(no subject)

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

I love how in my job I'm not given any information outside of the little sliver of 'my job', which is %90 just getting little old ladies back on the internet because they reacted to Windows XPs 'limited or no connectivity' error and inadvertently shut off a connection to a device that doesn't supply DHCP IP's. But if I run into any errors, especially INTERNAL ERROR NUMBERS. I have no guide. Nobody I call has any guide. Our provisioning department has no guide. We're just supposed to tell the customer some line of BS.

"The DELETE key, lady. The one on your keyboard. No. What you type on! No! How do you DELETE what you've just typed when you make a mistake?!"

Of course, since the customers seem to be incredibly blind, I suppose there is no real motivation to give us that kind of information.

"No. I know the last tech told you to call Dell about error 678 from the XP dialer. Delete it, remake it. Wow, it works? Fancy that."

Also since my fellow techs seem to occasionally trade places with the customer in terms if boneheadedness, I suppose it's logical that they want to give us as little rope to hang ourselves with as possible. Still, it's annoying.

I hope I get promoted soon, so I can actually branch out and learn some of this crap.

Comments

[greylady.livejournal.com]

I hope I get promoted soon, so I can actually branch out and learn some of this crap.

You still have hope! That's so precious... /sarcasm

I feel your pain. I find that learning things despite my company's policies is still the best way to go. Of course it means that I want to break my desk with my forehead on a slightly more regular basis...

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

I find when the customer frustratedly asks me what I should do, I recommend they get cable AND dsl at the same time and give the money to whomever gets there first. If the company doesn't want to give me any information as to WHY they're delaying, I'll slip back into 'what would I do' mode, and screw the company. Maybe they should get their act together.

[tadiera.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of my job for the DSL/Dial-up company out here.

People would call in and say:
"Hi, I'm installing (product) and it gave me error number (blahblahblah) and said to call Tech Support."

Were we ever told WTF these errors meant? No.

And do not get me started on the dial-up installation. No one on the desk had ever seen it, period. So it was great when a person goes 'Hey, I put in (info)... now what?' x.x

[darkblade1.livejournal.com]

They have something similar here. Typically when customers put a new cable modem on the wall, they need to register the modem. What they'll get is this "fast connect setup" which is suppose to register their modem for them.

It doesn't.

It gives them some crazy error code, and we have no documentation on any of it. So, we just wing it because we have no idea what these codes are...

[tadiera.livejournal.com]

Honestly, it is likely the programmer's faults. They put error codes in, they know what they do, they just did not bother to inform anyone else.

[loosechanj.livejournal.com]

You know what annoys the piss outta me? When programmers take that high and mighty "you wouldn't even have a job if it wasn't for me" trip. No numbnuts, I wouldn't have a job if you did your job well. Jesus.

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

we're expected to google the stuff not available to us, except then they block some of the sites with information.

[annamaryse.livejournal.com]

Yeah I was gonna say. Google the error. In time you'll recognize the ones that mean anything, most of them have no bearing at all on what the person is trying to do and even less on your end. I found myself saying things like "oh that's just a windows thing..." I am dead serious, that works.

Even more fun: the error numbers seem to sometimes have no rhyme or reason -- the same error will pull up various numbers. On the mac side Apple has a great list of error messages in their support site. Dunno if you have mac svc too.

[harry-whodunnit.livejournal.com]

Lucky me, we do have that information -- our intranet has a link to another ISP's customer support pages. :)

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

LOL one place I worked at was like this, until the other site went pay.