(no subject)

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

Edited for soap box moment:
What the hell happened to you people in the last couple days? Has this been going on since I stopped looking so much? Jesus. Quite a few of you are becoming quite the little mini-moderators, or just plain bitchy. Cut it out. Or, even better, come comment in my entries where I can start playing with you. My days have been rather bereft of idiotic holier-than-thou jackassery, and having someone come begging for abuse is just so much fun.

Others, stop deleting your entries just because you're being besieged by morons. We need to see these morons in their full glory so we can all bug the mod team to get rid of them. We can't do that if you go around deleting your posts. Remember, it takes two to tango, but it only takes one to look like a whiny little loser alone on the dance floor.

This concludes my soap box moment.... the next few moments are soap FACTORY moments.

---

So I'm out of the tech support field for almost a month, now. Those who don't know, I used to work for a sucktastic ISP for DSL, then I got fired when I got uppity with shady attendance. So now I'm looking for a new job. I've managed to get a temp job or two, and am starting next week on an extended contract position for a few bucks more per hour then I made there. Meantime, I'm going out of my mind. My girlfriend decided to help by giving me a target.

Turns out my girlfriends cable ISP (Suckcast) was having an issue where her IP lease would expire, pull a new address, but only lease it for an hour instead of the 96 hours it's supposed to do. At the end of that hour, nothing would be able to pull an IP address at all without a lengthy restart of the modem. Having checked the routers website for any info or firmware and finding none, I decided to call the ISP to see if this was a known issue or if they could register any problem on their end.

I should have known. I did know. I knew I'd have to fight through the first level to get to someone who MIGHT know what they're doing. I just didn't know what that would do to me.

Tech: "Thank you for calling suckcast, my name is some South American one. Can I help you?"
Paco: "Yeah. I've got a router on that pulls an IP, then when it tries to renew after that lease period is up, it leases an IP for an hour, then that expires, and nothing we can plug into it, router, system, anything, will be able to lease an IP until the modem is unplugged for 30 seconds. It's currently doing it, can you test it now to see if there's any issues or problems?"
Tech: "... what?"
Paco: "I can tell this will be a fun call."
Tech: "So it goes away when you unplug then replug the modem?"
Paco: "Yes. For 4 days."
Tech: "Sooo...."
Paco: "No, you'll not be offering that as a solution."
Tech: "It sounds like your network card."
Paco: "Excuse me? Uh, no. I'm logged into my router RIGHT NOW. My system can get an IP from the router, I can surf to the router. When it's getting an IP, I can get onto the internet. That's not the answer. Call up your little mentors or level 2's or whatever name you have for the people who actually know what they're doing, and either get them on the line or get a plausible answer. Try again."
Tech: "Okay, can I put you on hold?"
Paco: "Sure."
Tech: *click* hold music. *click* "Okay, can you unplug the computer from the router and plug it directly into the modem?"
Paco: "Sure, okay. *click-click*
Tech: "Okay, I want you to go to start..... click on run...."
Paco: "Look, skip the script, what do you want done?"
Tech: "Er, uh, ah.... what's your IP address."
Paco: "There isn't one. Here, I'll try to renew again.... DHCP timeout."
Tech: "There, see? It's your network card that's the problem! I see this all the time."
Paco: "Oooh-kay, hey, guess what, do you have anyone there who has a CLUE what they're fucking saying? Because you're about as smart as the damn modem itself."
Tech: "Would you like a supervisor?"
Paco: "Way to go Captain Obvious, why don't run and get me one."
*click* hold music *click*
Sup: "Hi, you're having problems?"

And repeat.

This entire time I was talking to them, I was googling the router, checking forums, etc, to see if there were any precedent. Eventually I found a hint to what I was getting. Turns out the router she bought has this problem with Suckcast, it's a known issue, there's an experimental firmware, and I'd have to call the router manufacturer to get it. I knew tech support would be a losing proposition. Guess I was just feeling masochistic.

You know why people hate tech support? Because, except for very very few, none of them care about their job, none of them know how to do it, and the companies running them don't give a tin shit about it. When the company is big enough, losing %10 of a customer base per month means jack to them, and it translates to treating their employees like shit and paying them next to nothing, and pretty much encouraging them to be the worst types of people they can be to the customer.

I hope, wherever you work, that it's not big business. Every time I deal with one in anything but a pure 'buyer to seller' situation, I learn to hate them even more. I only tolerate wal-mart and the like because I don't have to TALK to the people working in it.

I further hope, if you're working in a small business, that it's still small enough to allow you to take these idiot techs (or really, any idiot who so thoroughly blows at the job they are hired for) into a back alley and shoot them. You should really be taking pictures.

Comments

[usekh.livejournal.com]

Man I just noticed that myself. Asking to remove posts, comments on people posting their reactions using ** and something about someones actual journal being weird..WTF?

[valkyrwench.livejournal.com]

It's the summer heat - it does funny things to otherwise reasonably sane people.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

It's obvious when the techs are hired by managers and HR without being intereviewed by other techs. And when they're going by script.

I've had to call in for support on stuff and said "I need to talk to an engineer." THAT'S the line I use to determine if their tech support is good or bad - can I GET the engineer or not?

Dell really pisses me off about that.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

Saying "Please remove that post" JUST makes us ALL want to look at it!

[taleya.livejournal.com]

I'm shat off because I keep missing all the fun. By the time I'm up and looking at LJ it's all blown over and there's nothing but a few pathetic sniffles and sodden hankies decorating floor.

