(no subject)

[lolotehe]

If you refuse to listen, then you are wasting everyone's time.

Comments

[donnaidh-sidhe.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[johnciall.livejournal.com]

This

[kellirose1313.livejournal.com]

Amen

[jecook]

... you were saying something?

*ducks*

[melstav]

Huh? What?

[abstrak-tokatl.livejournal.com]

try bullshitting with them while actually fixing the problem.

[wxgeek.livejournal.com]

That.

[winter-serenity.livejournal.com]

This x∞

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

And not just yours and theirs, but the time of all the people backed up in the phone queue, the combined time of all the people whose emailed problem is going to be delayed again before someone can address it, and the time of all the managers and colleagues and clients of all these people who are waiting on the person who's waiting on the helpdesk who is waiting on one particular caller who won't goddam shut up and listen.

[cirobi.livejournal.com]

Here here.

[hiroe.livejournal.com]

Where? Where?

[cirobi.livejournal.com]

There. There. *points*

;)

[emsporter.livejournal.com]

My current tactic on those types is going deadly silent. When they ask ARE YOU STILL THERE!!#!@#!@ONEOUTRAGE!! I politely say "I am waiting for you to stop talking so that we can work on your problem. If you're going to keep talking over the top of me, though, I have a book and I'm quite happy to sit here and read while you vent."

CIO was in the room last time I used that line. He cracked up laughing, waited till I was off the phone, asked about the problem, and offered the "put it in a box and ship it back, you're too stupid" solution.

[sdx.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of abrupt. I usually just cut those people off. I guide my calls by asking the questions, and when people try to talk too much I just cut them off with another question.

Some get the hint "this guy knows wtf he's doing" and just answer.
Then someone want to give me their entire goddamned history of everything the modem has ever done.

[red-scully.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've started talking louder and loudER and loUDER and LOUDER until they finally get the point.

Some of them still carry on talking crap anyway. I basically stop, wait for them to finish, and then say, "as I was saying," and repeat myself. I have this one home user who calls me once a week with the same problem but never actually does any of the things I suggest. She basically uses the call as an excuse to soap box about how shit we are. I sometimes take my headset off whilst she's talking, lol.

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Being aware that talking != listening is a good starting point.

Being aware that asking a question and then barging ahead with more chatter on top of all attempts to answer is a force-multiplier in terms of wasted time is an important step along the path. Especially if the question is one the person you're talking to has been trying to answer the whole time but hasn't been able to get the answer in during the all-too-brief and all-too-rare pauses.

Being aware that the beginning of the other person's sentence is not the moment to start blathering on an unproductive tangent (and I've talked to quite a few people who seem to wait for 2-3 seconds in silence, then the moment I start to speak, start talking over me, often repeated over and over) is another valuable lesson.

Most people never learn any of these lessons. Some seem to take pride in *avoiding* learning them.

And some are just dicks.