DSL Woes (Part 92821217443.022382565 1/2 + some more)

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

Partially intelligent and inquisitive people are worse than stupid people.

Stupid people can at least be pointed, like the little water-headed automatons they are, to perform simple tasks. You may need to break it down a lot, but they at least know enough not to bother interrupting the smart person. They don't care, just tell them how to make it work. While their condition is sadly common, it's at least managable. Assuming, of course, they don't 'give up' and demand someone come fix it. Then you have to waste time laying down 'The Law'.

What's worse is the partially intelligent people. You know, the lawyers, the psychologists (my god, the psychologists, what a worthless made-up area for collegiate-types who think memorizing the work of Freud readies them to understand a damn thing, including their own career), the businessmen. 9 times out of 10 they realize you're there to get them online and back on their way. While this is almost as bad and repetative as being merely stupid, they too can be dealt with. The ones who annoy me are those who want shit EXPLAINED to them.

Me: "So when your phone line got cut, it cut the DSL too, and the phone techs didn't turn it back on."
Cust: "Why?"
Me: "Because they didn't know what it was or that it had to be there. Not their job."
Cust: "So how does it work?"
Me: "It's complicated."
Cust: "I want to understand what's happening."
Me: "I'm sorry, what I do is I fix it. If you want to understand it, once we get you back online I'd really recommend howstuffworks.com."
Cust: "I'm not stupid! I demand it as a consumer!"
Me: "Not my job. I just make it work. To explain it takes too much time, if you want to know how it works, get a book."
Cust: "Too much time?! I just want to know...."
Me: "It would take just about as much as we're wasting right now to explain to you what's going on, and does you absolutely no good at this juncture. Would you like to get it fixed?"
Cust: "Yes!"
Me: "I do that."

"How does it work?!" "HOW DOES IT WORK?!" Magical fucking fairies come down during the night and fill up your wires with magical internety goodness, you ass! That's how it fucking works! That's why ethernet cables are so thick, they hold so much more fairy-spooge than regular phone wires! What the fuck!? You go through life ignorant as the fucking day you were born, the service dies, you call me, and all of a sudden you want it fucking explained to you? What the fuck, Professor Hawking, why not just make a theory about it and be happy!? It's not my job to teach you, I don't want to teach you, I don't even like you! And since you're using a piece-of-shit, half-assed assembled, 10 year old IMAC running OS-9.2, which is, as I see, the ONLY thing saving you from having to pull a reinstall every 3-months to rid yourself of virii and spyware (MAC is NOT more secure. Nobody gives a SHIT about doing anything bad to them! Woo, spam %4 of the total market share! Who gives a crap?!) as you probably had to do with your PACKARD BELL paperweight in the corner! I think you have more shit to worry about than how your porn gets to you over the wires, and even if you didn't, I'm not about to take time out of MY day to explain it to you, because you can't even figure out 'unplug the power cable from your DSL modem' without it being repeated three times!

NO. Don't fucking argue with me! I don't want to know! I don't care! I just want to fix your piece of shit, faggy-pastel-colored, artists-wet-dream, neutered UNIX box so I can get paid! Do as I say!

Comments

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

When I go to the doctor, I want things explained reasonably enough to know what is happening, what to do about it, and what to watch for while doing it. If one of my computers break, I want to have a reasonably good idea of what happened. If someone else's breaks, I just want to fix it and move on.

What I don't want is a fucking dissertation about chemical interactions or the systems at the PCB level. Figure out the problem, fix it, and move on.

When my lusers do this, I give them a similar treatment. We're tutorial support, we can show you how to do specific tasks. If you want to rebuild your kernel, fine. Here's where to go to do it. Why would you want to do that? If you have to ask, STFU and go back to Windows.

I feel your pain, man.

[guinevere33.livejournal.com]

I don't know what's more frustrating, that or trying to explain something important to someone who refuses to hear it. I've tried to pound some very simple knowledge into the heads of those friends who most often fuck up their machines in the hope of preventing total meltdowns in the future, only to watch incredulously as they stick their fingers in their ears and start yelling "Nyah nyah nyah, I can't hear you, computers are HARD OMG!!!" You can actually see them mentally take their brain out of their head and set it aside until you're done talking.

[lordstorm.livejournal.com]

Isn't that why they call Technical Support in the first place? *wide-eyed look*

[grayhawkfh.livejournal.com]

"How does it work?!" "HOW DOES IT WORK?!" Magical fucking fairies come down during the night and fill up your wires with magical internety goodness, you ass! That's how it fucking works!

Dammit...I hate cleaning Cherry Coke of of my monitor...

Methinks this needs to be on metaquotes...

[brotherflounder]

Extreme Icon Love. Can I use that?

And I second the metaquotes suggestion.
AGH! Third time's the charm. *can't comment tonight*

[grayhawkfh.livejournal.com]

Yes, please do...

[twitchfetish.livejournal.com]

the force is strong with you...

note_to_asshat if you haven't already :) that paragraph almost made me lose my lunch with laughter :P

IV

[azurelunatic]

Seconded.

--a moderator of note_to_asshat

[hihankara.livejournal.com]

I think you should start a new company, where people hire you to yell at the dipshits they dont have the time or desire to yell at in person. :)

[infy.livejournal.com]

If we could do that, we'd be rich... anyone want to fund this capitalistic venture so we can eventually die happy?

[wyldthyng.livejournal.com]

I like having those concepts explained to me. I may not have a degree or be an IT professional (though that may change in very short order), but I do understand the surface of the situation if it's laid out for me. I think one important skill in a TSR is to be able to explain the gist of the situation at the customer's level. Your evaluation of the customer's issue left me with no more information than I had before reading the post (what do you mean by "cut"? Do you mean disconnected? Do you mean criminals broke in and snipped the lines?) and I think I would be rather angry if I was directed to a website when my Internet's not working.

