what's net meeting?

[redqueenmeg.livejournal.com]

Prelude:  This is an incident between me and a tech who is on "my level"--meaning he and I have the same job title (Tier I tech support), the same responsibilities, and the same pay.  The only difference is that I am in the email/remote access queue and he is in the desktop queue (covering software installation, hardware problems, etc.).

We have a system at work that our users have for booking conferences.  It goes off Netmeeting.  So all you need to use the system is IE (it's a website) and Netmeeting, both of which ostensibly come with Windows.

Spelling errors are as-typed by the other tech.

I get a cold-transfer (no introduction--not supposed to happen unless there's a wait in the queue, and there wasn't) from the desktop queue.  The incident says "transfered to get software for (website) installed."  OK, you don't need software to be installed to use it, and even if you did, that was his deal, not mine, but whatever.  I told the client she didn't need any software installed and she went on her merry way. 

The trouble started when I sent an IM to the other tech.

Me:  Just FYI, there is no "software to download for (website)"
Me:  it's Netmeeting
Other Tech:  where are u???

I found this such a stupid, inadequate response to my helpful statement that I sat there for a sec and then lied:

Me:  I'm in Alaska.

No response from Other Tech for over ten minutes.  I went on break and came back to this:

Other Tech:  how did u find me??

By using my psychic powers, moron.  Your name is on the incident.  I didn't say that, however, but kept reading:

Other Tech:  what's net meeting??

WTF.

Me:  I got that call you cold-transferred to the Email queue for "downloading (website) software"
Me:  I thought you would want to know that no software is required for (website)
Me:  and Netmeeting is a part of Windows
Me:  It's what we use to remote in to most sites?
Other Tech:  thanks
Other Tech:  yes i know net meeting

Really, genius?  You could've fooled me with your little "what's net meeting".

See, it's people like Other Tech who give people in the company the impression that everyone at the helpdesk is a hopeless moron.  It's people like him that make it impossible for me to move beyond Tier I tech support despite having a master's in corporate communication and technology.  So yes, I do resent him and his "type."  JUST a little.  *sigh*

x-posted to my journal

Comments

[oh-kevin.livejournal.com]

me and the other two people left in the office just laughed for a good 2 minutes.

what a prince.

have fun in "alaska"

[redqueenmeg.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It's pretty warm here today in Orlando, Alaska.

[abstrak-tokatl.livejournal.com]

whoa... netmeeting... really? i haven't even seen that program since 1997.... and that was taking if off the system....

[bekscilla.livejournal.com]

We still have people using netmeeting for remote controlling people.

The rest of us use remote assistance. Sometimes you wanna kick decision makers.

[greeklady.livejournal.com]

Holy Hell. Now granted I have just been introduced to netmeeting in my new shop. But damn every tech knows what it is and what it is used for. Too bad you can't slap him.

[redqueenmeg.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I know. He's in our other center.

[greeklady.livejournal.com]

I personally like other apps where we don't need the end users ok to control their pc. Plus you catch them doing all sorts of naughty stuff when you don't have to ask for permission.

Is the moron new?

[redqueenmeg.livejournal.com]

He's newer than I am. I'm not sure exactly how new. Let me see... Yes. He has been in this job 7 months and I have been here 3 and a half years. Recently, standards for the job changed. When I was hired on we were required to have a BS or BA degree and were encouraged to get further degrees. Now I don't think people even have to have an AA. That is not the problem, though, because obviously working in tech support I know very well that education doesn't make people smart.
The problem is that they've dropped things like the basic grammar and spelling test they used to make people take, and stuff in that vein. Ugh. Plowing through these people's incidents to TRY to figure out what they are talking about is tedious at best and impossible sometimes.

[greeklady.livejournal.com]

Dang, 7 months? Hell I have been at my job less than two and I am a net meeting pro.

