Ok well, point out who we should piss off just for you?

[Kuronekosama]

Alright, some of you might know I do tech support. Anyhow, when we have to send a technician out, or if there is an outage, people go on and on about how important what they are doing is. Ok, while I have some sympathy for people, the pleading/yelling/whining is not going to make a sooner appointment time frame open up. If we put you a sooner time frame, then someone else who was expecting an appointment then gets put out of joint. So as the title says, please show me who we can make angry with us just to take care of your connection. Which other customer that is paying the exact same as you should we give a headache to? Gee you're losing how much money with your connection down, uh huh, and you pay us how much a month? Oh, you mean the same as every other one of our customers? Well hmmm, well, does your money sparkle or play music or some other nifty thing that only your money does? No? Well shucks, then I guess you'll have to be treated with the same level of service every other one of our customer's is. (this ties into another rant) Anyhow, if you want priority, you'll have to pay money for it. Taking an online class/running a business/ telecommuting/saving the world/delivering virtual babies/viewing pr0n/etc unfortunately do not qualify you for special consideration. Yeah, I understand people can be upset for various reasons, and I wish I could give everyone what they wanted, but money is money and that's unfortunately the way things are.

Secondly, if you're going to run a business from home, it's your dumbass fault for running one over a residential grade connection. You figured you could skimp and trim your budget by $150 a month, making you a savvy business owner. But hey, you're losing thousands a day when it goes out because residential services don't have any sort of uptime guarantess or redundancies, etc. People that say they run a business on the residential service rate 0 sympathy from me. These fools don't even have a dialup backup most of the time. If I had thousands at stake I know I'd spend an extra ten bucks for a friggin backup. You get what you pay for.

[SothThe69th]

Well hmmm, well, does your money sparkle or play music or some other nifty thing that only your money does?

Yes. That's probably why my counterfeiting ring didn't go over too well, but thats a whole other story...

[Martin Blank]

True story...

Back when I worked at an oil company, we were notified that we were taking all of the calls from the regional office in Texas (the largest office in the company), but it shouldn't be a big deal because there was a hurricane coming in and nobody was in the office. OK, no problem.

We get a follow-up call the next morning. The entire office building had to be shut down. No power, no phones, no nothing. Why? Because it was under SIX FEET of water. The entire first floor was flooded that deep. The servers, lickily, are on the fifth floor, so no damage there.

We get a call that afternoon from a guy in north Texas. The weather hasn't reached there yet, but he can't complete a dial-up connection. Of course not, we explain. The entire building is shut down, and is expected to be shut down for the weekend.

Unacceptable, he says. Get someone in there to power up the servers so he can access his e-mail.

The first floor is underwater. You'd need a boat to get in, and would have to swim to the stairs to the second floor, assuming there was even power to the building from the outside, which there is not.

Unacceptable. The building has generators. Power them up. I have a bid due.

We can't do anything about it. First of all, we're in California, not Texas. Second, the only person we have contact with is in the process of making sure his house doesn't flood.

Unacceptable. Get someone out there to fix the situation.

Fine. We'll get someone out there, just as soon as you can provide us a phone number to God so He can move all the water out of the way and allow the power and phones to be reconnected. Once you have that for us, we'll be happy to help you.

The line mysteriously cut off at this point.

[Quietus]

I have God's phone number, but I don't share it.

[Miroku]

It always amazes me how people think throwing a temper-tantrum will somehow magically facilitate their selfish, usaully petty, desires. While picking my wife up at the airport this weekend, we witnessed a man shouting at one of the staff members that he wasn't leaving without his luggage. The staffer explained that it was on another flight, and would be there in about 15 minutes. The man continued to yell about how he wasn't leaving without his luggage.

