A year or so ago, when the Tektronix MDO3000 series scope was released, I signed up to win one from Tektronix. At the time, I used my personal email and home phone number since it was a competition (why would I used my office phone)? Shortly after, the calls from Tektronix started asking me if I wanted to buy anything, was looking to buy anything, etc (sales/marketing calls). Most of the time, they’d just call early in the morning (8-9am), or somehow, right when my one year old was taking a nap. =/
They would also send an email follow up, though they wouldn’t leave a voicemail. After the second time it happened, I emailed them back and said “please don’t call my home phone, call my work phone xxx-xxx-xxxx”. No response. Then a mouth or so later, another call and email. Respond to email, no response. The third time, I finally got a response to the email saying they would have to talk to their supervisor about removing me from the list. A follow up resulted in nothing, but also no calls for at least a month. Then another call at 8am one day, and I lost my patience. I emailed their main PR/Marketing email address on the Tektronix website with something rather stern, and commenting that I grew up across the street from Tektronix, and many of my family members, as well as my wife’s father, worked there for years. For a couple weeks, I heard nothing, but then I heard from a Senior Communications Manager apologizing, and saying she would look into where the process failed, and had me removed from their lists. Also, she said she was going to mail me a gift as an apology. I provided my mailing address, and a couple weeks later, got an overnight notice from UPS that something was due for delivery. What did it have?
It was an awesome (old school Tek logo) T-Shirt, and a pretty cool Thumbdrive shaped like an MDO3000. Sure, it’s huge, but it looks awesome. =) Also included was a great hand written note from the Comm Manager I’d talked to apologizing, and saying which building she worked in. I learned to ride my bike right next to that building. =) She also mentioned she would be sending another package in the coming weeks. Hmmm….
Fast forward 3 weeks, and I get another notice from UPS saying they’ll be delivering a package the next day, and that it weighs 14 pounds. Crap, what on earth would that be?! I really didn’t want to get my hopes up that it was a scope or any test equipment like that. The next day, the package showed up1. The box definitely said “scope” and indeed, it turned out to be an MSO2012. A very interesting scope in my mind (2 100mhz analog channels, 16 logic channels, digital phosphor, 1Gs/s), mainly because, I’m not sure it is better than my Rigol 2072. It DOES offer mixed signals (logic/digital, as well as analog), which will probably be nice should I be troubleshooting/repairing something in the digital domain, but I think by default, I’m largely going to use my Rigol. Partially because I prefer the interface, partially because it has twice the sample rate, and signifantly more storage memory, and mainly, because it boots faster (which is surprising). And yes, while you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I would have really loved if the scope was 4 channels. I could, of course, run out of the Rigol trigger output into the external trigger of the Tek and get 4 channels that way… which is, I suppose, what I’ll do. Sadly, the Tek doesn’t have a trigger output, so I can’t do the other way.
All and all, I’m pretty pleased with what Tektronix did. They certainly didn’t need to send me a scope. All they really had to do was remove me from their call list, and apologize. Sadly, I haven’t been able to get ahold of my contact there to thank her. I did email her and ask if there was any way, with my paying the difference, to get a 4 channel, but sadly, no response. Interestingly, however, I do still get emails from Tek, but thankfully, no calls.
Anyway, thank you Tektronix. I hope at some point I can actually afford to get one of the MDO3000 scopes, since I would like to have a spectrum analyzer, and don’t really have the bench space for much more than I currently have (I know, a terrible “problem” to have). =)
- Interestingly, during this time, my mother-in-law was staying with us, and I was getting at least one package a day… I think she still thinks I have a serious problem [↩]