Well, it happened again. I lost the plot on Twitter … again. I deleted them a lot quicker this time, but a few people saw them … again…
Today’s “incident” was because I was juggling multiple SRs, where I don’t think I’m getting straight answers, and what I believe is a reasonable level of service.
Having deleted the tweets I put out this one.
I am venting because I have no filter these days, and I am quickly deleting them because I know they will cause problems for some of my friends inside Oracle.
I feel like I want to go to war over this, but I know the best thing to do is to go home and play with tech…
I’m sure the conspiracy theorists out there will make a thing out of these tweets disappearing, but what I said above is it. I was walking away from a fight because of my ties with Oracle, but not because I was worried about the impact on me. I have a lot of friends in Oracle and I know some of them get it in the neck when I lose my shit like this. Then I re-read my post called Oracle ACE = Oracle’s Bitch? and wasn’t too happy with myself.
The first draft of this post was me backing off from a fight. The second draft was me resigning from all ties with Oracle. Now I figure the most sensible thing to do is to try and figure out a way forward.
I have an incredible level of access to information and people within Oracle, but you shouldn’t have to be in my position to get a reasonable level of service. Part of what frustrates me about this is I know I can DM someone and “jump the queue”. Every time I have a meltdown, my DMs light up with people wanting to help, in part because they know me and genuinely want to help, and no doubt in part as damage limitation. It would be really easy to shut up and think, “I’m alright Jack!”, but then I’d become what I said other’s should not!
Where do we go from here?
Part of the Oracle re-branding is about being customer focused. What better place to start than support? It’s pretty clear that Oracle Support is in a really bad place. If someone quotes great resolution/response metrics to me, I would like to point them back to my previous post on the automated responses. I could also mention SRs with a status of “Solution Offered”, where IMHO no valid solution has been offered…
I’m happy to be part of the process. I’m not saying I can help, but I’m willing to try. I could do this in the background, because I now know the people in MOS I should contact, but I feel like this sort of thing needs to be public. To build any level of trust people need to feel like they are being listened to, see an action plan, and see that it’s delivered.
So come on Oracle. Put your money where your mouth is. Where do we go from here?
Cheers
Tim…
PS. You might want to read this old post called Oracle : Technology Company or Service Company?
PPS. I’ve now got some movement on my issues due to internal folks at Oracle, and one of the issues is due to my lack of understanding. 🙂 It was never about the SRs themselves. It was about the emotional cost of dealing with Oracle Support to get a reasonable response, even if that response is “Don’t be stupid, Stupid!”
If I made public the incredible amount of patches and support calls I had to log to get a release of 12.2 that actually worked (mostly…) as promised, they’d be in trouble to add even a single additional customer.
And from what I hear in NSW Australia they are on the way out precisely because of the horrible stability of their latest offerings.
Ah well, I warned about this many years ago.
Did they listen? Of course not, they always “know better”!
IMHO the problem with Oracle Support has always been the same. The terms of business mean it’s an effective monopoly. If a business wants to use a fully patched version of an Oracle product for a period of years, it has no alternative than to pay the subscription.
So Oracle Support don’t have to try very hard, they just have to pretend to be answering your call.
(I have occasionally had really good service from them, like the time when networks were down and Oracle Support were based in another floor of the same building. The guy I was talking to offered to print off the note and I could pick it up from their front door!)
Hi there Tim,
A really great blog post mate, you are echoing the feelings and frustrations of many of us within the Oracle (database) community at the moment.
Thanks for sharing!