ML Starkey's Weblog: Service with a smile!
Providing Technical Support to Sun's customers and other topics

Working holidays was something I never had to do until I came to Sun Services. During the time I spent as a system and network admin before coming to Sun, I was the "junior" on the totem pole and there was always a "senior" admin above me who did any holidays, night/weekends, etc. There was one notable exception in 1997 where the entire IT staff and hired consultants of my previous employer did a network hardware upgrade (3Com to Cisco) over the Halloween weekend. Other than that, I was lucky; a few late nights, but no weekends or holidays.

Sun's technical support is not as leisurely, no sir. Twenty-four seven, three sixty five, no exceptions. Excepting the regular after-hours folks, we are left with about 10 to 11 holidays that have to be covered. The good news is that not everyone has to come in. Only certain level contracts and T&M customers can get live support, so a skeleton crew is maintained. The bad news is that there are enough days that no one can escape doing at least one holiday a year. Most of us do several. I usually end up with Martin Luther King Day, President's Day, Labor Day and a good chunk of the Sun shutdown/holiday weeks.

Most Americans think of Labor Day as either the end of Summer/return to school or a last chance Summertime long weekend. Here in the Northeast, where pools will be closing and the leaves will start falling in the not too distant future, one last warm holiday is not something to squander. But I don't mind. I think in a way, it is fitting to work on Labor Day. After all, it is the day that "is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country."

May it always be so.

Providing technical support to Sun's customers is my mission. Providing service of one type or another is what I've done my entire working life, starting with my first job (movie concession stand), through my years at various manufacturing firms (factory expeditor, HR office clerk) right on up to my first computer support position 10 years ago. The pinnacle of my service career has been my 6+ years in Sun Services. I still get a kick from speaking to customers all over the US and Canada and helping them with their Solaris/Sparc questions and issues. Sun has the best customers on the planet and that is no lie!

I hope to chronicle here what it is like to be on the "front lines" of technical support here at Sun. I also hope to learn more about this thing they call "blogging". I have read plenty of blogs, but this is my first foray into actually writing one. So if my blog looks rather odd or sparse, it is because I'm a "newbie", so be kind.

But now, it is time to login in for my shift and take some calls. Maybe I'll be speaking to you later!