Are Australians being too hard on the Optus CEO and Executives? 'It's unfair!': Harvey Norman owner on why he's pro-Optus

Commander Shepard on 14/11/2023 - 10:45
Last edited 14/11/2023 - 11:20

Mr Harvey has come out in defence of Optus.

Are Australians being too hard on the Optus CEO and Execs?

“You get a situation where you’re the CEO of a public company, and it could happen to any public company, the CEO doesn’t run the IT department,” he told Gary Adshead.

https://omny.fm/shows/6pr-mornings/its-unfair-harvey-norman-…

https://www.6pr.com.au/its-unfair-harvey-norman-owner-on-why….

Telecommunications is an essential service. Its not a retail business like Harvey Norman.
If HN store goes down for 12 hours. Lives, jobs and businesses aren't at risk.
The CEO is the face of the business. Not the Technician at the arse end of the organisation.

Edit: Thanks to @Protractor for providing another great link:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12724441/Optus-CEO-…

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  • 46
    Yes
  • 137
    No
  • 23
    Somewhat
  • 855
    Just another reason to not shop at Harvey Norman
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Comments

    • try2bhelpful on 14/11/2023 - 21:28
      +2

      My cards worked for me as well.

    • drfuzzy on 15/11/2023 - 08:23

      Say that to an Argentinian

      • EightImmortals on 15/11/2023 - 08:46

        Huh?

      • banana365 on 15/11/2023 - 14:32

        I did, he said something that sounded like "Qué? No puedo entenderte."

  • Protractor on 14/11/2023 - 11:10
    +2

    Still waiting for a whistle blower to spill the beans on OPTUS internals

    • jv on 14/11/2023 - 11:16
      +9

      It was announced yesterday.

      They stuffed up a software upgrade.

      Did not test properly…

      Lack of controls and governance…

      • Protractor on 14/11/2023 - 11:20
        +6

        Another sack-able offence for Rosmarin. First negligence, now incompetence. If the buck doesn't stop with her , then she should be on $100K PA.
        It's incomprehensible that a regular software update could melt the system down. They are clearly telling half a story here.I can't wait for the senate enquiry. Odds on she pulls the pin just before she gets called, or won't front up, or gets struck down with 'can't recall virus' from hanging around with Gladys.

          • Protractor on 14/11/2023 - 12:09
            +6

            @jv: Take a Bex. This is about the only thing you can't pin on your pet peeve. Gladys takes mayhem with her like a vapour trail.She;s the "Gold Std" in Cluster Fux. Her incompetence around Ruby Princess & Newmarch House cost thousands of downstream lives and livelihoods.

            • jv on 14/11/2023 - 12:10
              -3

              @Protractor: You forget about Dan hiring security guards to sleep with infected passengers and then allowed them to deliver uber eats… Ended up over 1000 deaths because of that.

              • Protractor on 14/11/2023 - 12:51

                @jv: Gladys allowing staff to flitter between multiple aged care centres, and the community, while infected.
                McGowan got praised for his management.The difference was more connected to the amount of selfish FWits.
                Vic has more than their share of moon units when it comes to covid,cookers and neos.

      • Indomietable on 14/11/2023 - 18:29

        They Their cheap overseas outsourced contractors stuffed up a software upgrade.

      • CowFrogHorse on 15/11/2023 - 08:24

        WRONG.

        They stuffed up on not having a plan to rollback to a previous release. Button releases, oh its gone shit, button releases previous release bingo back to a good config.

        Its that simple, but obviously they didnt have that.

        They probably also didnt have a team watching the release at 4am, they probably were at home sleeping and well we all know commuting is a good waste of time, it took them until 8am to get into the office or maybe 9am or 10am.

        • jv on 15/11/2023 - 09:29
          +1

          WRONG.

          Nope….

          You literally rephrased what I said….

          They stuffed up a software upgrade.
          Did not test properly…
          Lack of controls and governance…

          • CowFrogHorse on 15/11/2023 - 10:39

            @jv: Your comment was very general and missing the most important point - they didnt have a rollback procedure. They completely skipped this part of the plan and they paid the price.

