but we still monitored networking from our locations.
During this exercise, a major hub of the IVBB broke down. We, the on-site staff, have no access to those hubs, as the IVBB is its own department. It is beholden to all ministries, and not to a single one. We, the on-site staff, had to figure out why something was broken, slow, or outright unavailable. So we performed monitoring, and identified that our nodes were performing correctly. Both our site at Bonn and Berlin was operating at full capacity. Our connections to the internet were fine. Our ISPs confirmed this from their respective end points. So we went up the trail, and identified that it had to be the IVBB.
We had state secretaries, bosses, deparment heads, and staffers drop on us, lean in, and complain, "fix the damn thing", and so on. But it was out of our hands. We informed the public about the issues (acknowledgement), contacted the IVBB (escalation) and intensified monitoring on our end in case we could do anything to assist (readiness). Our clients kept complaining, but the ball was in the IVBB's court. And the hardware used in our ministry was brand-spanking new. Less than a year old. Huge project. Massive potential for unexpected increase in load. Redundant. We poured a lot of time and resources into our sites.
But, with the IVBB breaking down, there was nothing we could do further than acknowledge, escalate and be ready for when we could help. A day later, the IVBB had their issues fixed, and we were back in the game. I'd argue that government operations, especially during a crisis exercise, is a bit more serious than an obscure stompy robbits game. Yet, we faced a similar situation. A service outside of our reach was failing, and we had little course of affecting it. We poured in what we could, and we informed our clients to the best of our abilities.
What could we have done more? What should we have done?
PGI stated that they monitored and checked what they could. This is an open statement. They more than likely called who was providing their connection. They more than likely asked for the issues to be checked out. But, what do you think happens if an industry giant like Level 3 Communications is asked by a Canadian old nerd funtime simulator to "fix their sh!t"? That's right. "We're looking into it." - what could PGI then forward to us? "We looked into it and checked what we could. We continue to monitor the situation."
Any assumption of negligence and laziness is filling a gap of information absence. There is no information PGI could forward. And now it's up to you, the customer, to accept the current state, wait for resolution, and either bear with it or play something else in the interrim. But blaming PGI, and complaining about what evil/lazy people they are isn't helping you, them, or the situation.
Makes sense?