No offense; just my two pesos.

[infy.livejournal.com]

No offense, but if you need this explained to you, I would highly suggest http://www.howstuffworks.com or any other book or web-based primer on this - this isn't the forum to expect explanations regarding basic concepts of how broadband service is delivered to the average customer. We're here to blow off steam or regale a particularly funny tale of luser ineptitude. At least, that's why *I* am here.

Explaining the gist of the situation is NOT describing in minute detail the hows and the whys of the DSL service's functionality and how it relates to that particular customer. We're there to get them up and working, not train them. If I feel particularly friendly, I may give them a quick rundown, but I have no problem whatsoever in saying, "Hey, you want to know how it works or how you can figure out how to use it better? Go look for (insert Dummies Guide name here)." I can count on one hand how many people actually heeded my advice, though.

If you've ever seen what hell we go through over our stats, our talk times, every freakin' stupid detail that the average person wouldn't even believe we get harassed over by our management to get the customer off the phone so our ASAs don't take a nosedive.

the_paco - You rock, man. I don't envy you talking to external customers, but the way you describe it keeps me howling.

wyldthyng - "criminals broke in and snipped the lines"? Oh, how I needed to snort seltzer out my nose and had it bubble down my shirt when I read that. How long exactly have you been doing technical support?

Like I said, no offense, just my two lire. (what the heck else do you expect me to do with all this extra coinage from my trip?)

[wyldthyng.livejournal.com]

I wasn't asking for an explanation right here and now - just saying it wouldn't kill you to give the customer the gist of what was up. I know all about the importance of call stats but the ultimate is leaving the customer happy. Or so I keep being told.

And as I said. How the fuck am I supposed to access howstuffworks.com if my Internet's down?

I scored 94% on technical training when I was working for a satellite provider. I'm not doing tech support right now. And it was my intention to phrase that as somewhat tongue-in-cheek - it's talking to the customer at the customer's level. Touche?

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

The customer will be happy when they're back online. It's nowhere near our job to explain how it happens. It's broke, they want it fixed, they want it fast, and they call us. It's not in our description to explain to them things that need not concern them, like how DSL works.

They call us, we fix it, that's it. They can get a book if they want to know how it does what it does. Or they can go online, or they can ask their neighbor, or they can use Tarot cards. Doesn't concern me how, I just know I don't and won't explain it to them.

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

And yah, our stupid 'placating/soothing female voice' tells the customer to go to our website every 30 seconds (or so) they hold. Since wait times can average around 30 minutes, we get some ANNNNGRY people. I definitely do not blame them. That thing combined with the shitty hold music combined with the "I can understand you when you speak" bullshit condescending-sounding 'female voice part deux' makes me glad I have internal transfer numbers.

But each time I talk to a customer I envision the Robin Williams sketch "Why do we breathe?" "Because we need air." "Why do we need air?" "Because it keeps us alive." "How?" "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU, CARL SAGAN!? YOU WERE SITTING IN YOUR OWN SHIT 3 MONTHS AGO, NOW YOU WANT TO KNOW THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE, BABY BUDDHA!?!"

[leninstalin.livejournal.com]

see i have to disagree, i work in a call centre, i deal with drunk americans, and international clientele all night, and yes call stats are important, but there have been times where i've been kept on the phone for about an hour, explaining various things, and the customer walks away better then satisfied, they actually take the time to contact my employer and tell them how pleased they were,

yes they want it fixed, but for instance if you take a piece of equipment in for servicing, and all the service people say is "its broken." and you ask "what do you mean its broken?" and you get a catty response ie. "do you want it fixed, or do you want to know how its broken, because telling you how its broken is just a waste of time". i think you would be slightly offset as well.

i know i would be.

overall put yourself in the customers shoe, i deal with retarded customers all night, but more often then not i can see where they're coming from.

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

I can explain what's broken, but more often than not they just want more detail than they can handle. IE: %80 of the time they seem to mean 'impress me with technojargon while I pretend I understand.'

So yes, I do say "There's a problem on the network." "What?" "The ASAM, the first piece of real networking hardware your modem connects to, is not responding to ICMP packets. It's not answering when we test it. That means we have to send someone over there to figure out what's wrong with it."

In the cases where they ask How It Works, especially ONCE it works, I advise them to look elsewhere, as it's technical and would require a lot of definitions of what most of the technojargon means.

So yes, now that we've established that I can be a human being and not be a total dick to the customers, can we now climb off my ass and realize I could have been exaggerating when blowing off steam in a community meant for it? Because you're (and I mean everyone who's trying to tell me to 'think of how the customer feels') beginning to piss me off, and this conversation will quickly take a turn.

Thanks.

[wyldthyng.livejournal.com]

~lol!!!~

Okay fair nuff. I don't necessarily want information on the layout of the motherboard of my computer and how electricity travels through it and blahblah.

BUT.

If my internet doesn't work, and it isn't something on my end, I'd like to know some degree of detail about what it is. Did someone else in my apartment move out and the wrong connection get yanked? Did someone break into the room with the connections in it and vandalize them? Is there a system problem that's causing an outage in my area? Did someone forget to press a button that activates my connection? WHAT?

My internet at my place is down. The technician gave me a really simple explanation that at least doesn't leave me floating in the dark about what's going on. He said for reasons unknown, my modem refuses to connect to the network. Fine. That doesn't tell me about the intricacies of network technology, it just tells me he can't get my modem connected and it doesn't appear to be a physical problem. Groovy (or not so much, since it's not gonna be fixed until Sunday :'( ).

That's what I'm asking for.

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

See above.