atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Inter-Tel Telephones & Systems Moved system - Major Alarm

Here is my question for you ..... did the customer know your limitations??

If they did and chose to hire you anyway then there is no issue ...... if they did not and you chose to represent yourself as qualified to move their system (and deal with any issues) then there is an issue.

Greg, First let's go back to the original post. You were offered suggestions as to what the problem may have been. You were also told MANY times that you were approaching the problem incorrectly when you kept mentioning the web interface. You still insisted that there had to be a way to do something and then went on to say how you could get root access and so on and so on. You chose to ignore the advice that was given to you by certified technicians. Your description sounded to me like a dead battery and my recommendation was to find an Intertel dealer who can troubleshoot and repair the problem. You again chose to ignore the advice but instead bash Intertel and demean telephone technicians by suggesting anyone can do this. You then go on to make several statements that make absolutely no sense at all. Lets cover a few.

"(though in the computer field it takes MANY more than 2 wires to make a valid connection)."

This one is laughable. You are not only in the company of telephone and IT professionals but also structured cabling experts. Most of us are well aware of whats required for voice and data cabling as we do this for a living every single day. FYI before you spout off any more nonsense. Many phone systems use 2 and some even 4 cable pairs to operate. That is MANY more than a computer.

"Having ANY system that has a default status of non-operational is a VERY poor design."

This one again is silly. Lets take a random company and look at their operational model. How about Cisco? What happens when a Cisco router loses its startup-config and reboots? Or how about a Sonicwall router? How about an Exchange Server? In its default state what is it good for? So then with your line of reasoning these companies are all concerned with the bottom dollar and not the customer's needs? I can just see you standing in front of the client explaining how their problems are a result of Intertel's shady business models when in fact their problems were a direct result of YOU now knowing anything about the phone system you were working on.

"As far as the programming of the phone systems, that is no different than the multitude of computer applications customers use to solve different problems"

Again so far off base here. That is like saying that programming a Cisco router is the same as learning how to use Peachtree. there is so much underlying information that needs to be known. Just like you need to understand IP addressing, subnetting, routing, CLI, and a ton of other things to configure a Cisco router you also need to understand quite a bit about the telephony field in general before you can competently service and maintain telephone systems.

I need coffee!

OK, let's rehash a few of your attempts to break down my statements.

"Many phone systems use 2 and some even 4 cable pairs to operate. That is MANY more than a computer."

HUH?!?!? Completely lost me there. Your most basic network wiring (10/100) requires 2 cable pairs, if you wanted to go Gigabit then it requires 4 cable pairs. Seems to me to be the same numbers there. I'm pretty good at math too, so I'm fairly confident 2=2 and 4=4. Laughable? Yes, your logic is.

So you are saying that when the CMOS battery in your computer dies, you would be perfectly content for it to show absolutely NO response when you power it on? And the Cisco routers, when you first hook them up and connect into them, do you THEN need to go to Cisco, get certification from them, and ONLY then can you configure them? Nope. Plug it in, bring up their web interface, and configure away.

"Programming a Cisco router is the same as learning how to use Peachtree." First, I would recommend you NEVER consider opening a business managing peoples books as a Cisco router would do a HORRIBLE job of it. And second, it is the same. Anyone who knows enough to understand what the purpose of the Cisco router is and WHY it needs to be configured, can typically get it into an operational state. Now, would it be the best tuned to the task at hand by them? More than likely no, but it WOULD be up and doing the job. And without needing to get certified by Cisco before they can even get a copy of the "configuration" software for that router.

I didn't choose to ignore advice, I realized it was most likely not applicable to this situation and pushed for more answers. I found my answers, and learned quite a bit about phone systems along the way. I apologize that I was not born with the knowledge that you apparently had the moment you entered the telecom field, but some of us attempt to continue learning as we advance forward in life.

To everyone else, I apologize for resorting again to this useless bashing. But if someone is going to call me out (and with such wildly incorrect statement that attempts to show their superior intellect) I WILL respond in kind and set the record straight.

That is our point ...... we have spent countless hours learning our trade ... and lots of money getting these certifications from the manufacturer.

You come on here and say it isn't needed..... while providing a perfect example of why it is needed!

You didn't answer my question about whether or not the customer was made aware of the gamble he was taking.

