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Words from the ChairWho'll Pay for Y2K? By Gary Stigall, CSTE I saw a guy at Fry's Electronics the other day really going to town with the shrink wrap machine. He had a stack of boxes six-feet tall, each surrounded by fresh polyethylene film. He looked rather machine-like, enjoying the process as one might enjoy gathering garbage. It seemed to me that the wrapping hung too loose on the boxes; it didn't look like a factory job. Maybe the stuff shrinks over time as it cools even more. The zombie-like people in line there to return consumer goods were mostly invoking expressed warranties. "If for thirty days you're not fully satisfied, bring it back." That sort of thing. Some there were going to have a minor battle, coming back sixty days after purchase without the original packing material or receipt. Some would get away with it. My wife will always win this battle; she has a strong will, always beginning with a smile and a calm demeanor, willing to request a supervisor for results. Her grandparents used the term "chutzpah" in Poland. People in that line past the thirty day limit are often invoking the prairie justice term "implied warranty." That's the common sense warranty that says "if it doesn't work, bring it back," regardless of the time written on the elusive little piece of paper in the box. Meanwhile, back at the station...So what do you do about an EAS decoder made in 1997 or '98 which, when printing out a legal record of receiving an EAS alert on January 1, 2000 will actually print "01/01/100"? Harris, the people who bought the Sage ENDEC EAS system, say the warranty is over. Customers who want a proper printout of a recalled message must purchase a replacement EPROM for $50 and install it themselves. Harris graciously offers the code on the Internet that customers can download and use to burn a PROM for themselves. In fact, the expressed warranty is over. Now it's up to the individual to either quietly fork over the money, to use the buying muscle of their group to get free replacements, or try to climb the management ladder in search of someone who wants your future business more than want the $50. A capitalist moment to be sure, separating the weak from the strong. The ConversationI spoke with Dave Burns who manages the Harris sales group from Richmond, Indiana--the old Allied gang. He was busy in Las Vegas preparing for the NAB Convention occurring just a few days later. I apologized for interrupting his busy day, but since he had just posted the notice regarding the availability of the firmware code and the $50 fee for a factory EPROM, and since we were posting the link early Saturday morning, and since I was representing everyone who reads Bob Gonsett's CGC Communicator with a Sage unit, I asserted my urgency. Mr. Burns correctly empathized that he had been in my position, that it's hard to pay for something like this. However, he felt it was a minor problem, not affecting the core operation of the decoder. And, he said, the $50 was very near the cost of burning and handling the EPROM's. I said that in fact I was not a victim myself. Our company had to buy a different unit in order to interface a character generator, but that I was representing our chapter members who have Sage units (KPBS, Chancellor's KYXY/KPLN, and Jefferson-Pilot's KIFM/KSON AM-FM/KBZT). Further, I said, the people who purchased the units were not unreasonable to expect that they should print the correct date, especially considering that the decoders would only be about two years old at their point of "failure." He wanted to delay the posting and this editorial until he could talk to his boss about this after the convention. I'm sure that he was looking around the partially-built booth, thinking about all the details he had to attend to. This was a lower priority. No, I said, I believe you want to deal with this now, before people come storming into your booth during the show, demanding solutions. He said he would call back when the boss arrived. We exchanged phone numbers. I went back to my garden with my pager. He went back to his emerging booth. He called back within a couple of hours. Said their final decision was to go by the terms of his announcement the day before. He welcomed me to come by the booth and introduce myself. I wished him good luck with sales at the show. He asked me to be kind to them in this write-up. It IS about capitalism you know. Unless someone is unusually philanthropic, or monopolistic, supply and demand will always meet at the current market price. Consumers can always affect demand by voting with their dollars. If Harris can distribute an EAS receiver with a confusing operator interface and a receipt printout which reads "100" instead of "2000," and people continue to buy it and other Harris products like transmitters and STL's and automation systems, then they have been rewarded for that behavior. There's no incentive for them or their competitors to change. If $50 isn't worth haggling over, then go ahead and pay it. After all, your corporation can readily absorb it, right? Too, there are much more outrageous examples of shoddy engineering and customer service. Microsoft has built an empire on it. Windows '95 slowly rots like an orange on the ground with accumulating register entries, but people line up overnight at the store like some many junkies to buy the next version. Your message will be delivered to Harris. Do nothing and you are saying quietly, "You guys are doing a great job." If you phone customer service, or stop by their NAB booth and complain, whether you get your way or not, you are saying, "You should be more careful about your engineering and customer service." If you buy another brand of transmitter next time and tell your Harris rep that you lost confidence in their engineering and customer service performance, you may send not a ripple, but a large splash of cold water up and down the company spine. And Harris will make and service better next time. Or else. | |||
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Web site contents ©1999 Society of Broadcast Engineers Chapter 36 San Diego. For more information, to become a member or a sponsor, or to make suggestions or comments, e-mail sbe36@broadcast.net. Write to P.O. Box 710702, San Diego, California 92171-0702. Edited by Gary Stigall. Posted 17-Apr-99. |
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