(no subject)

[lolotehe]

Well! Just got off the phone with a woman whose laptop would not boot. It would get to the OS load screen, then go blank. I started to get a ticket in for her, but she already had one in. I let her know this is the case.

And she starts bawling. "This is an emergency," and "They said it might be four hours before someone comes out here."

Now, I've had people break down on the phone before (usually after yelling and screaming, so I just take it as a sign of defeat), but this one didn't go through the usual phases, so it was unnerving.

And it makes me wonder what's going on over there that requires sobbing on the phone.

How many of you have had someone cry on the phone? Was it justified?

Comments

[emsporter.livejournal.com]

I've had a few of the older-woman persuasion cry on the phone. The "i'm an older woman, terribly confused by technology, frazzled, stressed out because I Don't Get Technology and I Feel Stupid" variety. I don't object to those, they're generally polite, just frustrated and getting emotional about it.

I've also had a couple of calculated "maybe if I cry they'll feel sorry for me!" attempts, but unfortunately for them, that doesn't work.

[ghostdandp.livejournal.com]

I've had them cry in person.. talk about awkward

[cirobi.livejournal.com]

I had this happen once because one laptop manufacturer was sending customers to our site for repairs as if we were a repair depot when we're a corporation with only internal IT support and primarily don't use their machines anyway. The girl had apparently been to several places recommended to her by $manufacturer's phone support and was at wits end. I felt really bad for her but we really couldn't do anything to help her.

[darquethoughts.livejournal.com]

Ha, I've made customers cry!! LOL

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

School teacher trying to install a Citrix client on her PC. I finally (actually, no $#!+, not kidding) asked her if she had a teenager handy. Walked the kid through the install in about a minute and a half.

[altorogue.livejournal.com]

I worked for the IT department in college, and I had several students cry when they realized their hard drive was toast, or that they had enough spyware and crap on their machine that they could not productively use it anymore- and, of course, they had never actually availed themselves of the network storage space every student had to back up their senior thesis, their 40-page papers, etc.

[vociferator.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a woman who had taken her machine to 3 different places in the area only to be told she'd be charged something insane ($200 for, essentially, telling $shitty_antivirus_program NOT to keep redirecting the incoming mail server to 127.0.0.1) and was beyond frustrated. She started talking about how she just wanted to email with her daughter about her new grandchild and how she didn't know what to do because she couldn't afford $200 and started crying. Much less awkward when I fixed it in <15 minutes and charged her $20.

[fusepark.livejournal.com]

I'm just going to go back up my computer now...

[phyphor.livejournal.com]

Not entirely unrelated but someone I worked with many years ago now once had someone die on them on the phone. It sort of puts things into perspective.

[lolotehe]

I've heard of people calling back only be told that the contact is "No longer with us."

You fired him?

"No, he was hit by a bus during lunch. Would you like to speak with his replacement?"

[lolotehe]

Oh, making them cry is nothing. When they call up, trying to be cute and flirty and get around the rules or ask the impossible...

Then, after discovering that tits don't work over the phone, they get abusive and threatening...

And when that won't work, they just cry. Not a justified cry, however.

And that's when I laaaaaaaaaugh.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

At least they told you. I had a customer die and his underlings kept it to themselves, and I looked pretty dumb putting his name on orders they phoned in for his locations.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

I had a woman tear up in person but keep a steady voice when I told her it would take up to ~2 hrs of labor @ $45 each to definitely fix her cant-run-Windows problem; she didn't look upset otherwise, and and kept poking her eye with a finger, so I thought she had something in it or had been cutting onions or something. She said she would think about it, and wrote me a check for $40 minimum for coming out.

An hour later back at the shop, she called to tell me boss what a meanie I was for making her cry because $90 plus tax was soooo much money (4 bedroom house with rec-room, 3 car garage on 3-4 acres with a pond) and another computer guy had been able to fix it in 15 minutes for $50, and wanted her money back despite agreeing to the minimum before I even came out.

[harry-whodunnit.livejournal.com]

Back when I worked ISP helpdesk I once had an older French man break down in tears telling me he was a cancer patient and couldn't afford to pay his bill. I sent a heart-wringing email to the billing team asking them to *please* help the guy.

They emailed back saying "No, he does this every month".

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

tits don't work over the phone

Is it bad that this made me laugh uncontrollably for five straight minutes?

[fuego.livejournal.com]

On multiple occasions, yes.

