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”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”

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Re: ”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”

#71

Post by chris_mahan »

mgkimsal wrote: post #18
perlgeek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the recruiters, how seem to cold-email everybody who has a github account :-)

I had a recruiter from Google call me, chat for 20 minutes, talk about my resume, then ask for my resume. I told her to bing my name and download the latest copy.

Same here. I told the person to type my name in google, with the word "resume" next to it, and that the first result would be my resume. She was astonished and asked how I could do this. I replied that I followed Google's own s/developer/webmaster/ guidelines. (Try it: google "chris mahan resume", it's still there, three years later, first result.)

I subsequently failed the basic algo questions, though, not having a computer science degree (thankfully--both for not working at Google and not having a computer science degree).

Re: ”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”

#72

Post by myko »

wpietri wrote: post #47
kevingadd wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Android devices I've had the displeasure of using (Galaxy S2, Nexus 4) reboot/crash/hang on a more regular basis than any Windows computer I've used in the last ~10 years. I used WebOS devices for a while before switching to Android, and I don't remember the last time either of those crashed or needed to be power-cycled. My iPhone 1 was an unreliable piece of garbage, though, so I guess I can't specifically shit…

Same here. Two different top-of-the-line Verizon/Motorola phones, both have an average uptime of a few days. Generally due to a crash, but sometimes because performance is so terrible I have to reboot it. And thanks to the carrier's lockdown (for stability, they'll surely claim), I can't actually debug any of the performance issues. If anybody knows of an Android phone that actually works reliably out of the box, I'd…

My MotoX has never crashed/rebooted on me.

Re: ”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”

#73

Post by snowbunny »

dasil003 wrote: post #49
snowbunny wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another option is to post a ranting and crying video to Youtube to get special treatment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs (Warning: Strong language)

Wait... did that work?

Can you see the video annotations? The very first one says Google employees contacted her and got her videos back.

Re: ”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”

#75

Post by munificent »

wpietri wrote: post #46
PaulHoule wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody at Google returns any calls from anybody, it's a core part of their DNA.

If only there were a term for being so impressed with yourselves that you felt you could just ignore the little people. Maybe "focused on Q1 revenue goals"? Seems long, though. I'd be happy if I could get it down to three syllables.

> If only there were a term for being so impressed with yourselves that you felt you could just ignore the little people.

It nothing to do with people being "little" in Google's eyes. It's about them being numerous. According to Wikipedia, Google has 46,421 employees. Here's the reported number of users of various Google products normalized to "per Googler":

    Gmail:    9,155
    Drive:      215
    Chrome:  16,156
    Maps:     4,308
    G+:       6,462
    Android: 19,387 activations (18 per day)
    Docs:       107 businesses
Imagine you had your own B2B business. Just you, no other employees. You have 107 businesses using your product. How much time would you be able to give each of them?

Say you open up a little hand-crafted artisanal phone business. Just you. You've sold 19,387 phones in the past few years, and you sell 18 more every day. How much time would you have for support for each of those?

You make software. Just a little hobby on the side you do by yourself. You have more than 32,296 active users of it. You're still cranking away on it, adding new features. How much time do you also have to answer the phone when one of those people has a problem? Keep in mind, none of them have paid you anything.

Let's say Google decided to drop everything: no development, no new features, no new products, no vacation, no HR, no facilities, no security, no R&D, no training, no nothing. Instead, every single employee from Larry Page on down devotes their full time to tech support. Users are pretty sharp so they rarely have problems: they only need to call for help once per year. If all every Googler did was get on the phone and help people, they'd still only be able to give each person 4.82 minutes.

Re: ”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”

#76

Post by dragonwriter »

munificent wrote: post #75
wpietri wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only there were a term for being so impressed with yourselves that you felt you could just ignore the little people. Maybe "focused on Q1 revenue goals"? Seems long, though. I'd be happy if I could get it down to three syllables.