            This is of course important because if they did - then the disaster would not have happened, they would have pushed that button and bang it would all be fine and nobody woul dknow when the sun came up.

            • jv on 15/11/2023 - 11:27
              +1

              @CowFrogHorse:

              missing the most important point

              "Lack of controls and governance…"

              • CowFrogHorse on 15/11/2023 - 17:13
                -1

                @jv: @jv:

                Those words are so broad that they mean nothing. Nobody is going to take those as instructions and actually be able to execute anything. They have zero value.

            • Eeples on 15/11/2023 - 15:33

              @CowFrogHorse: And your comment is full of speculation regarding the team’s whereabouts at 4am.

              They may well have had a roll back ‘button’ as you called it……it seems not to have worked… most likely due to lack of controls and governance.

              • CowFrogHorse on 15/11/2023 - 17:14

                @Eeples: What is governance ?

                Thats a bullshit word that doesnt actually mean anything. Feel free to tell me here in detail what that actually means…

                • jv on 15/11/2023 - 17:38
                  +1

                  @CowFrogHorse:

                  What is governance ?

                  🤣🤣🤣

                  You are kidding right ????

                  • CowFrogHorse on 15/11/2023 - 18:03

                    @jv: Anyone can use a buzz word like governance, the actual experiance and expertise is define the details…

                    • jv on 15/11/2023 - 18:05

                      @CowFrogHorse:

                      Anyone can use a buzz word like governance

                      It's not a buzzword.

                      It is the role of the project office…

                      I am assuming there was a project manager assigned to this change?

                      • CowFrogHorse on 15/11/2023 - 18:07

                        @jv: Oh a role, for a talking head like the CEO ?

                        How far do you think she would get with her governance in her pocket ?

                        What value was her leadership and governance ?

                        • jv on 15/11/2023 - 18:09

                          @CowFrogHorse:

                          Oh a role, for a talking head like the CEO ?

                          No, a role for the project team.

                          Have you ever worked on a project?

                          • CowFrogHorse on 15/11/2023 - 18:11

                            @jv: Ive worked on far bigger projects than you have today and in the past. I have also contributed to far more open source projects than you and my github has far more forks and personal projects than probably 99% of people here.

        • atali on 15/11/2023 - 16:31

          it’s not always like that ie button to back out. From what I read the routes from Singtel update had stuffed the routes that they couldn’t get them back remotely so had to actually fly around some network engineers around the country on to the routers to get them back up

          • CowFrogHorse on 15/11/2023 - 17:15
            -1

            @atali: Lets pretend your summary is correct.

            They must have people at the same location as those individual routers, so the question remains why didnt they have people at those sites before the update ?

            You really dont have a grasp of the concept of being prepared.

            You put breaks on a car before you need them not after. Hospitals are ready for anythign BEFORE accidents happen not after. Airports have fire services on site ready for anything BEFORE they dont fly them in AFTER a crash.

            • try2bhelpful on 15/11/2023 - 17:49
              +1

              @CowFrogHorse: Why would they have people at the location of the individual routers? A lot of configuration of routers is done remotely nowadays. OPTUS would be lucky if the person doing the configuration was in the same country as the router. However, we are speculating the change was done by OPTUS. It may well have been a fault from a previous change that was only uncovered when Singtel made a change on their network and fed the route in. If the fault was an old one triggered by a Singtel change then OPTUS may only have had a change tester onboard to check the route interfacing was still working. They would’ve been swamped when all hell broke loose.

              Recovering routes that have gone pear shaped isn’t a backout button. Not in a complex network that has gone rogue.

              • CowFrogHorse on 15/11/2023 - 17:58
                -1

                @try2bhelpful: try: Why would they have people at the location of the individual routers? A lot of configuration of routers is done remotely nowadays.

                cow: Because shit can happen like the other day.

                Whats the smart choice ?

                Pay a few network engineers for each site just to be sure or have a meltdown and piss off 1/2 the country ?

