Pet Peeve

[samwize.livejournal.com]

Last weekend I took some sidework for some cash. Had to go into a friends parents' house and 1)decheesify their old Windows 98 P.O.S. that's been through three owners, none of which had done even the most basic maintainance and 2) install a wireless ethernet card on the WinXP laptop.

The pet peeve? When I called ahead the day before to get basic information, I had to spend 15 minutes arguing with the wife about what OS she was running.

"What operating system are you running?"

"Oh...I don't know. Windows something."

"Ok, Windows 95? Windows 98? Windows 2000? Windows XP?"

*thinks* "Windows 97."

"There's no such thing."

"Yes there is. It's what I run."

"No, it isn't. Do me a favor and click on the "Start" button."

"What's that?"

*ponders*

"How often does it crash?"

"All the time. Maybe every hour and a half."

"Ok, you're running Windows 98."

"No, it's 97."

"No. It isn't. You're running windows 98 with Office 97 installed. Every time you load up outlook or word it flashes that 97 up there. That's why you're confused."

"No, I'm telling you it's Windows 97."

"...Of course it is. I'll be over around three o'clock."


(Sidenote: I got a $50 bonus from the husband for convincing her to get a new computer. "Well, you've got four choices at this point: you can wipe the hard drive and reinstall the operating system, and then learn how to maintain it properly, you can wipe the hard drive and reinstall windows and then do it again about once every year, you can resign yourself to using a fundamentally unstable and frustrating computing environment, or you can get a new computer."

"Well, I don't want a new computer, so I guess we'll reinstall windows."

"Ok, that's going to cost you a substantial portion of the money to buy a new cheap computer from Dell." (I charge $50 an hour. It's the only thing that keeps away the annoyance.)

"Hmm...Well, ok. Just make sure to put lots of photo editing software on there, as I'm going to start doing lots of photo-stuff for my newsletter."

"...Ma'am, you need a new computer. Period."

"...Oh."

"Yeah.")

(no subject)

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

Every once in a while, I tend to think that what I do is rather, oh, blatantly obvious, but one of my coworkers reminds me, in her own way, that I really do have to spell things out for her because she's too stupid to think that if I say nothing about it, it automatically means that I'm slacking off on my job and am not doing my job.

For example, with the cleanup project that I'm currently working on, every Monday/Tuesday, I send a list of policies to the MGA that have had the cleanup done on them. If there are any policies that I feel require manual intervention, I ask the MGA to 'hold' the transactions on their end (since we can't do it on ours) until I can process all of the necessary manual transactions. This way, we coordinate the transactions and they are seemless to the agent. This cleanup has been going on since January 14th. Recall, techsupport readers, that Z.A. has been on vacation the entire month of January, and apparently still has not read all of the email sent from that time period or else she would see a pattern here.

So I provide now for your reading pleasure the email exchange that ensued on this topic. I thought that this was pretty straightforward, but hey, I'm OBVIOUSLY wrong. Here it is with names changed to protect everyone, and the policy numbers removed for obvious reasons.
( cut due to the email's length )

"And screw you too for that comment."

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Is there a more irritating phrase than "You should be grateful for..." ?

I swear, anyone saying that to me is three seconds away from a kick in the teeth. Don't you DARE presume to tell me what I should or should not be grateful for, you waste of skin. Go kill yourself with a cheese grater.

Crazy Old Lady Email Action!

[linguafranca.livejournal.com]

Cast of characters
Me: It is bitter, bitter! And I like it because it is bitter, and because it is my heart.
OL: Old lady


Me: Open up Outlook Express
Me: hears *click click click*
OL: Is it open?
Me: ...


That was a long call.

Put the fax machine back in the box and no one will get hurt.

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

Part of my job entails supporting fax machines with joe blow consumer. Some of these people have just a single shared line (fax machines can eavesdrop now), others have fax lines in addition to their voice line.

Sometimes we get dumbasses with single lines that pick up the phone when we're trying to test the fax and keep saying hello to the fax beep

Tonight I had a customer who had 2 lines who kept answering his fax line while I had him on hold. Hello? Why are you answering your fax line when I just told you I was sending you a fax? There's nothing wrong with the equipment, it would receive faxes if you didn't answer the fax line manually.

Even worse was I had to go back to my phone twice to tell him to leave the fax line alone.