I always thought the field service guys would be the last to go. But, after a number of conversations with SEs it seems that the efforts IBM/HP/etc have put int

I always thought the field service guys would be the last to go. But, after a number of conversations with SEs it seems that the efforts IBM/HP/etc have put into producing "choose your own adventure" guides to repairs and escalating everything else to remote "engineering support" have changed that. At least in the mind of the bean counters, my experience with a lot of the newer service engineers is that they can't actually fix anything that isn't already in the manual. AKA, the quality of service sucks and no one cares. My last couple of interactions were basically cases of me telling the SE how to fix the problem after the field service guide (which I asked for) failed to be helpful and the 24 hour turnaround to china for engineering support was dragging on for weeks.