Now... explain to me how yelling will change the matter? The luggage is waaaaayyyyy up in the air, probably still 100 miles away. There is no possible way anyone at the airport can change that. How is throwing a temper-tantrum going to change that? And it wasn't like the man had left an inhaler or some important medication in his luggage that he desperately needed that moment (if he did, he's an even bigger idiot for not carrying it with him). He simply wanted what he wanted right then and there. I'm surprised he didn't resort to holding his breath.

Sure, it's unfortunate when someone has something like a bid due for a business deal... but the first floor of a building being submerged is, I think, a bit more unfortunate for those that work where the problem exists. And most of the time, people seem to get pissy because they simply can't do trivial stuff, like access chat, porn, email from friends... it's not like there's usually anything like a donated organ on the line.

I bear this in mind every time I have to deal with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. Usually, with any kind of question, you get bounced around like a hot potato through at least 5 or 6 people. Most where I work get really pissed off at this. I've seen them slam the phone down in anger. I figure that the people on the phone are doing me the favor of pinpointing *who* exactly has the answers I need. I ususally get the task of dealing with the MDNR, as I'm always very courteous and diplomatic with them. I thank each person for transferring me to who they think can help, because they really are trying to help. I've never failed to get the answers I needed, so far.

People don't realize that a little diplomacy goes a lot farther than a raised voice in most situations.

Or a big honkin' wad of $20s.

[Long Quan]

[quote="Kuronekosama";p="171481"]Alright, some of you might know I do tech support.[/quote]

You know, in a rant and rave thread, you could probably just stop with that. Enough said...

I used to work at a computer repair shop. In most cases, if someone called in yelling about their computer, they actually WOULD get a bit higher priority. Sometimes I would call in on the days I wasn't working and pretend to be a pissed off customer. I'd make up some name, usually something like "Mike Hawk" (say it out loud to yourself a few times if you don't get it), and tell them that I left my computer there a month ago and it still wasn't done. You'd hear them scrambling and shouting around, "Has anyone seen Mike Hawk's computer!?!"

Another funny thing is that at that same job, our second phone line's number was VERY similar to that of Checker Auto Parts. So we'd pick up the phone and have a conversation like, "Hello, is this Checker Auto Parts?" / "Why yes it is! How may I help you?" / "I think I need a new (insert name of car part here)" / "Alright, well what color is your car?" / "Excuse me?" / "What color is your car?" / "Umm... it's green. Why?" / "It has to do with heat distribution to the motor." / "Oh... I didn't know that." / "Well, now you do. It sounds like you have a problem with (whatever). Come down later this afternoon, and not only will we sell you the part, but we'll replace it for you right there in the parking lot." / "Really?" / "Yeah! Just ask for Adam!"
Needless to say, it was pretty funny. We actually recorded a bunch of those phone calls and put them on a CD, but I lost it.

[Martin Blank]

[quote="Miroku";p="172029"]People don't realize that a little diplomacy goes a lot farther than a raised voice in most situations.[/quote]
Perfect example from last night.

I get my Microsoft settlement claim form in the mail yesterday. It says to list the Windows/Office/Word/Excel/Works products I bought between 1995 and 2001 so they can send me a voucher for system purchase, and I don't need any extra verification for the first five products as long as the total voucher amount is under $100. OK, so I start to fill in Section C. But then I look at the back page, and Microsoft already had two purchases there (known from prior registrations), for which they're going to pay me anyway. However, it's not clear whether those are considered part of Section C, or if Section C just includes whatever records they don't have.

So I call the number, and talk to a rep, who doesn't have a scripted answer for it. (Scripted answers are perfectly fine in this case, since it's a legal document.) I know he's trying, and for about five minutes, he's going through his scripts, looking for answers. He offers to talk to a supervisor, and comes back a minute later not sounding any more certain, so I asked if I could speak with the supervisor. He says I can and asks me to hold for a moment (sounding very relieved, too), and a girl named Melissa comes on the phone. I explain to her my predicament, go through a couple of rounds of clarification, and she manages to straighten things out (no, Section C is separate from the registered purchases). I thanked her for it, and suggested adding a new scripted segment on that question, since it will almost certainly come up again. She was a little caught off-guard, but said that she would look into it.