I have my AS degree and I spell like crap that is why I have webster and dictionary.com on bookmarks. There is no excuse for sloppyness or lazyness. And if you can't decipher what the hell they are saying, time to be a bitch and do quality control. Report it to their supervisor. Keep a log and then after a month, show what you had to do to research and back track their asses.

On our remedy we have a built in quality button. I click the fucker and report their inability to oh... get the correct cube location to as far as not even get an error message in the damn ticket correctly. It is a beautiful thing.

[redqueenmeg.livejournal.com]

OH. MAN. I WANT THAT BUTTON. Sorry, I have been drooling over having such a feature for the entire time I've been in this dang job. *dreams*

[greeklady.livejournal.com]

Well I did my time in helpdesk right. So I had shit roll down hill and my tickets became perfect to the point I'd yell at the techs to read my notes. (reverse lazyness there). So now that I am a tech, you bet yer butt I kick help desks ass. I know what questions you need to ask. Don't give me this bs "I can't print". Why can't you print? What is up? Did you check if it had paper? GAH! And yes, they never have fricken paper in the damn thing. It aint my job to refill it folks. Get a damn admin for it.

[redqueenmeg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't defend us at the helpdesk just for the sake of defending the helpdesk. Clearly, Other Tech is proof that the helpdesk can really suck. Actually, everyone sucks. I hate people. *cries*

[greeklady.livejournal.com]

I did 4 days of helpdesk, as a temp job. It really reminded me why I hate people. Not certain types of people, becuase I'll not name the WASP school it was at. But ALL people.

Sorry had to vent there.

[redqueenmeg.livejournal.com]

Oh heck, name it. I've been to two WASP schools. heh. And I've been at various helpdesks since 2000. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

[greeklady.livejournal.com]

cough*stanford*cough

The MBA divison at that. Those professors need to be taken over someones knee and horsewhipped.

[redqueenmeg.livejournal.com]

I bet you're right. Actually, tech support at the schools I went to is probably every (http://www.northwestern.edu/) bit as irritating (http://www.rollins.edu) as Stanford. Most profs I had, especially at the first school, were too important to use email. Caused a lot of stress.

[greeklady.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah and they love coming to my office to yell at me vs going 3 more doors down the hall to yell at the tech who screwed her up.

And I see you do have the yuppy rich bitch schools to deal with.

[redqueenmeg.livejournal.com]

Well, I just went there; I didn't do tech support there. Heh, actually, for undergrad, I used to be online a lot and I didn't know anything about computers really and I was like "Who is this dude named root?"

So I did "mail root" and asked who he was because he was always online.

HAHA, and he didn't delete my account! He was very nice and ended up explaining a bunch of really basic UNIX things to me. Very nice of him to indulge a theater major that way.

[bekscilla.livejournal.com]

Or logging a job for a hardware call, and leaving the users address as one she hasn't been at for 8 months. Nooo, I will *not* stick up for you, and I *will* apologise to our hardware team for your laziness.

[said-by-me.livejournal.com]

We used to use netmeeting and even the most basic (and annoying) of users knew what it was. Half the time they would start the support call off with "Can you just netmeeting in and I'll show you..."

[redqueenmeg.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, most of our users think I can magically see their screens when their calls come up on my phone. While that would be nice, our system is incapable of that. We have four different programs we use to connect to the desktops of our users (depends on their area) and none of them know what to call anything anyway.

[corvisbell.livejournal.com]

heh.
i wish i had that button.
and the ability to remote desktop to my cust.
trying to figure out what the hell they are trying to describe to me sometimes is enough for me to use the mute button.
f*cking illiterates.

[canthlian.livejournal.com]

*Sigh* Oh, I know this conversation well. Isn't it always just wonderful when other "techs" try to appear smart and knowledgable, and make asses out of themselves?

[redqueenmeg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it just makes me cringe. We get emails out saying about how there is an outage and it will "effect" so and so many users. Really? It will bring about those users? I doubt it. You probably mean "affect"?