Thanks to Ken
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Junior User
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 65
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Thanks to Ken
I am in NO WAY unhappy with Ken....he has been great and has assisted me in EVERY way possible. He is a very great asset and I truely think he is above any doubt. Thanks for the help and thanks for the site....ITS GREAT. I only talked to DIABLO because they were there...NUFF SAID
Thread Starter
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Junior User
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 65
Likes: 0
Thanks to Ken
seems I spoke a a tad bit too soon! Ken seemed to have forgotten about his end of the bargin and I seem to simply be without. Guess we all learn a little about people as time goes by.
Post Fiend
Joined: Jan 1997
Posts: 23,165
Likes: 18
From: Enjoying the real world.
Thanks to Ken
A five person shop such as ours can handle unforeseen problems, or a person being out of the office. But we had numerous unforeseen problems in a 10 day span and 3 of 5 employees not available during the majority of those days. I tried to explain this on the phone but to no avail.
While I can understand your being upset, the fact that I explained circumstances beyond our control in the last week seem to have little or no impact on the conversation and your follow-up here. Rather, it seemed to only make you more upset and abrupt.
First and foremost, I cannot work myself until I have a heart attack. That does no one, my customers, my employees and especially my wife and children, nor you, any good. The circumstances in the last week that simply made it impossible for us to keep up:
1. Monday, June 10th. New server went down. I spent 6 hours at the data center trying to diagnose the server and taking measures to keep it up and running.
2. Monday, June 10th. Wife starts college. She's not just my wife and best friend, she's also FTE's best employee and we've been working harder because she's only working half days now.
3. Wednesday, June 12th. New server down again. I spent 4 hours at the data center and 5 more back at FTE/Motorhaven taking care of it.
4. Thursday, June 13th. New server down again. I spend half the day at the data center again, pulling RAM out of the box to keep it alive. At the time I diagnosed it as a failing power supply.
5. Friday, June 14th. Our shipping person, becomes unavailable for three days (Friday, Monday and Tuesday). A 4 inch lump has been found on his 92 year old grand-father's left lung. I don't care how short-handed we are, family comes first and he's getting all the time off he needs to take care of his grandmother and grandfather during this crisis. As a single father taking care of a toddler he deserves to be applauded for his handling of this situation. The biopsy results should be available this week.
5. Friday, June 14th. Run away cron job on the server fills up the ford-trucks.com partition space and the forums die, erasing the threads. I spend the entire evening rebuilding the database from backups.
6. Saturday, June 15th. I spend the majority of the day finding a specialized rack mount server power supply for installation on Monday. I stay up until 4 am catching up on orders, email and other work I've missed during the week.
7. Sunday, June 16th. Finally get a few hours to spend with my family for father's day. Still end up working most of the day catching up on the last week.
8. Sunday, June 16th. A company I consult for calls up for service due to a problem with their server. Without my assistance they would not be able to answer customer emails.
8. Monday, June 17th. Frank (our customer service rep) and I spend nearly the entire day at the data center with the server. It turns out the motherboard is the problem, not the power supply. Mr. Cowley calls and explains to Frank that I promised to send out his chip the previous week. He then tells Frank, doesn't ask him, that Motorhaven will overnight the product. At this point, its already past the ship-out time for the day and I'm just starting on catching up from the last week. There's no way to get a product out the door. UPS has had their second and last pickup for the day and other packages are at the Post Office already. We don't have a Fed Ex account because they don't do daily pickups in our area. Frank never promised overnight shipping because of this. I was in the room at the time and heard Frank's end of the conversation.
9. Tuesday, June 18th. Spend 3 hours getting a new motherboard (its a specialty high end dual CPU motherboard). Start coding chips for the day. The previous night I tested Mr. Cowley's returned chip three times and it verifies 100% each time with the original code I programmed it with in February. Giving his product the benefit of the doubt, I program a new chip and put it in the shipping room. Per my understanding with Frank, because we couldn't get it to Mr. Cowley by Tuesday, Mr. Cowley would be out of town. It ships out Insured Postal Priority Mail which, on average, arrives much quicker than UPS and doesn't require someone to be there for delivery (the Post Office will hold it for 5-7 business days). Peggy stays up until 10:30 pm helping to catch up on shipments.
10. Wednesday, June 19th. Our shipping person, is now back at work. Mr. Cowley calls, very upset with Frank. Apparently Mr. Cowley delayed his trip by a day waiting on the chip to arrive Wednesday. We were under the impression he would be leaving town Tuesday (I assume Tuesday afternoon?). Frank, unable to discuss this to Mr. Cowley's satisfaction, gives me the call. I tried to explain our week to Mr. Cowley and explain that while I understand his anger there's not much I can do to get him the chip today. The conversation rapidly degrades and when that occurs its best to part ways until the conversation can cool off. I didn't even have an opportunity to at least offer a free FTE t-shirt, which is our policy when we do make a mistake.
I invite others to click the "Points" link under each of us and draw your own conclusions.
Given the events of the last week I believe we did a ourstanding job when you consider we were able to handle the majority of the shipments in that time. Yes, Motorhaven does make occasional mistakes. What company doesn't? But, for the record, our overall track record is outstanding and I am PROUD of our employees and the job they perform. I stand by them and by our reputation for handling problems. I believe if you ask our customers the vast majority will tell you we handled their orders promptly and when there was a problem we did our best to resolve it.