We all consider a customer getting their phone calls to be of the utmost importance and wouldn't do anything to put that in jeopardy.

Greg, the more you post, the more it becomes clear of your lack of understaning technology. Thats not a knock on you, but you need to know what your doing before you do it. The customer should not suffer because of your lack of knowledge.

First, You failed to see my sarcasm at your "many more than two post" I was simply making light of the fact that you made it sound like computer cabling was so much more complicated than telephone cabling.

Second, I was simply showing that other manufacturers have products that are dumb out of the box and do nothing at all. Its not a telecom industry thing like you made it sound.

Third, this is not a us vs. them thing. If you had posted to a Cisco forum explaining that you tried to configure a router and now the customer's network is down and you don't know what to do we would be having essentially the same discussion. I would be questioning why on earth you touched a crucial piece of equipment without having the technical knowledge to work on it.

I think you're missing the big picture here. How can you be comfortable with the fact that you caused the client's outage and then try to pass it off as Intertel's fault or the telecom industry's fault?

Answer this... Did you tell the customer that the phone system is down because of your lack of technical knowledge? or did you tell them all the silly nonsense you've spouted here.

You may be a very intelligent person and a swell guy. I don't know you personally so I can only judge based on the comments you have provided here and I apologize if I did any bashing. You will never be an expert at everything so learn your limitations and become an expert in the fields you excel at. Just because you think you can learn something does not mean its in the best interest of the client for you to attempt it.

To answer everyone's question... YES the client was fully aware of my limitations. However, given the fact that there aren't many "knowledgeable" phone guys (I should add reputable to that as well) they asked me to move all the wiring closet hardware. This wasn't the first phone system I had moved, and far from the first that I had serviced. It was, however, the first Inter-Tel, so I suppose that is where my lack of experience shined through the most. Not knowing the vagaries of that particular manufacturer to know that they have a fail safe built in so if something goes wrong, it would go way wrong. Lesson learned.

