KILL.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Counting down the last few months of my job before I hand in my notice (and how sweet that will be, after a decade of corporate TS), I realised that the reason I am quitting (apart from finding a much more interesting way to make money) is not the callers.

The callers are fine. I can handle the callers.

It's the rampant stupidity and wilful ignorance in my very own workplace which are driving me out the door.

Management who for eight years have dealt with crisis after crisis by burying their head in the sand, instead of setting up procedures to handle tsunamis of incoming calls when some developer breaks thousands of PCs with another untested patch. Developers who get off scot-free after trashing the organisation time after time. Supervisors who think they (and everyone else) should be grateful to have a job which is the digital equivalent of the janitor with one toothbrush at Amal's House of Dodgy Curry, Weak Beer and Salmonella.

Of course, that's about the only level of job those particular supervisors have the skills for.

If I hear "Oh, but if the users weren't being continually screwed over by the developers, the SOE, management, and everything else, we wouldn't have a job!" one more time, I will be carving "No, YOU wouldn't have a job, you useless waste of skin" into random appendages with an apple peeler.

So help me, if I ever hire anyone with this kind of attitude, you may unscrew the top of my skull, remove my brain and use it as a bookend, because I sure as hell won't be missing it.

uh-huh. okay. *pause* you did... WHAT?!

[ramennoodlegirl.livejournal.com]

this is pretty much how the conversation went...
user: we're having problem with a computer that's not getting internet.
me: okay. is it giving you any error messages when you try to connect?
user: just "website not found."
me: okay i can...
user: (cuts me off) i reformatted two of the computers just recently.
*silence*
me: you... reformatted two computers.
user: yes.
me: do either one of them get internet now or is it just the one?
user: neither of them do.
me: okay. (holding back my wrath) i'll put in a work order for you.

holy moses! why would you reformat two computers in your office without notifying the information technology department? see that little red sticker on the top of the computer? that's an inventory tag. that it-##### means that those two computers belong to the information technology department. we're just gracious enough to let you use them. if there's something wrong with them, call us and tell us! if they need to be reformatted, WE'LL do it. NOT YOU! you don't do that!

Stories like this are why I still hang around this community.

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's true. I'm a bitter ex-phone support monkey, working on an accounting degree. However, I still have to suffer through a computer science course (it was that or a baby here's how you use Windows and DOS course). Less than half have survived this far through the course as it is, and withdrawls haven't even closed. Some people really need to change majors (I'm the only person in the class that is not a computer related major).

One of them needs to take remedial here's how to use the fucking Intarweb. Today the professor comes in and puts up on the Proxima an email she got offering internships to local students in various computer majors over the summer to work in the IT departments of various well recognized companies. She asked those people who might be interested to put their emails addresses in said computer to have the details forwarded to them. It took one such genius three tries to get the @ and the two dots in the right places - with the professor's assistance, and even still it wasn't right before she told him to go sit down. We're only talking Outlook here, not a text based system with remapped keys all over the place. I weep for any company that might be dumb enough to hire him.

I have nothing against anybody for any trait they were born with, and understand there's a lot of white men in this business. The particular internship emphasized that it was "an excellent opportunity for women and minorities". Our particular genius is of dark skin. However, he's in the majority in one area - computer science majors that are also idiots. I've said it before and I'll say it again - I don't care what you look like or what you got between your legs. I care what you got between your ears. Odds are this moron is going to going to get hired because his name sounds good despite the fact he's barely passing this class and can hardly use a computer to save his life. I weep for this industry and the people that may have to put up with him for nine weeks and in the future if he survives college.

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[kallell.livejournal.com]

If Ignorance is bliss . . . Why are all of our callers so angry?