Wednesday, February 01, 2017

Why can't Sir Francis Drake report to me?

Sir Francis Drake set sail to explore the new world in November 1577.  His voyage was financed by Queen Elizabeth.  His mission was to return with treasure..  He returned in September 1580 and apologized to the Queen for being late. Queen Elizabeth's half-share of the treasure surpassed the rest of the Crown's income for the year.  In other words,  Sir Francis Drake, with zero supervision, wildly surpassed his goal for the year. 

Why can't I have staff like Sir Francis Drake?

Top Ten Reasons InterWorking Labs is a Superior Company Compared to Apple


#1  When a customer calls us about a repair, we listen to what she says about how she diagnosed the problem, and actually interact with her and give consideration to her findings.

#2  When we replace a defective unit, we do not provide a replacement unit with an obsolete version of the operating system.  We upgrade the replacement product to the latest version of our software. 


#3  When we replace a defective unit, we do not provide a replacement with an EARLIER serial number, meaning an older product, than the customer's product that needs repair.  Instead we provide an equivalent or later product.

#4  Most Apple employees could never get a job at InterWorking Labs because our standards are much higher.  Below is the equivalency table:

Apple Technical Guru (unstaffed) = InterWorking Labs senior engineer
Apple Genius Bar Worker = InterWorking Labs average employee
Apple Average Employee = would never be hired at InterWorking Labs

#5  Our employees do not use cutesy names for standard products; they never call a USB connector a "camera kit".

#6  Our employees know what a USB connector is.

#7  We do not make our customers who are covered by warranty, sign a document that describes the cost of the repair outside of the warranty period or service agreement coverage.  We are grateful for our customers and their business.  We believe our customers who are covered by warranty or a service agreement already understand the value of the warranty or service agreement and that's why they have it.  We fix or replace the product and return it to the customer without any editorial comments.

#8  When InterWorking Labs customers contact us with a product problem, we do not tell them that they can only communicate with us in a "positive" manner.  InterWorking Labs does not dictate the emotional tone of our customers' communications.

#9  When InterWorking Labs customers return a product for repair, we do not examine all the connector openings with an otoscope to see if there is water damage.  We do not believe our customers would use a network emulator or protocol tester in the shower or the bath tub.


#10  When a customer tells us that he needs to speak with someone with deeper technical knowledge to get questions answered, we find the appropriate staff engineer and arrange the communication.  We do not take our lack of deep technical knowledge personally and we do not tell the customer "you are not a very nice person".  

In spite of all of the above, I continue to use my replacement iPad.