Relay Chatting... for fun, I guess.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Okay, I can see the usefulness of having a service where someone who cannot speak or hear types to an operator who then speaks with a person at a call center. Makes perfect sense and I'm glad there's such a service available.

However. What sense does it possibly make to use such a service when the people you're calling have live tech support and sales chat services available right on the Web? Moreover, when the sales rep you're having such a conversation with tells you that all orders are processed over the Web, why would you then say that you prefer to make orders over the phone? Your primary method of communication is typing. We have chats set up and waiting. We've got sales reps just bored to tears, hoping to get a sales chat just to have something to do. You're telling me you'd rather type to an operator, have her talk, then have her transcribe what is said back rather than typing directly?

My refrigerator is thirty feet away. There is booze in it. I could drink on the job and no one would ever know. I keep telling myself I won't bow to temptation, but some days, my friends... some days...

Comments

[annamaryse.livejournal.com]

People who are deaf have special communication needs. TTY operators are specially trained to communicate to them and translate as needed. TTY operators deal with many needs that the deaf have, not just tech support.

If you're communicating to the TTY operator, they will often gently nudge and guide the hearing people they're talking regarding the subtlety of having to deal with them.

Also sometimes they're blind too and the TTY operator is typing back to them in braille.

I had to deal with deaf and/or blind people once in a while when I did tech support and there's a whole pace to coping with them. Let the professionals handle it... that's what they do.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

This operator wasn't nudging me gently, subtly, or otherwise. She was saying what he typed verbatim, which often lacked in sentence structure and construction and for that matter in common courtesy. According to the guidelines she set out for me at the beginning of the call regarding waiting for the other person to say "go ahead" before you attempt to reply or continue talking, he was being quite rude to both of us by going ahead and talking again after he'd signalled for a reply. For that matter, he apparently just hung up on her when he decided the call was finished. You'll pardon me if I lack sympathy for him.

[annamaryse.livejournal.com]

Sure... there's always people like that who don't play by the rules... it sucks and it's not personal. I do feel sorry for those people though, a lot of the time they have giant resentments for everyone on the planet who isn't stuck going through whatever limitations they're stuck with.

Life sucks worse for people like that than we can ever know. And that doesn't excuse their manners... but does explain them. :(

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Thanks to various surgeries and issues, I've spent more than two years of my life either confined to a wheelchair or mobile only with the aid of crutches. Having experienced that, I don't feel more sympathetic for people like my caller; I feel LESS sympathy than I ever did. You're in a situation where you need a little extra help than would someone "normally abled" in the same circumstances. So to encourage the people trying to help you, you act rudely and as though you are entitled to do whatever you want? No, ma'am.

Being handicapped doesn't excuse bad manners. It doesn't even explain bad manners. It for certain doesn't entitle you to them.

[mtlchick.livejournal.com]

Being handicapped doesn't excuse bad manners. It doesn't even explain bad manners. It for certain doesn't entitle you to them.

I have to agree with you here. After 7 years of tech support, I've figured out that nothing, and I do mean nothing entitles you to bad manners.
You're welcome to all the resentment you want, but don't be taking it out on me. I've actually been told that because of my job I'm "allowed" to be resentful as well - I don't take it out on people that have nothing to do with the cause of it.
We're there to help, we didn't break it but we can fix it - if you're nice, usually we can even fix it faster. There is not a thing that entitles you to be rude to a frontline agent - be you handicapped, the president of the company, a stressed out mom with 16 kids - nothing. Sometimes it's more understandable then others when you lose your cool, but rude is rude. Period.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

This was almost certainly a cheap crook trying to buy something with a hot credit card number, using the service for the deaf as a front to cover his poor lying skills. I've had such try to scam me twice before.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

You know, the interesting part here is that no order came in from that person? I'm wondering if you aren't right about that in this case.

[jahbulon.livejournal.com]

You don't drink on the job? What the hell is wrong with you?

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Well, I had to pick one vice to indulge at work. It was either drinking or World of Warcraft. Warcraft is the cheaper addiction to indulge, really.

[loosechanj.livejournal.com]

Why limit yourself?

[loosechanj.livejournal.com]

I could drink on the job and no one would ever know.

Go for it.

[canray.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, the joys of relay calls! I got them all the time when I was in Regular Tech Support (More than anyone else that I knew at work. I get the weird calls.).

In my new department, only once, and boy, was that ever not a lot of fun!

Didn't help that it was another cold (mis)transfer.