                • try2bhelpful on 15/11/2023 - 18:13
                  +1

                  @CowFrogHorse: Equipment could be anywhere in the country, a lot of sites run dark. You really want to have network engineers sitting at every site on the off chance that shit happens? The costs would be prohibitive and the engineers would be bored shitless most of the time. This outage was brutal but it was one day. People are pissed off now but they will mostly forget. However, they certainly wouldn’t accept the costs associated with having engineers sitting around on the off chance the network will melt down. They would be asking some pointed questions on why their service costs so much.

                  So why don’t we have ambulances at every intersection on the off chance someone might have an accident? Why doesn’t every child have their own teacher to maximise their learning potential? Why doesn't every patient get their own doctor to maximise their wellness potential. Probably because it costs too much and personnel aren’t available.

                  • CowFrogHorse on 15/11/2023 - 18:22
                    -1

                    @try2bhelpful: try: Equipment could be anywhere in the country, a lot of sites run dark. You really want to have network engineers sitting at every site on the off chance that shit happens?

                    cow: yes because its the safe choice.

                    Do you know the story of the shuttle and manned space program ? They built extra long runways all over the world just in case the shuttle had to make an emergency landing. When Apollo returned, they had ships all over the place because they couldnt be sure the return vehicle would splash in exactly the calculated return point.

                    Vision is about seeing the future, if you cant guarantee things will always be perfect, then you better be ready even if its costly.

                    The cost fo have network guys around the country is far less than the cost in lost cusstomer confidence.

                    ~

                    try: So why don’t we have ambulances at every intersection on the off chance someone might have an accident?

                    cow: dont be silly, theres a big difference between ambulances on every corner which would bankrup the country, a few network people around the country costs far less than the cost of the building with the CEO and all her worthless mates.

                    • CowFrogHorse on 15/11/2023 - 18:24

                      @CowFrogHorse: What im suggesting is not a prohobitive cost, sure it costs a few million but in the big picture thats a fraction of a percentage point.

                      Optus spends tens of millions on the CEO and her legend of useless morons and they contribute NOTHING to ensuring mistakes like the other day dont happen.

                      Why do you have to introduce stupid rediculous extreme exampels of ambulances at every corner. My recommendation of newtork guys is a minor cost in the big picture or running optus.

                      • try2bhelpful on 15/11/2023 - 19:00
                        +1

                        @CowFrogHorse: I don’t think you understand how this works at all. As I’ve indicated elsewhere you won’t be able to hire trained personnel to do this because they won’t want the job. Anyone with the level of experience needed isn’t going to want this on their resume. We already have a shortage of network engineers in this country.

                        How many years has OPTUS been running this network without having this issue? How many more will they have after this if they learn the lessons? The answer isn’t a knee jerk reaction it is learning the lessons from what happened. It is deep diving to find out who did what when. Certainly this should result in a revamp of design, pre test, implementation, post testing and handover. It should also lead to a better understanding of the BGP edge routing.

                        I’ve done a lot of network installations. I’ve been in the middle of it when you try to recover a network that has gone rogue. I’ve done changes where something that someone did previously bites you on this change. It might not even be on the equipment you are reconfiguring. I’ve been there when third parties can cause you grief.

                        Me, I’m leaving it to the experts to work out what went wrong and how to fix it, I hope they give the CEO a really strong message on where money should be spent and personnel are needed. As indicated the real problem was the way the backend was configured. You get that right you don’t need people on site. In fact you probably don’t want them there because it is hard to coordinate that many people.

                        • CowFrogHorse on 15/11/2023 - 19:16
                          -1

                          @try2bhelpful: try: I don’t think you understand how this works at all. As I’ve indicated elsewhere you won’t be able to hire trained personnel to do this because they won’t want the job. Anyone with the level of experience needed isn’t going to want this on their resume. We already have a shortage of network engineers in this country.

                          cow: The answer is money. Otehres have said here they had to fly people all over the country. Not sure what that means but that again is lack of planning. At the very least they should have network people in all the state capitals etc again so they dont have to fly people everywhere.