I have also spent countless hours learning my trade as well. Perhaps I should offer a bit of a background, I started in machining and did my apprenticeship in that field. As the economy turned back in the mid 90's I found myself unemployed for almost a year before getting hired on at a small machine shop (less than 10 employees). It was owned by a couple not much older than myself, as well as another gentleman who was also about my age. Their philosophy was, and still is to this day, bring us what others say is impossible and we will figure out a way to get it done.
While working there in a machinist capacity, I had to have a minor surgery that took me off my feet for awhile. By this point they were up to maybe 50 employees. Upon returning to "light duty" work they placed me in the office doing purchasing. It was supposed to be temporary until I could stand out on the shop floor for a full shift. About this time the owner (who had been maintaining their network) decided he needed someone else to step in. I have always had a love, and a certain knack, for computers and all things technology, so I started taking care of it for him. At that point it was about 9 computers, a little over half of them were hooked up in a token ring network, the rest were sneaker net.
When I left that company a few years ago (to strike out on my own and get the HELL out of California! (-: We had built that network up to 60+ computers, 7 servers (Linux and Windows mixture there) and he became my first customer for my new business. There was also a 2nd "sister" company now in place that employs another 30+ employees with a network of 10+ computers and 2 servers which I was responsible (still am) for building and maintaining. I also worked with his "phone guy" (who was the most helpful and always willing to teach someone who was interested some of the trade, just by the way).
Working with phones/phonelines themselves... I consider it a very logical, and straightforward concept. For a single line, there is a single pair, you keep that pair grouped and run properly and you can place a phone wherever it is needed. When you place the hardware of a phone system into the mix things get a bit more complicated, but the concept is still logical. Phone lines enter the hardware, it processes whatever is happening, call coming in, extension putting it on hold or transferring, hung up, whatever, and it re-routes that pair to whichever handset(s) it is programmed to. Please don't tear apart that breakdown, it is VERY basic and I've left a lot of the details out.
The simple fact that I don't know one particular vendors quirks does not mean that I am incapable. In fact I proved otherwise in the fact that this client is now fully operational (along with a handful of others from the past). When the system was not booting as expected, I routed critical lines to the proper desks where we setup phones to accomodate (1/2/4 line phones). The customer was NEVER without phones (except during the actual move of course) and I didn't bill for every single moment I was on premises because I don't operate that way.
My "lack of technical knowledge" was not the issue. If you tell me that you NEVER had a card in a phone not seated properly, I will outright call you a liar. Maybe it wasn't a card not seated, but a connection that you've made a million times before, that wasn't as solid as it should have been, or a (fill in the blank). My point is everyone, at some point, no matter how much "technical knowledge" they have in that field, makes a mistake and has to backtrack to find it. To be honest, I most likely would have found my mistake of not having the card seated fully a day or more sooner if I wasn't sent on a wild goose chase about lost db's and dead batteries. Instead of asking if I had checked the battery fault light to verify that was the issue, I was told that was it (with quite a bit of certainty it seemed) so that was the path I was sent on attempting to find a solution. Not a lot of support around here to try to call on, so I was left to troubleshoot as well as I could.
I have written millions of lines of code, assembled thousands of PC's, and done all kinds of networking configurations. I don't know it all. I know when I need to seek out more help in a particular area. I've sent my programming buddy (as he has done to me as well) many different emails with code attached that one of us just couldn't get to work properly, more often than not the return email consisted of "You dumb@$$, you left out a semi-colon, or didn't set a declaration right", or some other minute detail. It get's difficult to see the forest for the trees sometimes and a new pair of eyes (or a new line of thinking) sometimes rattles you right back on track. I'm sure every one of you has encountered that one!
On a final note, about the countless hours learning your trade. Bravo. I applaud everyone who commits to learning something and does so. I have several friends who did the whole college route, and virtually EVERY one of them if I ask them how much of what they learned in school gets used regularly, they will reply "Almost none". It was all the after-hours, self studying that they use in their day to day lives.
Thank you for your candidness, and directness. I do appreciate that. But I refuse to go to one of my clients and tell them, sorry, you'll have to find someone else in this area that specializes in that. When it is so closely tied to my field already. I'm not going to run a new power drop for someone (though I'm sure I could learn how and do it without an issue) but when their choices are severely limited, my response always has been, and will continue to always be - "I'm not that experienced with exactly how ABC works. But I'll be back in a day or two and I'll have some answers." Sometimes that answer is "After reviewing it in more depth, this is a task we should probably call in someone else for, here is a list of people I've gotten personal recommendations for."
My customers hire me for answers, not for me to inform them that I'm sorry I can't do that, you'll have to find someone else. I am working towards becoming an expert in the fields I excel at, just because I hit a roadblock with one particular vendors hardware doesn't mean I now feel incapable. Rather I now feel more capable, I will definitely be researching the common pitfalls, and things to look for before moving anything. But I will find an answer and I will continue to push myself out of my comfort zone so I continue to learn and expand my knowledge.
Fortunately I have found a local telecom person, who is willing to share some knowledge with others. So I shouldn't have to bother this forum with my questions. I don't really see the purpose of this forum however, if everyone is only supposed to be working on what they are expertly skilled at. But I suppose that's just for me to ponder.

Not to jump in at the end, but how much time do you think you have spent on this project versus how many more projects you could have gotten that you KNOW and would/could do at a very high level of expertise? You probably could have done two more jobs that you KNOW how to do by now, which from a business perspective would have been many times more profitable.

I have to agree with the others. If this was something you were an expert in, then you would have been fine. Since you weren't/aren't, then you should have had replacement parts to get the system back up and running at a moments notice, (even though phone systems tend to be rock solid as you have seen). If you didn't have the means to get replacement or backup parts, then you should have at least had another plan of action for the customers sake rather than posting on the internet looking for help as their system was "dead in the water".

Just my two cents...

Agreed, but how much was learned because of this project? A LOT! And not just about the phone systems, but about the society surrounding them. The cost of education is not often considered, but I think of it as very profitable time.

And for the record, they were never "dead in the water". The customers were always operational and kept informed through every step of the way. They had backup plans in place for the phones during the transition, we just had to utilize them longer than was original intended. And place a few other plans in place along the way. The customer was never at risk of losing business, or operating at a decreased capacity. All the issues took place during the physical office move and desks weren't setup anyway for the phones to be used at. By the time that was all done, I had found my answer and they were back to full capabilities.

Though we did cut it a little too close for comfort! (-:

By the way. If you go to the Inter-tel/Mitel web siie you will find many authorized dealers in your area. Inter-tel is or was located in Scottsdale not far form your area. Search and you shall find.
Nerver put ther customer at risk, even if it means you don't make as much.