Had same thing in Joburg, and it returned just now - around 6pm-ish Sunday night..
It seems to have gone away again..
Naturally the Orcs at Iburst go offduty at 5pm on sundays...oh and also the call number seemed to have quietly changed without anyone telling the customers. "Yes but its on our website" I hear IBurst say
Duh, what if you cant GET to the website, because the network is down?
and as for Portia, hmm, you cant 'train' people who clearly arent geeks, dont know their way around computers, the internet, or dealing with fairly IT-literate customers - you gotta either employ them with most of their skills and knowledge already learned, or else deal with the rising frustration you're creating in your customers who clearly know a lot more inherently than your helpdesk staff.
Its pretty insulting to deal with IT-ignorant people when there's a problem, it doesnt matter how 'helpful' they're trained to be. If they're puzzled when someone says to them 'I'm pinging your network and there's heavy packet loss' and they respond with a puzzled silence, you really have to fire them and employ some grateful 14 year old schoolkid geeks who'd actually appreciate the job and have fun with the linespeed on the network, rather than some incompetent person whose clearly out of their depth. You need geeks on the helpdesk, who understand conceptually everything unfolding around them (and who therefore, might even spot problems all by themselves - not just when the screen tells them that tower X has a problem)
(my 2cents worth)
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