My favorite, I think, was the guy who had encrypted his hard drive, lost the password and had some massive OS fuckups.

Apparently, this computer contained the only copy of the financial records for his multi-million-dollar business. (Or was it his multi-million-dollar porn collection? Hard to say over the phone.)

There are others, but they make me incredibly pissed off and send my blood pressure skyrocketing when I think about them.

[lolotehe]

300 Naked Women Feared Lost In Computer Crash

No.

[lolotehe]

They don't work on me in person, either.

Re: No.

[taleya.livejournal.com]

Or me. Mine are invariably bigger

:D

[my-arrows-aim.livejournal.com]

I once had someone break down on the phone, she was the press officer for the company I work for and had left her laptop at work. She phoned me up and threw a massive sobbing fit as she explained she needed it sent to her, or a new one sending out to her home address ASAP.

It was Christmas Day. Sorry sister, never gonna happen.

Re: No.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

*high five*

[dave-iii.livejournal.com]

No, I wouldn't think so... in fact, I would think that that line (or some variant) needs to be on the next memo circulated 'round the floor. ^_^

Re: No.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised they work as often as they're rumored to. I image my own response would be along the lines of "Do I look like a BIOS?"

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

I've also had a couple of calculated "maybe if I cry they'll feel sorry for me!" attempts, but unfortunately for them, that doesn't work.

I think it rarely does, for anyone who's been in I.T. for any length of time. People just don't generally deal with I.T. often enough to realise this, and so try standard tactics. And are shocked, shocked I say, when they're bluntly called on it.

[meitemark.livejournal.com]

That pretty much sums up a customer (crying; check!) I once had, that was trying to setup a modem/router so she could get online and pay her bills. Asked if there was any children around, and she got her 6yo son. ~10 minutes, and that included checking the cables, chase the mom away twice, and doing the config, PPPoE and finally testing, and install of java for the bank login.

I prefer crying customers over drunk customers.

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

Back when I worked at Computer Renaissance, I was working extremely late (it was like 9:30, 90 minutes after the store closed) getting caught up on stuff when the phone rang. Policy didn't require us to answer at this hour, but I'd just faxed the day's sales to the home office so when the phone rang, I thought it was about a problem with the paperwork. Nope, it was a customer, who was having some problem. She was rather upset and I could barely understand what she was going on about. Suddenly the phone went dead; I can only guess that she accidentally unplugged her phone while trying to fix the problem. At that point I didn't want to deal with it and I just grabbed my things and headed for the door.

Just before setting the alarm, I heard the phone ring. I wasn't about to answer it, so I let the machine get it. The answering machine picked up the call, and I hear this woman half sobbing, half screaming "Don't do this to me!!! and then hanging up.

She never did give me her name or phone number and she never called back, so I have no idea what any of it was about.

[attackgypsy.livejournal.com]

I had a grandmother on the phone. She had just gotten her machine back from Dell. They wiped the drive.

On the drive were pictures of her grandson, who had made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq. She was so upset, it took me 5 minutes to find this out.

Nothing I could really do, by policy, on my end. I muted her, waved my supervisor over, and told her "I don't care if I get fired, I'm going to help her if it takes me all day". She said "Then we'll both be collecting unemployment. Do it."

Took a couple of hours, and a number of phone calls to her family to resend pictures, but we got her a lot of the pictures back. And she was so happy, words can't describe it.

About a week and a half later, I was called into the office by management, along with my supervisor. They told me they had listened to the entire call. And then handed me an envelope with a $100 gift card to a restaurant as a reward for such good service. I tossed it back on the table and told them to send it to the customer. She deserved it more than I did. She gave up her grandson so we could all be free.

[redqueenmeg.livejournal.com]

I've had people come close to crying like the guy who'd just broken up with his girlfriend and in an interesting reaction she put a BIOS password on his computer which had the only copy of his grad thesis on it.

Mostly they would just try to make ME cry though, with shouting and screaming and death threats and personal insults.

[mix-hyenataur.livejournal.com]

As data-recovery workers comb through the hard drive for signs of ass, Blauvelt is asking well-wishers to pray for the naked ladies' safe return.

[kingogre.livejournal.com]

About the only thing i've had and it's awhile ago was online college students who bought refurbed computers at the councilors "suggestion" to help get them "sales" these things were total junk heaps.. anyways long story short overworked nursing students, refurb crap computers, and deadlines approaching and lack of understanding of technology.. after the fits though they normally listened with sniffles in the background and we got em fixed.