                          try: How many years has OPTUS been running this network without having this issue?

                          cow: Thats not validation, because it obviously failed last week.

                          try: I’ve done a lot of network installations. I’ve been in the middle of it when you try to recover a network that has gone rogue. I’ve done changes where something that someone did previously bites you on this change. It might not even be on the equipment you are reconfiguring. I’ve been there when third parties can cause you grief.

                          cow: Not sure what your trying to say here, but if your suggesting a manual approach that is wrong. Because it doesnt scale.

                          • try2bhelpful on 15/11/2023 - 19:25
                            +1

                            @CowFrogHorse: Money won’t achieve this if appropriate people don’t want to do the job. Have you ever worked in a networking area before? However having people onsite is usually the least of the issue if the backend connectivity is configured properly and working. The issue is the whole gamut and backout plans aren’t just pressing a button. Once you get to this level of complexity with a failure there is a lot of people to be coordinated and, it looks like in this case, across multiple organisations.

                            In all honesty you do what ever you do and I will leave it to the experts. If you haven’t been in this situation before I doubt you can understand what needs to be done. From your comments you don’t seem to have grasped the complexities of the situation.

                            Please provide me with your level of expertise here?

                    • try2bhelpful on 15/11/2023 - 18:46
                      +2

                      @CowFrogHorse: I really don’t think you understand the practicalities of having engineers cooling their heels located at every data centre. You would need three engineers per data centre per day to get 24 hour support. Say if Optus had 120 data centres that is 360 engineers just sitting around doing almost nothing most of the time. Do you really think OPTUS will retain highly trained engineers to do that? Imagine putting that on your resume.

                      The Shuttle program is a different thing. They don’t have engineers sitting at 100 plus runways, 24 hours a day, just on the off chance a shuttle is going to land. They also get a heads up for the short time that a shuttle is going to land.

                      You obviously have no real network experience in these areas. Yesterday’s outage was bad but the vast majority of OPTUS customers will shrug this off. Certainly most of them aren’t going to accept the added cost of having every site manned for 24 hours a day. Do you also want an engineer for every mile of cable laid? Or one at every mobile tower that’s installed just in case there is an equipment failure?

                      • SBOB on 15/11/2023 - 18:53
                        +1

                        @try2bhelpful:

                        You obviously have no real network experience in these areas

                        understatement :)

                      • CowFrogHorse on 15/11/2023 - 19:19

                        @try2bhelpful: try: Do you also want an engineer for every mile of cable laid? Or

                        cow: Your being an extremist here and have no concept of fairness. Do i really have to write down everythign in complete detail ? Do i really have to give exact numbers and write a 1000 page report ?

                        try: The Shuttle program is a different thing. They don’t have engineers sitting at 100 plus runways, 24 hours a day, just on the off chance a shuttle is going to land. They also get a heads up for the short time that a shuttle is going to land

                        cow: Why would they have engineers at all those airports ?

                        THis is stupid, they had the airports and they were ready as necessary when a launch happened. WHy would you need engineers at an airport to land a shuttle ?

                        This is a stupid comment.

                      • CowFrogHorse on 15/11/2023 - 19:21

                        @try2bhelpful: You cant see the big picture of what im trying to guide you with my comments. I obviously cant help you join the missing dots, because you start with stupid comments like ambulances at every street corner. Im simply trying to share the idea of being close enough to be ing ready for problems. IM not trying to give EXACT and PRECISE examples.

                        • try2bhelpful on 15/11/2023 - 19:27
                          +1

                          @CowFrogHorse: What is your level of expertise here? You aren’t guiding people anywhere. Your solution is impractical and it won’t get to the nub of the issue. You have no big picture.