> If only there were a term for being so impressed with yourselves that you felt you could just ignore the little people. It nothing to do with people being "little" in Google's eyes. It's about them being numerous . According to Wikipedia, Google has 46,421 employees. Here's the reported number of users of various Google products normalized to "per Googler": Gmail: 9,155 Drive: 215 Chrome: 16,156 Maps: 4,308 G+: 6,4…

What if Google spent some of the billions of dollars in cash it is sitting on and accumulating hiring a support workforce?

Re: ”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”

#77

Post by bad_user »

RexRollman wrote: post #14
pavlov wrote: post #10

Android is more and more like the mobile equivalent of desktop Windows. Now they have the huge pirate market in China too. When this happened to Microsoft, certain strategy-oriented parts of the company were happy to see Windows spread everywhere as quickly as possible and deal with piracy later, whereas others were more concerned with the bottom line and how to extract revenue immediately. Google will have to deal w…

Its worst than that. A least with Windows on PC clones, you have control over the hardware and can update to your hearts content. Android makers often change the interface and can interfere with you from getting updates.

Funny that you mention that, since my Nexus 4 was upgraded to KitKat as soon as it was released, my first generation Galaxy S is on Android 4.3 (thanks to Cyanogenmod), while my home desktop is still on Windows XP (OEM), because Windows upgrades have been very expensive. The situation is much better with Windows 8, but coupled with taxes, I still would have to pay about 150-200 EUR in my country.

Microsoft's entire business model has always been OEM prebundling, in which updates happened by buying a new computer. That is why many companies are STILL on Windows XP.

Anything else is bullshit coming from young people that haven't felt how the industry evolved during the nineties. And Android is very unlike Windows because Android is open source, Android can be ported by third-parties and Android can be forked.

Re: ”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”

#78

Post by bane »

The solution of course is for Google to charge a small fee, say $50k/yr to each OEM who wants to use Android on their devices (if the OEM can't handle that fee, then they have no hope of handling the huge manufacturing, support, carrier fees and other costs involved with launching a product).

This fee will guarantee them a warm body with a heartbeat on the other end of a dedicated number who will be their "relationship manager" who can run things down internally and manage bringing new OEMs on.

In reality, the RM would probably service 4-5 "accounts" at a time and these 4 accounts or OEMs would completely cover the cost of this employee or

Of course having 20 or 30 RMs banging against the Android team to get info and support OEMs doesn't scale, so for every 3 or 4 RMs you hire additional staff on the Android dev side to handle that relationship. And that does scale.

It's not a money maker for Google, but it covers support costs without turning support to OEMs into a cost center.

Re: ”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”

#79

Post by SectioAurea »

aestra wrote: post #62
qwerta wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible. For example Ubuntu is installable on some phones. It is like Linux 15 years ago, there are a few good drivers and one has to check compatibility charts. Other problem is hardware detection. OS on PC can detect what hardware is installed. On mobile you need hardware map. There is no way to have universal installer for all mobile phones.

Can you make a phonecall from Ubuntu?

According to official sources (http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/install), the Ubuntu Phone beta has the following capabilities:

"Connection to the GSM network on Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4" "Phone calls and SMS on Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4"

Re: ”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”

#80

Post by at-fates-hands »

michaelt wrote: post #66
jmpe wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google loves things that scale, and customer support doesn't scale that well I guess. Alternatively, couldn't they start a pay-per-minute service? I recently had an issue with GMail where I was receiving someone else's mail. After about a week I had enough data to source his phone number and contact him to rectify it. But I never had the chance to report the issue. Wouldn't have minded paying a few dollars to have th…

Google has about $1,000,000 of revenue per employee [1]. Assuming their support employees worked a typical number of hours and billed every hour they worked to a customer, to keep the revenue per employee at the same level they'd need to charge $480 to $550 per hour for support. And fixing complex bugs in complex software can take a lot of hours. How many hours of developer time would you want spent on your issue? [1…

Interesting.

Wonder why Amazon doesn't seem to have those problems. To me, they have just as many, if not more products to support and yet they're still known for their exceptional customer service.

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