It’s May 28th, 2001 (coincidentally, my 42nd Birthday).

Yesterday, I was the European IT Manager.

I was earning £60,000.oo PA working for a global American software company.

Today, I am made redundant and will become the Work from Home Dad, the House Husband.

After a full-time career of 26 years, from age 16, with over 20 years in Information Technology, I will never work as an employee again.

I will become unemployable, although I will employ.

I will discover the Internet, web publishing, Search Engines, Direct Marketing, and how to charge money Locally, Nationally, and Internationally, for my services while working from our spare bedroom.

Along the way, I will cut people’s lawns, service their computers, clean houses, iron clothes, and do whatever it takes to earn money, whenever possible, with no pride attached.

We will become debt-free, although not living a lavish lifestyle.

By accident, I will become an Agency Partner with a Global Brand, spending millions of £$ of other people’s money, because they want and need me to.

And I will meet and be respected by published Authors in our Industry.

This is My Story.

Perhaps some of it is, or could become – Yours.

If so, I’d love to hear from you.

Well, we have our shower back again at last.

It took 8 days before I got my engineering visit.

Not a good Service Level Agreement in my opinion (sorry Bristan) – so there’s obviously lessons to be learned.

Turns out the shower cartridge had failed after just 9 months.

Possible causes:

1. Excessive pressure (ours checked out OK at 2.4 Bar)
2. Hard water (we have a water softener)
3. Excessive temperature (we keep it low because of children)

So no clear conclusion.

But at least it has a 5 year guarantee, so I hope I’ve moved house before it goes again!

Pity it took loads of emails and an angry online post to get my warranty issue sorted out.

Just goes to show the power of complaining online – when you know how to publish and Rank on Google…

Bristan Customer Service is appalling.

According to their website, they have a Customer Charter which claims a "high level of Customer Service".

I’d be curious to know how they justify that.

Here’s our story…

Back in Feb 09 we replaced our shower with a Bristan Artisan unit (thanks to Bernard Agopian who installed it and renovated our shower room).

All has been fine until recently, when we find we can’t adjust the temperature any longer. It comes on hot, then goes cold.

So it seems to have failed, and Bernard could not get it working properly again.

I called Bristan Customer Services and was fairly pleasantly surprised to see they offer an engineering visit – just what we need.

That was a week ago. They quite happily took my £80.50 callout charge (to be refunded should the unit have failed under warranty).

They have proof of installation, my money, all my contact phone numbers, and my email address.

I have emailed them several times (because you get stuck in a call queue otherwise) to progress the visit, and had an email reply each time of "sorry, we’ll call you today".

This has never happened, so I’m posting my disgust online for other people to see and respond to, if they have had a similar experience.

As a former Customer Service Manager, with a published Service Level Agreement, prioritisation and escalation procedure, I know how Customer Support is *supposed* to work.

Unfortunately, Bristan Customer Services doesn’t seem to.

We’ll see…

Anyone else had dealings with Bristan?

Read Part 2 here

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Established and respected European manufacturer of printing, computer and network related systems and hardware (and actually, a LOT more).

My two prior jobs (at Softsel and TIS) had been in Sales – completely at odds with everything in my entire previous career positions based on engineering and technical support.

I had failed to develop my career in Sales (if I remember right, on one occasion I recollect being told I was "too honest"). Keep in mind – an Engineer tells it like it is!

So to get the job, and not be a fraud any longer, it was time to re-invent myself in the likeness of a former success – a technical support engineer.

I joined Olivetti from Softsel as a Pre- and Post-Sales Systems Analyst, specialising in their Client-Server based Office Automation and Groupware product "IbiSys", based on Unix servers and early Windows PC’s (version 3.1, later version 3.11).

I had extensive experience of Unix and networking since 1983 (8 years prior), and nearly two years experience of Microsoft Windows since the first release of Windows3.

This was a precursor and rival product to Microsoft Exchange and technically far in advance of anything on the market at that time. Microsoft had just released version 3.51 of Windows NT Server, before NT4.

I spent four very happy years with Olivetti (who I cringe to remember I had never taken seriously before as a computer systems manufacturer), and only left them as IBISys died a natural death (overtaken by MS Exchange) leaving me with no real alternative but to seek pastures new.

I joined HP Hewlett-Packard Company at their UK HQ in Bracknell (only 2 miles away after 12 years of commuting 3 hours every day – woohoo! or so I thought…)

Back to DavidNRothwell.com

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Early, highly progressive and innovative manufacturer of Unix-based (Version7, before System3, Before System5) multi-user systems based on North First Street, San Jose, California.

Founded by Bob Marsh and Kip Myers.

I set up and ran the UK and European hardware technical support operation, which was a successful profit-centre (as any support operation can and should be).

I was head-hunted to join Plexus Computers from CFM as I was already a specialist engineer repairing their systems.

They diversified into imaging systems and software later, and were subsequently acquired by Motorola computer systems of Maidenhead UK.

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CFM (Computer Field Maintenance) were a national company of Third-Party Maintenance engineers, with contracts to repair computer systems and peripherals across the UK.

To the best of my memory, they were originally formed by ex-ICL employees, and were very successful in their day.

When I joined, they were owned by IAL (International Air-Radio Ltd.) which was in turn owned at that time by British Airways – consequently employees could enjoy greatly reduced BA travel, which some of us did…

They were subsequently acquired by the Granada group.

I loved working for this company, and have many great memories of achievements there, and fellow staff members.

In those days, the PC had not yet been invented, and the systems I used to work on were as big as filing cabinets (others were *much* bigger).

I repaired them to component level, using a soldering iron, Huntron Tracker, cathode ray oscilloscope (CRO) and logic analyser (HP made).

I was subsequently head-hunted by Plexus Computers Inc, of San Jose California, to set up their European repair and hardware training centre, at Kembrey Park, Swindon, Wiltshire UK, because I had been trained on their Unix systems, and they were setting up their own European presence.

Read all about me here

Read my professional career CV here