All done. Took about 15 minutes total, and I was done. Pleasant conversation, people being helpful on both ends... Everyone happy.

[gravity]

Gravity realizes that most of the people doing the answering for questions on phone lines may not actually know anything about the questions they are answering. That's cool, they can usually find a way for Gravity to get her answer.

But, on two occassions, she met up with people hired that should have never been allowed on the job.

First Time:

In the fall of 1998, gravity's father managed to break the CD-ROM of the new family computer. It would not read cd's, at all. Music or games. (All legal copies)

So, gravity called the help line (IBM, or whatever. It's been a few years. ; ), and got shuffled around, and ended up at the right place. Gravity told the guy, SPECIFICALLY, that the CD-ROM drive would not read anything. The computer wouldn't even register that it was there.

So he told gravity to uninstall Win98, and gravity did. And then he told her ot put the cd's in, and reinstall the OS. Ggravity sorta said okay, because, if the tech support hot line says to do it, it's covered entirely by her warrenty, if she does it correctly.

Want to take a guess what happened next? You got it, the CD-ROM drive still wouldn't read. ;

Gravity ended up getting her computer replaced for free. That was cool.

Second Time: Gravity was having issues with something. She had to call some tech support line for one of her games. (SimLife, or something. She can't remember, it was back in 1999 or 2000)

So, after getting shuffled around (which wasn't so bad, because she was munching on cookies and watching tv, muting it when someone answered. ), she finally ended up talking to this one guy.

He should never have been hired. He began hitting on gravity, not trying to help her. Asking her somewhat inapropriate things. (What was she wearing, if she had a bf, how old she was, that kinda stuff.)

Gravity was only 15 at the time, but very good at being pissy. It'sa very good talent to have.

So, gravity gave as good as she got, and started asking how old his kids were, how was his husband (He didn't like that one! ), how was his ex wife, and etc.

And it dissolved fromt here because he said that he wouldn't help with whatever question gravity had unless she answered his questions.

She told him that it didn't matter anymore, and made a comment to someone who was supossedly standing next to her, and told 'them' that she had the perv on tape, and to send the men in.

He promptly hung up.


So yeah, gravity doesn't call phone help lines anymore, because she can usually find a friend who knows the stuff, and isn't going to be stupid enough to piss her off that much.

[Blaze]

I find tech support guys can be very very helpful so long as you show them common courtesy and accept that YOU bought the program. If something doesn't work, it's not like they forced you to buy it.

Case in point. When Mechwarrior 3 initally came out, I bought it right up, and installed. After that, my computer would not start up. It went to blue screen, and immedeately jumped to blue screen as soon as it had gotten past loading bios. I screwed around a little bit, trying to load safemode and what not. No dice.

Finally, I called the tech support. The man I talked to was very nice. He had me load up bios and enter some new command configurations. He complimented me when I was able to easily follow some of the more technical jargon, and I complimented him for being excessively easy to deal with. By the end of the call, we were even chatting a bit. After we got my computer starting up again, he helped me search out drivers for my mobo and what not to try to improve performance since the game was lagging. That's when I noticed I had been on the phone to California for 4 hours. I had not gotten permission to make this call, and though I could use the phone however, whenever I wanted, that was obviously going to be one hell of an expensive call. I made some sort of comment to that end, and the guy went to get his supervisor, who, once on the phone, requested my address and everything. A week later, I got a corperate check in the mail for $20 with a note that said it was to help cover the cost of the phone call!

Tech support people are there to support you. So long as you let them do that, they often do it VERY well.

[Quietus]

Gravity: You have earned my undying love and affection for your story.

That being said:
A lot of people have me help them with installing computer parts and the like, since I understand the hardware and software better than most. Most of them like my warranty policy too: if something breaks, we use the manufacturer's warranty and then I install it for free. Everyone wins, and no annoying phone calls.