lrb@rrivax.rri.uwo.ca (Lance R. Bailey) (11/05/90)
this week's HP kvetch..... back in august (late) we ordered an HP 822S. we were told a 10 week lead time. fine. after about 4 weeks I started asking questions such as "how many boxes will this thing 1) arrive in , and 2) consist of after assembly. when i ordered my last 7937 it came in 2 boxes, and being as this 822 has LOTS of disk, plus a system box and .... i really had no idea the size of the final product or shipped product. I got answers ranging from 1 box to 5 boxes, with an assurance that "when it hits customs we can know for sure". well it must have jumped right over the border because on wednesday i got a box labelled "1 of 1". It was an AUI cable. jokingly we asked each other how many more 'shipments' to expect. thursday morning box 1of4 through 4of4 arrived. thursday afternoon another box 1of1 arrived. this is ridiculous, when i order a system worth of 50,000 dollars (CDN) i expect to know when it has arrived. I phoned my HP rep, after two days he got back to me and said to the effect "hmmmm, i'll have to check the database." apparently he is still checking. he has had 5 weeks to check since i first asked. my friend on campus suggested "Don't start assembling it. Oh, too drastic a step, huh? Well then, how about assembling only those things that come "packaged" together: the AUI cable obviously doesn't attach to anything because it came in a 1of1 shipment. The 4 boxes can be put together and the last 1of1 box should also not be connected to anything else..." so's i finger to myself --- hey, hp's a smart company [sic] thus, box 1of1 (ie: the cable) is complete and it must not connect to anything else, EXCEPT ITSELF. so i pull out the cable, GOSH a male on one end, and a female on the other. well, let's plug 'em togethor. yep, fits darn well. then i noticed the paper in the box. INTRODUCING THE HP INFINITY-NET ------------------------------- to meet the need for faster, faster, faster networking, HP has brilliantly merged token-ring and ethernet to create the bastard network media 'ether-ring (tm)' the AUI cable when connected to itself, spins the electrons around and around the cable faster than the Flash. honest. the information, having nowhere to go, never gets lost and is always where it is headed. HP foresees a lot of government orders...... WARNING ------- if you unplug the cable -- vewwwy quickly -- then some of the spining electrons will shoot out of the cable end. DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS ON A DAMP FLOOR. seriously though, when our Vax arrived, we got it all in one big lump, oh yes, the tty's were on a distinct pallette, and each of the big cabinets were a box unto themselves, but the DAMN THING ARRIVED ALL AT THE SAME TIME with a nice 'system list', (NOT a bill of packing) that listed box 1 of 6000 through box 6000 of 6000. HEY HP! THAT IS HOW YOU SHIP A LARGE COMPUTER take a lesson from DIGITAL, even from DELL! Lance R. Bailey, Systems Manager ================================ box: Robarts Research Institute email: lrb@rri.uwo.ca Clinical Trials Resources Group fax: 519.663.3789 P.O. Box 5015, 100 Perth Dr. vox: 519.663.3787 ext. 4108 London, Canada N6A 5K8
bb@reef.cis.ufl.edu (Brian Bartholomew) (11/06/90)
In article <1307@ria.ccs.uwo.ca> lrb@rrivax.rri.uwo.ca writes: > back in august (late) we ordered an HP 822S. we were told a 10 week > lead time. fine. after about 4 weeks I started asking questions such as > "how many boxes will this thing 1) arrive in , and 2) consist of after > assembly. > when i ordered my last 7937 it came in 2 boxes, and being as this 822 > has LOTS of disk, plus a system box and .... i really had no idea the > size of the final product or shipped product. > I got answers ranging from 1 box to 5 boxes, with an assurance that > "when it hits customs we can know for sure". well it must have jumped > right over the border because on wednesday i got a box labelled "1 of > 1". It was an AUI cable. jokingly we asked each other how many more > 'shipments' to expect. > thursday morning box 1of4 through 4of4 arrived. thursday afternoon > another box 1of1 arrived. > this is ridiculous, when i order a system worth of 50,000 dollars (CDN) > i expect to know when it has arrived. I phoned my HP rep, after two > days he got back to me and said to the effect "hmmmm, i'll have to > check the database." apparently he is still checking. he has had 5 > weeks to check since i first asked. > seriously though, when our Vax arrived, we got it all in one big lump, > oh yes, the tty's were on a distinct pallette, and each of the big > cabinets were a box unto themselves, but the DAMN THING ARRIVED ALL AT > THE SAME TIME with a nice 'system list', (NOT a bill of packing) that > listed box 1 of 6000 through box 6000 of 6000. > HEY HP! THAT IS HOW YOU SHIP A LARGE COMPUTER take a lesson from > DIGITAL, even from DELL! Yes, this is another story that I can corroborate, at least for the hardware. When we got our 8 HP's, most of the hardware boxes arrived over the span of two months. They were actually shipped to the wrong building and department, so we had that building's personnel collect boxes for us until we got a big enough batch to retrieve. We were only able to guess about when we had enough equipment to form a complete computer by the size of the boxes, as we had no packing list, or phone call from HP when all the equipment was supposed to have arrived. On the other hand, we got all our software and paper documentation at once, in a *700 pound* crate. The shipping department drove it down the road on a forklift, up to the dock on our building. The binders were packed in boxes about 1 foot cubical, which in turn were packed in a large crate-sized cardboard box, with foam peanuts. Each binder box had markings like "Box m of n", and an arrow pointing to the next box in numerical order to be unpacked (very useful for searching in foam peanuts). So, I think HP did this 1/2 right; 100% for software and documentation, 0% for hardware. I don't care if HP wants to drop-ship things from their own internal departments, but the salesbeing should take charge of the final delivery. Specifically, they should make sure that each item the customer ordered is there by checking them off against a packing list. Then, they should bring over the entire set of equipment at once to the customer. Then, the customer can be assured that he is not wasting his time, space, and energy unpacking obviously incomplete systems. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Bartholomew UUCP: ...gatech!uflorida!mathlab.math.ufl.edu!bb University of Florida Internet: bb@math.ufl.edu -- "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Bartholomew UUCP: ...gatech!uflorida!mathlab.math.ufl.edu!bb University of Florida Internet: bb@math.ufl.edu
jim@tiamat.fsc.com (Jim O'Connor) (11/07/90)
When we bought our HP 835, we asked our salesperson to have everything shipped to their office and then to bring it over when we asked for it. In our case, this was at least a little necessary since we were building a new computer room, and couldn't take delivery of anything until it was completed. So, they (HP) might not be willing to do this in all cases. ------------- James B. O'Connor jim@tiamat.fsc.com Ahlstrom Filtration, Inc. 615/821-4022 x. 651