The Day I Had It...

[canray.livejournal.com]

While walking home tonight, I was reminded for some reason of a call I had to deal with when I first stated a Call Centre job two years ago.

It was after my first few months, still on the shift that ended at 3 AM, and just plain cranky.

It was 2:50 AM, I had been dealing this demanding, arrogant jerk for almost an hour, and finally got his computer back on the Internet (Had to flush the DNS). Figuring that is that, and trying to figure out how to not take another call, I was prepping the "Thanks for calling, don't get me next time" speach when...

Caller (Screaming): "NOW I WANT YOU TO GUARANTEE THAT THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN! OR ELSE!"

Me (Without pausing): "The only thing that can be guaranteed in life is Entropy."

Caller (Confused): "What?"

Me: "Entropy. The eventual degredation and destruction of everything."

Caller: "..."

Me: "Confused still?"

Caller: "YES!"

Me: "OK, the only thing that I can guaratee in this life is Death will eventually come for you, me, everyone, everything."

Caller: "ARE YOU THREATENING ME!"

Me: "No. Unless you claim to be Immortal, you will eventually die."

Caller: "... ... ... DID YOU CALL ME IMMORAL???"

Me: "Sir, if you do not listen to what I have to say, I will have to disconnect this call." *Looks at time: 3 AM*

Caller: *Slams Phone Down*

Me: *Notes In Account*: Educated caller about entrophy, informed him that he is a mortal person. Did not threaten, or call immoral.

I ended up walking home. It was Friday, and cabs were a half-hour apart, and eight people were in front of me waiting. It's a 45-minute walk to home from that workplace.

Don't know why tonight's walk home from the bus stop reminded me of that day. :-S

Comments

[insomnius.livejournal.com]

I am in awe. I would love to leave notes like that in a customer account.

[ex-deliveryboy.livejournal.com]

nice :)

[phrogg.livejournal.com]

Sounds like fun... *stores that in mental filing cabinet for future use...and promptly loses it*

[canray.livejournal.com]

3 AM shift almost killed me. :-(

[canray.livejournal.com]

Just had had enough that day, week, month, whatever.

[canray.livejournal.com]

Not really.

I'm *STILL* trying to figure out why the Call Centre was in the middle of an Industrial Zone.

In fact, the closest Residential Area was a brand new Suburb. Only three people I knew (Other than Management, of course) lived within "Walking" distance. :-S

[insomnius.livejournal.com]

But you survived! And you lived to tell the tale.

[canray.livejournal.com]

Ya.

But it's comments like that that continues to remind me that we're a lot like some Veterans groups.

We've seen stressful situations that most people will never understand.

On the bright side, noone's trying to kill/maim us. Well, purposefully, at least. I've been zapped a few times due to people's stupidity.

[insomnius.livejournal.com]

I had a guy offer to come and break my legs once. Over the phone, mind you. He was going to have me thrown out of the country too.

It's true. I don't think it can reasonably be called a healthy job.

[canray.livejournal.com]

Had a guy threaten to cave my head in with a cable box repeatedly, then to take a shotgun and unload it into a busy payment centre.

And the company I worked for refused to call the cops, too. :-S

I had images in my head all week of seeing it on the news...

[phrogg.livejournal.com]

I was referring to the last bit of conversation. Looks like it'd be fun to use on some poor sap one day.

But your story has reminded me of a comment i posted in a ticket that made my boss sputter. I'll have to share it later. Right now, though, my butt's numb from sitting here all day.

[canray.livejournal.com]

I think I should also state for the record that this was completely deadpan.

I was way too tired to put any emotion into my voice.

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Caller (Screaming): "NOW I WANT YOU TO GUARANTEE THAT THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN! OR ELSE!"

Minus the screaming (although very often in a quiet-angry hostile voice), I do get this demand more often than I'd like. Usually it's a sign that the call is going to drag on for another hour while I explain that it's not possible to guarantee that and then listen to the customer rant about how they expect the machine to work flawlessly forever without ever needing any kind of repair or support and they're outraged that they had to suffer the indignity. Usually that's about as much fun as the "I want *new* service parts on this repair, I don't want any of those refurbished parts" rant. Very often one leads to the other, which is real fun.

Sometimes a brief explanation of the bathtub curve (with a reminder that they can Google the term for confirmation and don't have to take my word for it) and explaining that most if not all computers are built out of components bought from other vendors to (consumer level) specs and will occasionally fail, helps. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes saying anything other than "yes sir, I'll personally guarantee that and will gladly submit to being strung up by my kidneys if it ever fails again" is the equivalent of pouring gasoline on a fire. Usually those are the ones who get surveyed after the call ..

It would actually be sort of possible to buy a computer guaranteed not to fail, or at least guaranteed to meet enterprise level reliability specs. They tend to be expensive, and the support tends to be expensive as well. I'm pretty sure most of my customers' houses wouldn't qualify as an installation for that level of support .. and I'm positive that they'd have to take out a second or third mortgage to pay for the computer, installation, and support, even if it did ..

[canray.livejournal.com]

I lucked out.

That day, I was monitored... And it was the "ABBA" call that was early in the day.

Not that major a story, I was confirming information from a Cable Modem and needed the MAC Address. ABBA was part of the Hexedecimal number.

I'm sure that I'd have been called up on the entropy thing had I been caught.

Did bring up the situation with my Supervisor when I next saw him (Only saw him once a month on that shift, as he went home before I got there), and his suggestion was to "Disarm the situation as best you can."

I gave him the look, and he nodded. There pretty much isn't a way to disarm stupidity over the phone.

It's less stable than Sweaty Dynamite, which goes off if you give it a hard LOOK.