Need to rant...

[mix-hyenataur.livejournal.com]

Recently got fired from GeeksMobile with 2 checks having a 'stop-pay' on them.

Seriously spending hours in someone's house is unprofessional as it is, only to have them bitch that it should've taken me sooner, and they always fight to get their money back. You can't really please these fucks. Yes, because doing a virus scan for a dell that only has the specs to run Win98 is going to take 30 mins? These people expect me to know exactly whats wrong and how to fix it as soon as I get there and just get to work fixing it, not diagnosing it before. What happens if it can't be repaired? Expect them to bitch and for me not to get paid. I spent 4 hours, 1 of which driving to fry's, and 2 other repairing the other 2 computers she requested for a customer that I was warned was 'difficult'. The original problem couldn't be solved. I ended up only charging her for 1 hour, since she was going to bitch if I charged her for 2, at a discount. She ends up bitching anyways that I didn't solve her original problem, and that I "should have known that it was a bad hard drive before I got there, through remote-support".

Ugh... I really hate this company... moreso, I really hate this type of work. I really just want to open up a shop with a sign that says "Cash only. If you won't pay, I'll destroy your pc with a sledgehammer in front of you."

Comments

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

I wish I had a dollar for everyone I've ever had to hear bitch about how "unacceptable" it is that they don't get instant gratification with no diagnosis, and hardware problems are just magically fixed. Odds are I'd at least match my paycheck.

The problem now is that a lot of support companies (and support departments of larger companies) now seem to believe in holding us responsible if the customer isn't completely satisfied when we're done with them. (There's no way you can ever satisfy someone whose expectations are totally unreasonable, especially if the only thing you can accomplish by trying to adjust those expectations to something that can be met in this universe gets you disciplined for being "rude" ..

[tullamoredew.livejournal.com]

this is why I left field tech work, and became a proper sysadmin, even if the money was pretty good sometimes

well, this and too much time spent in traffic

THIS.

[jecook]

As brane-numbing, and frustrating* as it can be, working as a corporate IT drone is where I'm overall happy at.


* between politics, incompetant cow-orkers, and vendors who couldn't find their arses with a 1:1 topo map, torch, and guide, let alone fix the stuff they sold us...

Re: THIS.

[tullamoredew.livejournal.com]

in some companies, you get to be the one and only IT drone, and if you're good at it, you get 80% daytime free for whatever

What I do atm is more time consuming, but waaaaay more interesting as well

[mouser.livejournal.com]

My company has phone support and field support. For some bizarre reason, most people think field is better then phone. We do most of the same things. I'll stick to my heated/air conditioned cube rather then having to deal with halitosis, traffic, getting hit on by freaks, etc. etc. etc. thank you very much!

[dave-iii.livejournal.com]

Field has a certain personal touch that folks miss from the old days, when (nearly) all tech support was field work. I can still remember when the TV repairman came out, with a huge box full of tubes and things.

Of course, that was when "spam blockers" were either a loud dog or a double barrel shot gun. ^_^

[asbrand.livejournal.com]

Many moons ago, when I worked in a small computer shop...I actually had the owner of the store tell me "I don't want you to troubleshoot it, just fix it."

I just looked at him like he just grew a 2nd head and asked "...and exactly how does that work?"

He didn't really have an answer for me...and left me alone after that.

;-)



-Az

[jjjiii]

I have a simple policy for this that works great if you're allowed to use it: Customer service applies to customers, not assholes. Life's too short to be wasting it dicking around trying to please assholes who will never appreciate what you're doing, through word or dollar. Fuck em. Once they're high and dry they'll come crawling back, and then we'll see who's nice.

[russianswinga.livejournal.com]

Much of the reaction comes from the price the company charges. Seriously.

The company I work for has a desktop support rate at $115/hr. I never, EVER have anyone bitch at me / my boss / my company. They are thrilled their file is recovered. They are even more thrilled when I tell them it's too old to fix, too crappy, etc, we will only charge them for an hour of work to get files off of this machine, and recommend a replacement computer that they need to buy.

