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?

Comments

[wildkard.livejournal.com]

I think I know what you're referring to and I can totally understand. I tried a form of it once long long ago (2 or 3 years) as an alternative to DSL... anyway long story short; the installers took forever, I had a 100% completely clear line of sight and we never could get it to hold a constant connection (it was uber-fast when it worked... but it only worked for seconds at a time) and when we cancelled it took them a full 15 MONTHS! before my ISP decided they wanted to drive over and pick up thier equipment from our garage (we had decided to take it down ourselves because it's pretty ugly... directly on top of the house)

Maybe this is a different technology then what you're supporting tho, more modern and etc...

[bookofnights.livejournal.com]

Yup, it sounds like you know exactly what I'm talking about ;)

I wish it were more modern. Typical troubleshooting questions (and reasons why it's not working) given by my fellow tech support agents:

1. Is it cloudy?
2. Do you have trees?
3. Are there birds flying around your house (I'm not joking on this one)
4. Do you live in the path for an airport?
5. So, what's the weather like out there?
6. If you go to the national weather site, you'll see that there are sunspots occuring right now, and that is what's causing the problem. They should clear up in a few days.
7. Have you had rain or wind lately? How about clouds? Do you have any clouds?

Argh! We hate asking these lame questions, and customers hate hearing them.

[vir2allan.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean... I was trained for that skill set, but by the grace of god, nobody ever added me on that particular queue... so it has been like three months, and i haven't had to take a single one of those horrible calls.
I really feel sorry for the people who do, however, as my company is 'acquiring' another provider of this technology soon... and knowing how acquisitions go for regular dialup, not to mention DSL, i fear that we may have a rough patch ahead

[kyndig.livejournal.com]

hehe, I spent some time teching that technology as well. I suspect about 3/4 of my calls ended with "sir, this may get me fired, but let me be honest with you. This is NOT going to work the way you expect it to, if I were in your situation I would seriously consider cancelling."

[bookofnights.livejournal.com]

I can't even tell them that, because if they cancel, they have to pay a huge penalty. I wouldn't hate this technology so much if:
1. People were guaranteed a "minimum" speed.
2. They were allowed to cancel if they couldn't get that minimum speed (or a guaranteed amount of up time).

[bookofnights.livejournal.com]

I really feel sorry for the people who do, however, as my company is 'acquiring' another provider of this technology soon... and knowing how acquisitions go for regular dialup, not to mention DSL, i fear that we may have a rough patch ahead

Oh my gosh... we work for the same company! :)

[vir2allan.livejournal.com]

Hah... how about that...

you live in SoCal, right?
Do you work in PAS, or RSV ?

I just peeked at your journal and saw the post about the senior test... I have a great senior test story...
But i can't post it public...
Email me your Jabber or AIM... you'll get a kick out of it...

[bookofnights.livejournal.com]

I work in PAS (RSV is more up north). Email is on the way :)

[wildkard.livejournal.com]

ouch. I think that's 3 more questions than *my* ISP had... They stopped being my ISP after I had dealt with all this crap.

Again, for me this is years ago.

[akage.livejournal.com]

Wow...you get asked first? :-o

I got thrown recently into a skill set supporting a major regional bank using a Siebel package, whereas my primary is supporting a tobacco company's field sales using an in-house product. Absolutely no overlap between the two accounts, other than the users on both being carbon-based life forms (as far as I can tell).

I wasn't asked, I wasn't even given fair warning. And my "training" consisted of "Go sit with one of their techs and listen to them take calls for a few hours. Unless we get busy and need you back here."

So now I'm a glorified receptionist for that account. Every call, it's "Hmm...let me put you on hold for a second and check on that..." then either get verbatim instructions from their techs or just transfer the user. I HATE that, because then the users are going to come to expect that, and just assume by default that I'm an idiot.


And as regards your technology-which-shall-not-be-named, it's got its uses, mainly in godforsaken places out west where the phone lines are absolute crap and cable modems haven't made inroads yet.