Fuck your emo! I want the fights, dammit. We're supposed to be technicians. Fucking technicians, not diplomats. We will put up with whines and demands and impossible tasks and then somehow fucking manage to pull them off and spend 98% of our time skating around the edge of "If this goes wrong, kiss your system goodbye". Bad food, bad hours, too much caffeine and far too many fucking idiots. Yeah, we'll bitch, but at least we don't fucking whine. Which is what all these "mummy make the bad poster stop" fuckwits are doing. GROW SOME FUCKING BALLS AND SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Can promise you one thing though paco - if that arsehole had been working where I do, he' be fired. And if he was working near my office at the time, he'd be dead and fired. If you can't tell the fucking difference between config data from a NIC and config data from a fucking router, you shouldn't be anywhere near a fucking phone in an advisory role.

[dog-star-man.livejournal.com]

Blabbity blabbity

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

\m/>.<\m/

I'm sorry, but your kick-ass-nature can only be expressed in ascii.

[loosechanj.livejournal.com]

Fuck your emo! I want the fights, dammit.

Exactly. We're paid to be nice all day. I'm sure as shit not gonna be motivated to play well when I'm off the clock.

[brutalentropy.livejournal.com]

please remove this post!

i am the self-appointed moderator of this community-- i wear a pointy hat and have an extremely high opinion of myself!

[flainn.livejournal.com]

iawtc! bring it on! It's at least amusing to watch.

[taleya.livejournal.com]

Or something along those lines...

[taleya.livejournal.com]

Technically speaking we're paid to fix shit all day. Enforced niceness is just an added soupcon of crap they ladled over us.

[ihateemo.livejournal.com]

taleya wins. Again. Dreamy sigh.

[jecook]

WHoo hoo!

Undead in the skeleton costume doing /dance FTW!

[jecook]

As one of the actual moderators, I find your post amusing. :)

Yo! Paco! Kick our asses some more! we need it!

[network-nerd.livejournal.com]

You know why people hate tech support? Because, except for very very few, none of them care about their job, none of them know how to do it, and the companies running them don't give a tin shit about it.

I have a theory that the biggest problem with IT, and *escpecially* Tech Support, is that so many people in these jobs aren't interested in making a career of it, didn't train for it, don't care about it, are only in it until a "real" job comes available, and OBTW suck at it.

While that does lower the bar for the rest of us, it also means that most end users/customers we encounter, even if they started out civil and trusting, are by now at or beyond the end of their ropes.

When asked, in interviews, how I handle upset/irate users, I truthfully say that 98% of them return to normal as soon as they are sure that (a) I really am *listening* to them, and (b) I really *can* solve their issue.

[harmer.livejournal.com]

I can relate to the second half of this post. I worked (outsourced, no less) for Road Runner HSI and nobody knew shit all about anything. I'm not formally trained but I read as much as I had time for and didn't give people pissy little answers like that tech gave you. The informations techs like that are given is pathetic and they're all trained to have the attitude "it's not us, it's you." I hated it so much.

[bornofchaos.livejournal.com]

You know, I would have gotten the snot up a *tiny* bit about your attitude, until I saw the "Oh, I see this all the time" part. And 'cos she really should have copped that it was beyond the realms of "plug it out, go for a coffee, come back, plug it in."

Approx twice a day, I get people who a)know their shit b)have an problem that genuinely requires second level support. Unfortunately, those people tend to be assholes. Fortunately, when I'm on form and using my Google-fu, I can get a basic grasp of what they want. So I drop the "See the green button on the bottom left hand side?" schtick and just tell that they *will* get to 2nd level, but 2nd levels job is not to ask the basic questions. That's *my* job. So throttle back on the piss and vinegar, tell me what router and OS you're running, and you'll get thrown into the "nice" 2nd level queue as opposed to the "bring the phone into the bathroom with you bud" queue.

[fragbert.livejournal.com]

"...but it only takes one to look like a whiny little loser alone on the dance floor."

QFE!

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

I gave the guy plenty of opportunity to show he was on the ball. As a tech I would normally be able to pick up within one step if the guy on my phone was 'high speed' or just an idiot. It's automatically not normally an OS or system issue if neither the router nor the system can get an IP off the modem, but the system can get an IP just fine off of the router (both being standard DHCP, of course).

So when the guy started reading from a script and then coming up with the absolute wrong solution, he got the shit.

He should be getting a cattle prod.

Yeah, my attitude sucks, but only to people who deserve it. Those that prove they are more competent then a potted plant are treated as such.

[spacebird.livejournal.com]

My small business turned into a big business and suddenly everyone here's a fucking moron and I'm being written up for fixing problems instead of kissing ass. I'm quitting soon.

[darkblade1.livejournal.com]

Hey, that sounds like me!

[the-anguisette.livejournal.com]

You know. A lot of the major ISPs REQUIRE the use of some kind of scripting so that the people that don't know jack shit can fake it. They obviously didn't know what they were talking about, fair enough.

But 'skip the script' is a fireable offense for a lot of these people.

[gaymafiakingpin.livejournal.com]

I used to work for Suckcast. They hire based on your customer service skills, not your technical skills. During the interview they ask you customer service related questions and find out how well you can walk a customer through various steps of a process. As my example, I walked the interviewer through the steps of making a PB&J sandwich.

The lack of hiring for technical skills is quite noticable when you get into the call center. 90% of the folks there are script monkeys. They are all very nice people and fun to work with but have no skills that are required for the job. Listening to one of them take a call is like listening to finger nails slide across a chalkboard. Whenever possible I would try to give the rep some guidance when they were obviously stuck.

Oh, the supervisor won't know anything technical either. Actually, they probably know even less than the reps. Afterall, they're the ones hiring these people. What the supervisors would do at my call center is, they would find yet another rep, one who knows how to tech a call, and have them call you back.