And you're calling me WHY?

[mouser.livejournal.com]

One call - kill me now:

(1) "Our toilet doesn't work, can you fix it?"

Yea - THIS is why I went to college! "No, you have to call the engineering department. I'm I.T." (as you know pretty damn well!)

(2) "Oh... What's their number?"

Yep. I'm in hell. Reserved seating only.



I have figured out WHY I get all thes types of weird calls. Someone finally told me. "It's because you actually get stuff FIXED when we ask!"

So, the reward for good work REALLY IS more work. Until you get so much else you are yelled at for not doing it all.



Oh, god. Kill me now.

Comments

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

The trick is to do a good job but be so unpleasant, people will think twice about calling you.

It's a good trick. Just wish I could figure out how to get it to work.

[martiandooz.livejournal.com]

Our motto where I work:

"No good deed goes unpunished."

[wherdafux-d-cat.livejournal.com]

'Sorry, that's not the kind of core dump we deal with here.'

[attackgypsy.livejournal.com]

We here at cable IT support here these all the time.

"You're the only ones who will actually help us!"

and

"You're the only ones who speak real English!"

Yeah, we're one of the few cable companies that hasn't offshored their support. There are others, but not alot.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

My child, you misunderstand; the reward for good work is an increasing nunmber of people who depend on your gifts. Being asked to fix the toilet is like being asked to be the uncrowned king of the office. For, with the power to fix the toilet comes...the power to NOT fix the toilet! Few will dare to defy the absolute monarch of the essential plumbing.

No slight intended to those in the business

[merlin-t-wizard.livejournal.com]

As the quote says "Doing a good job here is like working in a whorehouse, the better you perform, the more they screw you"

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

I've learned to answer questions like that with a simple "No." It kills the conversational momentum, doesn't easily lead to obvious next questions, and makes the questioner sound like a whiner if they keep asking for stuff.

Of course, I get the "You're not being very helpful" line a lot, but there are plenty of comebacks for that.

"You're right." *click*
"Fortunately, that's not part of my job."
"I'm aware of that."
"And you're not being very intelligent."
"Says the person who called the computer department about (non-computer) X."
*click*
"That makes two of us."
"Which one of us wanted (non-computer) X fixed, so they picked up the phone and called the computer department?"
"That's because if I'm helpful, you'll call me next time as well, and interrupt my job again. This way, I get less phone calls and you learn that the phone is not a genie which will magically connect you to the right person."
"You want help? Go and get a pen and paper. Got it? Write down this number. XXXXXX. Read it back to me. Good. People on that phone number can help you. It's the {yellow pages / company switchboard / college student office / other source of general contact info}." *click*
"Ah, cruel world."
"Hey, I'm helping you realise that you dialled the wrong number. And I'm helping you waste your time talking to the wrong guy on the wrong phone number."

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

My favorite one like that was the guy who was complaining--via email--about not being able to get into his mailbox. I checked his account and everything looked fine. Eventually, I asked him for more information, and he explained that he meant the physical mailbox in his dorm.