Sincerely,
While I can understand your being upset, the fact that I explained circumstances beyond our control in the last week seem to have little or no impact on the conversation and your follow-up here. Rather, it seemed to only make you more upset and abrupt.
First and foremost, I cannot work myself until I have a heart attack. That does no one, my customers, my employees and especially my wife and children, nor you, any good. The circumstances in the last week that simply made it impossible for us to keep up:
1. Monday, June 10th. New server went down. I spent 6 hours at the data center trying to diagnose the server and taking measures to keep it up and running.
2. Monday, June 10th. Wife starts college. She's not just my wife and best friend, she's also FTE's best employee and we've been working harder because she's only working half days now.
3. Wednesday, June 12th. New server down again. I spent 4 hours at the data center and 5 more back at FTE/Motorhaven taking care of it.
4. Thursday, June 13th. New server down again. I spend half the day at the data center again, pulling RAM out of the box to keep it alive. At the time I diagnosed it as a failing power supply.
5. Friday, June 14th. Our shipping person, becomes unavailable for three days (Friday, Monday and Tuesday). A 4 inch lump has been found on his 92 year old grand-father's left lung. I don't care how short-handed we are, family comes first and he's getting all the time off he needs to take care of his grandmother and grandfather during this crisis. As a single father taking care of a toddler he deserves to be applauded for his handling of this situation. The biopsy results should be available this week.
5. Friday, June 14th. Run away cron job on the server fills up the ford-trucks.com partition space and the forums die, erasing the threads. I spend the entire evening rebuilding the database from backups.
6. Saturday, June 15th. I spend the majority of the day finding a specialized rack mount server power supply for installation on Monday. I stay up until 4 am catching up on orders, email and other work I've missed during the week.
7. Sunday, June 16th. Finally get a few hours to spend with my family for father's day. Still end up working most of the day catching up on the last week.
8. Sunday, June 16th. A company I consult for calls up for service due to a problem with their server. Without my assistance they would not be able to answer customer emails.
8. Monday, June 17th. Frank (our customer service rep) and I spend nearly the entire day at the data center with the server. It turns out the motherboard is the problem, not the power supply. Mr. Cowley calls and explains to Frank that I promised to send out his chip the previous week. He then tells Frank, doesn't ask him, that Motorhaven will overnight the product. At this point, its already past the ship-out time for the day and I'm just starting on catching up from the last week. There's no way to get a product out the door. UPS has had their second and last pickup for the day and other packages are at the Post Office already. We don't have a Fed Ex account because they don't do daily pickups in our area. Frank never promised overnight shipping because of this. I was in the room at the time and heard Frank's end of the conversation.
9. Tuesday, June 18th. Spend 3 hours getting a new motherboard (its a specialty high end dual CPU motherboard). Start coding chips for the day. The previous night I tested Mr. Cowley's returned chip three times and it verifies 100% each time with the original code I programmed it with in February. Giving his product the benefit of the doubt, I program a new chip and put it in the shipping room. Per my understanding with Frank, because we couldn't get it to Mr. Cowley by Tuesday, Mr. Cowley would be out of town. It ships out Insured Postal Priority Mail which, on average, arrives much quicker than UPS and doesn't require someone to be there for delivery (the Post Office will hold it for 5-7 business days). Peggy stays up until 10:30 pm helping to catch up on shipments.
10. Wednesday, June 19th. Our shipping person, is now back at work. Mr. Cowley calls, very upset with Frank. Apparently Mr. Cowley delayed his trip by a day waiting on the chip to arrive Wednesday. We were under the impression he would be leaving town Tuesday (I assume Tuesday afternoon?). Frank, unable to discuss this to Mr. Cowley's satisfaction, gives me the call. I tried to explain our week to Mr. Cowley and explain that while I understand his anger there's not much I can do to get him the chip today. The conversation rapidly degrades and when that occurs its best to part ways until the conversation can cool off. I didn't even have an opportunity to at least offer a free FTE t-shirt, which is our policy when we do make a mistake.
I invite others to click the "Points" link under each of us and draw your own conclusions.
Given the events of the last week I believe we did a ourstanding job when you consider we were able to handle the majority of the shipments in that time. Yes, Motorhaven does make occasional mistakes. What company doesn't? But, for the record, our overall track record is outstanding and I am PROUD of our employees and the job they perform. I stand by them and by our reputation for handling problems. I believe if you ask our customers the vast majority will tell you we handled their orders promptly and when there was a problem we did our best to resolve it.
Sincerely,
Senior User
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 294
Likes: 0
From: 5280 Feet
Thanks to Ken
Well, personally I think Ken explained his side of the situation to the fullest extent possible. Ken, sounds like you have your hands full. You're doing a bang up job around here.
And rescuepilot, I understand frustration about not getting an expensive little piece of fun, but sounds like they are doing a good job trying to rectify the situation. Just my newbie .02. 
And rescuepilot, I understand frustration about not getting an expensive little piece of fun, but sounds like they are doing a good job trying to rectify the situation. Just my newbie .02. 