          • try2bhelpful on 15/11/2023 - 17:29

            @atali: Properly programmed BGP should stop that occurring. Having a proper backend access that is separate to the main network should stop that happening. The routes from the Singtel update that caused the problem probably should’ve been filtered out before they hit the Optus main network. Without knowing the exact config it is hard to say but, certainly, something wasn’t configured properly. Perhaps the answer is Optus has a diverse backend system using lines isolated from the main network and/or using Telstra mobile or landline services. I would really love to see the final analysis from this but, I suspect, we won’t get it. All we can do is speculate what happened. This reminds me why I retired.

            • atali on 15/11/2023 - 17:32

              @try2bhelpful: no I understand what you’re saying, still Optus fault in not properly test/plan rollout/backout. just saying not always as easy as “push a button” though

              • jv on 15/11/2023 - 17:40

                @atali:

                till Optus fault in not properly test/plan rollout/backout.

                Which is part of governance…

                • CowFrogHorse on 15/11/2023 - 18:01

                  @jv: So if someone says i am the CTO or leader then we can pretend we have leadership and governmance ?

                  I think we saw how well that worked the other day…

                  • CowFrogHorse on 15/11/2023 - 18:09

                    @CowFrogHorse: Tehres a lot of mention of leadership here and everywhere in the papers in reference to CEOs…

                    But what does that actually mean ?

                    How can a person like the CEO of OPtus possible make selections or recommendations on what is a technical matter when she hasnt a (profanity) clue and cant actually do any thing her self ?

                • try2bhelpful on 15/11/2023 - 18:02

                  @jv: Just wondering how many network installs you’ve done on a major network? How many network outages have you had to recover from? Just trying to gauge how much understanding you have on how these things work in a practical world.

              • try2bhelpful on 15/11/2023 - 17:55
                +1

                @atali: Completely agree with you which is what I’ve written above. I think everyone agrees that someone stuffed up with the configuration implementation at sometime. It just depends on who and when. As I’ve also written above recovering a rogue network can be a brute. Even if you haven’t saved the configs and reboot the changed routers, it still takes a lot of effort to get the network back stable again. My quibble is they should never have lost access to the routers is the backend network. The remote access should’ve been isolated from the main network and remote login should have the priority.

              • CowFrogHorse on 15/11/2023 - 18:01

                @atali: I dont care what you call the release procedure and does it really matter what we call it as long as we understand the point ?

      • dcash on 15/11/2023 - 20:46

        Who is the "they" you are referring to? It was Singtel (STiX) who stuffed up the upgrade, not Optus.

  • Protractor on 14/11/2023 - 11:17
    +3

    Recommended( very) reading. She and her hubby are 'battlers'. FFS

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12724441/Optus-CEO-…

    • Commander Shepard on 14/11/2023 - 11:21

      Those poor souls. Great link. Added this to the main topic header.

    • Speckled Jim on 15/11/2023 - 11:29
      +2

      She and her hubby are 'battlers'. FFS

      Where does it say that? Pasted for context:

      Inside the lavish lives of the embattled power couple

      That would be a dumb contradiction in the headline! So I searched the page for the term you put in quotes.
      Zero.

      The word embattled appears three times, but do note the definition.

      1
      a: ready to fight : prepared to give battle
      here once the embattled farmers stood

      b: engaged in battle, conflict, or controversy
      an embattled official accused of extortion

      2
      a: being a site of battle, conflict, or controversy
      the embattled capital

      b: characterized by conflict or controversy
      an embattled presidency

      Today we learned that being "embattled" doesn't make you a "battler" in the socio-economic sense.

      • Protractor on 15/11/2023 - 12:01

        Take a deep breath, speckster. Battlers was my word. (because) They have both played the victim card. Hard done by by the media and those nuisance customers complaining, and how they were victims of 'bad timing' of the film shoot. Oh dear,poor them.Thanks for the English lesson though

        • Speckled Jim on 15/11/2023 - 13:02

          Hmm single quotes suggest otherwise, but I'll take your word for it. I refuse to read Daily Fail.

  • GG57 on 14/11/2023 - 11:21

    I'm not listening to him, and I wasn't impacted at all by the Optus outage.
    The criticisms I'm seeing aren't going to make any impact, apart from:
    - the federal government enquiry into the outage, the impacts, and what needs to change to prevent something similar in the future
    - the shareholder responses to the outage, and how it was handled.