If we were charging $40/hr, our clientelle may have been complaining that "buying a new PC is not an option for them". But we don't.

Bottom line is, if your price yourself dirt-cheap, expect to be treated like dirt.

[brothersterno.livejournal.com]

If stuipd cheap dickheads can afford the service, then your cutomers will be stupid cheap dickheads.

I had a guy get mad at me because I didn't want to argue with him about an outage credit, so I just multiplied the real number by 4 and offered that ($10), but nooo he wanted a whole month ($50). He decided to escalate so my manager gave him the credit he deserved, which was something like $2.63.

PWNT

[dave-iii.livejournal.com]

Ooo, that was good... I'll have to remember that one. Haggling was never a strong suit of mine, but that should be a very effective technique. ^_^

[brothersterno.livejournal.com]

My manager sat across the desk from me. I thought it would be a bad thing, since he could pick up the phone and listen in to any conversation, but it turned out to be a good thing, since I very rarely was the unreasonable one in the conversation. Eventually, I think we might have had too much fun with it. There were a couple of "Hang on, my manager would like to speak with you" moments where he would get fed up with someone's bullshit and really want to chew them out. He told a customer that the customer had better be nice to me because if it were up to him the customer wouldn't get ANY credit, and if the customer knew what was good for him he'd take what I was offering and say "thank you". Solved that problem. It should be pointed out that my manager quit about 3 months after that.

[biggeek.livejournal.com]

I did a couple years of field support in the early 90's and it was a nightmare.

Consumer home calls were the worst. Cat ladies with overheated computers stuffed with hair..."Broken" computers with the power strip accidentally turned off...Hovering clock watchers who bitch about the cost...Shut-ins that haven't talked to a person in weeks and make up for it with you...I even had a woman burst into tears because I was editing her config.sys file and she didn't understand what I was doing.

In any case, techs have to start somewhere. Some people call it abuse, some people call it character building, but ultimately it's about getting experience and paying your dues before you move on to bigger, better tech.

It still sucks, though.

[vulpisfoxfire.livejournal.com]

Just out of curiousity, have any cases where the customer has already figured out the problem (and got it right) and would be quite happy to fix the problem *themselves* (and has sufficient knowledge to actually do it correctly), except that policy requires them to call IT for any little problem?

Ack ACK ACK

[undeaderotica.livejournal.com]

Yes I feel your pain. There should be a preliminary required statement they have to sign and understand before their computer is even touched. I want to hear them say, YES I understand there is a troubleshooting process that has to take place which requires work and time. Yes I understand that I am a dumb box of rocks who doesn't understand how a computer works and I am to lazy to try to even care about it. I accept the fact that you'er smarter than me and I should listen to you while bowing down and kissing your feet. Please fix my computer, please master! I will pay you with my first born! - This is what I want to hear before I touch anyone's equipment :)

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

Residential support is a non-starter. They need so much more service than they can afford that it ends up being a complete fucking nightmare. Most of them can't even comfortably afford (or at least THINK they can't comfortably afford, or shouldn't have to) the hour or two of service to fix their immediate problem, much less the fucking man-days that would be necessary to actually sort out the entire chocolate mess they've gotten themselves into - not to mention the incredibly bad habits they don't WANT to fix which inevitably lead them again and again and AGAIN into needing yet more support they can't afford.

Which is why most of America gets themselves malwared, lives with it (thanks assholes) and ignores the symptoms for a year or so, then goes down to the big box store and just buys another computer. Which, to be fair, is frequently cheaper than fixing their actual problems would be, given how deep those problems tend to be.

I quickly learned to ONLY do residential support for employees of businesses that I supported, and even then to try to limit it as sharply as possible.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_caecus_/]

Get more education, get more certifications, and get the hell out of end user support. It's either that or change fields. I'm not being mean or anything. It's what I'm doing myself. I think I'd rather open my wrists than to have to deal with that sort of thing.