My stupid customer of the week award goes to . . .

[volaticusorexis.livejournal.com]

Good grief I don't know whether to laugh cry or scream. I just spent 45 minutes on a call trying to get this guys media files reassociated and showing him how to use Winamp to listen to create playlists for his messages. Anyway I finally got him working but in the process he was trying to tell me that he had no desktop. I had him save the first list on his desktop and he was ale to do that, but when we actually trie to go back to the desktop, he was trying to tell me he had to go through his explorer because he didn't have a desktop. I patiently explained that he needed to at least minimize all his windows and go back to the main screen with his icons on it. He said he did that but he didn't have a desktop so he couldn't go back to it. I tried explaining what a desktop was at least 3 more times, but everytime he adamantly said he had no desktop. I had to put him on hold for about 5 minutes while I laughed my ass off in frustration. I finally gave up on explaining to him what a desktop is and had him save it to his My Documents folder. Then he immediately went onto the desktop and double clicked the icon to get into My Documents. The desktop that didin't exist. I started giggling again at that point but the call was over finally. I need to get more sleep.

Future Darwin Award Winner- I Hope

[vir2allan.livejournal.com]

I had a caller that blew my mind tonight....
We'll call him Dumbass...

dumbass: Why isn't my DSL working yet? I ordered it 6 weeks ago...
me: Let me look...What is the phone # it is supposed to be on?
dumbass: 2#56#4#5#4... it's my cell phone.
me: [not sure i heard that right] ummmm... your cell phone?
dumbass: yes
me: okay... What is your HOME phone #?
dumbass: That IS my home phone... all i have is a cell, i don't have a land line.
me: You don't have regular telephone service at all?
dumbass: no, but i have all the wiring and jacks and stuff...
me: [sigh] you are going to have to get regular phone service for us to get the phone company to turn on DSL...
dumbass: no- you don't understand... i have all the stuff, i just don't have a dial tone, because i don't need it...
me: [beginning to bounce forehead off of keyboard]
me: sir, DSL is an additional service... it requires a working phone line...
dumbass: I don't understand.
me: Would it make sense for you to call the phone company and ask them to add Call Waiting, or Caller ID to a line that doesn't exist?
dumbass: Of course not!
me: [praying that he gets it] this is kind of like that....
dumbass: Oh.. Okay... Are you sure?
me: [choking down the rage] YES!
dumbass: Alright then... I guess i will call and cancel the DSL tomorrow.
dumbass: Could you help me set up my computer for Dial-up, then?
me: Do you have the connector and the driver software to connect your PC to your cell phone?
dumbass: No- i have the modem plugged into the wall jack.
me: (CLICK)

Then i climbed under my desk and wept...

Why did I say yes?

[bookofnights.livejournal.com]

A while ago, I had a particularly horrible skill set pulled off me. The technology for it sucks, the training was worse, and there was pretty much no way to fix those people. I won't specify which technology it was, other than to say two things: If you have to sign a contract which says you'll keep this service for a year, that should be a warning sign. And, if speeds are referred to in terms of "up to" find out if there is a minimum speed guarantee. If not, run like heck back to dial up, no matter how sucky it may be.

The people who call in for tech support for this "pie in the sky" service are always angry and who could blame them? The contract says they have 30 days from the date of sale to cancel. Since most of them don't even get installed in the first 20 days, that means they have 10 days to get it installed, call tech support, try to get through, and then decide it will never work. This means many of them never get a fair chance to find out it's unsuitable for them and their lifestyle (i.e. they have a tree at their house) in order to cancel.

But at work we need techs who will take those calls. They asked me if I'd take that skill set again. And I said yes. (Pounding head on keyboard.) Why, why did I say "yes"? I'm already having nightmares about teching this product.

Maybe it's not too late to change my mind?

(no subject)

[chickenfart.livejournal.com]

routine pc replacement. i call ahead and tell the user i'm replacing his pc with a new one.

when i get to the guy's desk i see that him and a coworker are busy deleting files.

"anything important saved on the hard drive?" i ask. (we re-image the old drive after a week, but also recommend everything gets saved to a network drive in the first place)

"nope.. just delete the myfiles directory ok?"

sure thing.. i copy profile information over and browse through the drive for any important files (because there's always _something_ and sometimes people don't know which is their hard drive or a network drive)

i get to the myfiles directory and notice there's files in it. so by habit i copy the directory over to a network drive.

should have just deleted it.. i see numerous file names pass by... boobs.jpg... titsblahblah.jpg etc... it takes a full 10 minutes for the directory to copy, meanwhile the user is sitting right there while i'm pretending not to notice what is happening and making small talk.

i don't understand how people can surf for porn in public places.. especially the workplace. and then he saved i don't know how much on the pc itself.. sheesh.