    Mobile customers, internet customers, etc., don't have any real voice in the matter, apart from those that choose to take their business elsewhere, which will probably be a minority.

  • pegaxs on 14/11/2023 - 11:37
    +12

    SHUT THE (fropanity) UP GERRY! No one gives a shit what you think. You're only commenting to save your investments.

    Of course he is against the bashing of his telecommunications supplier, his business is built around it. I just cant wait to the current crop of Boomers die off and with it 90% of his shoppers are gone.

    The only people who shop at this (fropanity) head's stores are dementia patients who don't know any better. The "Oh, I'll just get one from HN…" or "But it's just convenient and I know HN…" types.

    Also (fropanity) Optus. This is Karma to all the people that had their data leaked and still stayed with them, and then they employed a corrupt politician, and ya'll still stayed with Optus. Now this? And it will just be another $30 voucher for $2 on the front page with 1,147 upvotes and everyone is back on the Optus crap wagon. If you were still with Optus after that massive data breach, you are now reaping what you have sown. The writing was on the wall LONG before that even happened. That should have been your biggest clue to abandon ship.

    We should be sending a message to both of these companies, Optus AND HN and boycotting and down voting anything these two grubby dirt bag companies put their hand too.

    I think that we are not going hard enough on either of these two.

    • Protractor on 14/11/2023 - 11:45

      ….applauds.

    • jv on 14/11/2023 - 11:53
      +2

      This is Karma to all the people that had their data leaked and still stayed with them

      Amaysim customers were impacted too…

      • BewareOfThe Dog on 14/11/2023 - 16:42

        And I got 60GB.
        PS I think I got my sim from Officeworks 8 years ago.

  • Gunnar on 14/11/2023 - 11:37
    +4

    Lol if HN is supporting Optus that just makes Optus’ situation worse!

  • Ryanek on 14/11/2023 - 11:40
    +5

    If the CEO is getting paid multiple times the salary of the average worker, then they can get multiple times the blame.

  • godofpizza on 14/11/2023 - 11:43
    +2

    still not happy with Gerry for giving us the 10% on imports duty.

  • lachhelix on 14/11/2023 - 11:54
    +2

    Lol the quicker he carks it the better imo

  • OpticalCog on 14/11/2023 - 11:57

    Knowing HN supports them makes me far more likely to xfer from Optus than any of the recent optus issues.

  • try2bhelpful on 14/11/2023 - 12:03
    +15

    Let me go get some popcorn to eat whilst reading the comments.

    My 2c.
    - When I did networking installs we had a saying “don’t appear on the front page of a newspaper”. It is never a good look. This, mostly, comes down to good design, pre testing, good implementation, good post testing and a backout plan. It would appear that whoever did the current install has missed a bunch of these things.
    - The CEO doesn’t run the IT department but they do set the conditions that the IT department work under. They, ultimately, decide whether cost or resilience are more important. They decide the policy on maintaining domain knowledge and a company specific implementation and support group or if they outsource to a third party who will assign people the company has no control over. They should have a general understanding of the most likely failure scenarios and how a war room would address them.
    - the CEO is responsible for the message being delivered and this was a shocker. You have to get ahead of the curve to control how the story develops and OPTUS was always playing catch up. I suppose it is hard to talk directly to your customers whilst your network is down.
    -the compensation being offered is a joke. You take someone’s business down and offer them a bit of free data? Especially as they are likely to have unlimited plans.
    - Harvey Norman is pretty much a joke when it comes to these sort of things. The more interesting comments were David Thodey and Telstra management. They should be a bit more circumspect about their comments on network resilience and how management are protecting their networks. These comments won’t age well in case of the next serious network failures. It shows no awareness of the issues or a willingness to learn from others examples. The cheapest way to learn is look at the failure of others.

    I am an OPTUS customer and, in my case, it was a minor annoyance. The compensation is OK and it probably won’t push me off OPTUS. However, we are seriously looking at one of us going on to prepaid Boost to have disparate access in case of failure.

    • whatwasherproblem on 14/11/2023 - 12:13
      +8

      The CEO doesn’t run the IT department but they do set the conditions that the IT department work under.

      100%. The "fish rots from the head", as the saying goes. And if the head of the fish wants to make more money in a year than most people will make in a lifetime, the tradeoff should be that they get all the flak for company screwups. No sympathy for the Optus brass.

    • localhost on 15/11/2023 - 13:12
      +1

      Yep, but see who runs IT department there - https://www.smh.com.au/technology/identity-of-third-party-wh…

      Same outage in previous job, leaving half Canada without internet/mobile for 15 hours. Sounds familiar?

  • Cluster on 14/11/2023 - 12:05
    +12

    Gerry is right: The CEO does not run the IT department, but they are the head of the company and take all the glory plus the 20%+ pay rises when things go well.

    Things go well: "It's all my doing, my glorious leadership and my unique skills that made it all happen. Give me that sweet pay rise."

    Things go badly: "It's not my fault. It's person X and Y's responsibility, don't blame me, I couldn't have known."

    • Protractor on 14/11/2023 - 12:18

      She signed off on who gets the big gig in security. In fact she may well have directed the head hunting involved. She's always hiding under a rock when the shit hits the fan.
      What next? she blames her PR people?
      As per covid pandemic and politicians she should have front footed to a media stop to reassure customers. 7 whole hours and her response was " we have no idea'. The one thing she said which is accurate. I still do not trust the current excuse as 100% truthful, and it is still an admission of absolutely unprepared & inadequate backup procedures.
      I actually hope she is forced to front up to the senate committee, but I smell the smoke of a "disappearing act" when it sits.

  • Brian McGee on 14/11/2023 - 12:13
    +3

    Yeah, cause what's wrong with ignoring customers and the press for any sort of answer/update for 5 hours?
    Why would you not just say something (sorry we're investigating, I'll be back in an hour with further news) sort of thing?

    Of course Gerry would say this, he's in bed with flOptus and can't get his kickbacks if people aren't signing up.

    • Protractor on 14/11/2023 - 12:27

      I think it was 7 hours. Rosmarin let the fed minister cover her arse. Pathetic

  • ihfree on 14/11/2023 - 12:37
    +5

    Optus have had two major IT issues recently - leaks and a major outage.

    There's a problem with the culture in Optus. Problems generally start at the top.

    IMO, Gerry's comments probably indicate that there is a problem at Hardly Normal.

  • kanmen on 14/11/2023 - 13:55

    This mans also probably thinks it was unfair he had to pay back the JobKeeper money they clearly didn't need after reporting a massive profit the same year. Yeah nah his opinion means nothing.

    • SpainKing on 15/11/2023 - 13:27

      Oh he paid all that back? Here I was thinking it was only $6 of the $22 million he swindled from our coffers

      • kanmen on 15/11/2023 - 13:34

        He did not. You are correct. I bet he thought it was unfair that he had to pay back even that much.

  • coffeeinmyveins on 14/11/2023 - 13:59
    +3

    , the CEO doesn’t run the IT department

    uhh….they don't run it but they are responsible for it.

    "a chief executive officer, the highest-ranking person in a company or other institution, ultimately responsible for taking managerial decisions."

    They make decisions to reduce budgets or refuse costly projects and then they're all "surprised pikachu" when shit hits the fan.

    Also, geriatric gerry is probably deflecting his own issues.

  • SBOB on 14/11/2023 - 14:25
    +1

    the CEO doesn’t run the IT department

    sounds like the kind of line you throw out when you (or your spouse) is the CEO of a major company and might have a few of your own IT related concerns about your IT practices and cyber security risks :)

  • Cluster on 14/11/2023 - 14:35

    It must be nice having billionaire pals to come to your defense. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. It's a small club and they all support each other.

    • Protractor on 14/11/2023 - 15:14
      +1

      Gerry's back would be covered in scales.

  • DingoBilly on 14/11/2023 - 14:35
    +1

    I just don't understand some CEOs and managers.

    If my staff or the systems I manage and am responsible for break or have mistakes, I take responsibility. I'm the one signing off on all the work.

    The idea of paying someone millions to sit at the top and have no responsibility for a company's actions is ridiculous. It boggles the mind any half intelligent person can think that.

  • Drakesy on 14/11/2023 - 14:49

    CEO's aren't paid to have an easy ride. It's danger money, you have to have the mental resilience to stay there. No such thing as a free lunch.

    • Protractor on 14/11/2023 - 15:13

      "No such thing as a free lunch." Probs is.
      ; )

  • R4 on 14/11/2023 - 15:36

    Gerry, here's a given that you can put in your pipe and smoke it - sometimes life's not fair. This woman is paid a metric ton of money to sit at the top of Optus. Ultimately, she get's the credit (and money) if Optus does well but on the flip side, she carries the can if things go wrong. She bears ultimate responsibility. You can't have all the goodies without having to eat the sh1t when required.

    I don't shop at HN for a reason and that reason is Gerry Harvey.

    • GG57 on 14/11/2023 - 15:49

      …a metric ton of money…

      A very specific amount of money.

      1 tonne = 1,000 kilograms (~2,204.6 pounds) = 1 metric ton
      1 ton = 2,000 pounds

      • R4 on 14/11/2023 - 15:57

        Okay miss

  • Jimothy Wongingtons on 14/11/2023 - 15:40
    +1

    where is egg boi when you need him

  • justgooddeals on 14/11/2023 - 16:27
    +4

    When you have Gerry Harvey defending you then you know your in real trouble.

    • coffeeinmyveins on 14/11/2023 - 16:45

      Has someone connected dots, are they friends or something? Wouldn't surprise me.

  • Kiro on 14/11/2023 - 16:30

    these things happen, if it was a fault that caused the crash, if it was a third party bringing down the network, well id want to know the details.

  • Ocker on 14/11/2023 - 16:53
    +3

    Seriously, would anyone take any notice of what HN thinks?
    Don't forget, back in the early days of internet shopping he commented that HN will not be setting up internet shopping as it was a fad that will fade away.

  • Thrawn on 14/11/2023 - 16:56
    +3

    Core network isn't an IT department function in a telco…

    it's literally their main product. It's the function that underpins literally every product they sell. As Optus CEO you'd expect a pretty good understanding of a telco's main product.

    • try2bhelpful on 14/11/2023 - 17:01

      I would argue that the network is a key component of almost every decent sized company nowadays. Look at how they struggle if their connectivity goes down. These businesses should be looking at cybersecurity, resilience and diversity.

  • branners on 14/11/2023 - 17:10

    HN does a huge amount of business with the telcos so it is quite predictable that GH would be quick to defend the people who make money for his business. And HN is one of the biggest advertisers in the Australian retail sector, so he is always going to get a great run in the commercial media.
    And once again, this is a 'LOOK OVER THERE!' story. I don't expect a telco to be 100 percent perfect all the time so I am not that upset that their network went down (and I was affected by it).
    But I do think that a highly-paid CEO and/or the Optus PR team should have multiple crisis management plans in place to explain what happens when things go south, and do it quickly, to its customers.
    Optus failed on that count and that is why I mark them down over this

  • gromit on 14/11/2023 - 17:34
    +4

    The problem for her has not been the failures, as they say they can happen to anyone, however her response (or lack there of) to the incidents has been nothing short of appalling. Gerry obviously receives a lot of kickbacks from telco's so not surprising he would back them, his hip pocket comes first followed in a distant second the customer.

  • Dack Smith on 14/11/2023 - 17:50
    -1

    Wow people are still with Optus after the last data hack incident?

    Christ the stupidity is getting worse in Australia

    Optus has got to be laughing all the way to the bank

    Enjoy the data compensation idiots

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