Technical tidbits.. part two

One of the silliest questions I have ever had asked, in a very serious tone, was a man who asked, ‘A comma is a period, right?’ when I asked him to put a period for a dot, not understanding what http://www.xxx.com is. Often I must tell someone to use a period because they don’t know what dot means.

People rename the folders on their desktop, sometimes to names of family or friends. So when asking someone to right-click on ‘My Computer’, they don’t always see that, and forget what they did. Can argue with someone to click on the ‘ok’ or ‘next’ or ‘continue’ button for a good 15 minutes, and then in the end they click on cancel, and when we ask where something is in the install process, they’ll say it’s gone, surprised that we asked such a silly thing in the first place, after all, can’t we see what they do? (No, no direct connection to their computer.)

Now I work for a dialup ISP, not AOL, but a different company. Since it’s current work, I can’t say which contract I’m on, but the inanities are even more profound now. More people who don’t know that the monitor is not the computer, more people who don’t know what the start button is, or what their desktop is or even what an icon is. To try to explain that over the phone is a bit tricky. They tend to think that since we provide them with an Internet connection, that we are therefore responsible for supporting every website in existence, merely because they connect to the Internet through us. For example..

Wednesday I had a call from a woman couldn’t connect, she was complaining, ranting on the phone, talking about how she can’t sit for 2 hours and had to go take a pain pill all within the first 5 minutes of the call, we hadn’t yet even begun troubleshooting. When she sat back down, she said she wanted to start at the beginning, another technician had helped her a few days before, but she gave up after connecting and not following the rest of his instructions first, so the problem resurfaced.

I had her delete all the dial-up connections that already existed in Dial-Up Networking and on her desktop, then walked her through creating a new one, so she wouldn’t get them confused. Since she only had one phone line, I told her to hang up with me and try to connect, then she says, ‘Last time I was connected I was at Yahoo, trying to go to the Women seeking Men personals and I couldn’t get them, how do I save them?’

At this time, I had someone listening in on the call, someone who is training new to work on this contract. At this point in the call, I had to mute the phone, because I was trying so hard not to laugh. I un-muted her and told her that I didn’t know anything about Yahoo, she wasn’t happy about that, so I gave her the phone number for Yahoo, and she asked if we had personals or not. I doubt that the home page for the service we provide has a personals section and even if there were, it would not be something I could help her with, she’d need to check the help files online.

After managing to end the call rather quickly, the one sitting with me and I both started laughing out loud, it was just too bizarre. I’ve been asked a lot of strange questions, but that was a new one.

He then related a call that he had ‘coached’, meaning he had to score it, to determine what areas the technician needed to improve on. All calls are recorded for the client as well as for legal reasons. He told me that the technician and customer had resolved the problem, and the girl and guy seemed to be hitting it off. We’re not ever supposed to give our last name, but the girl asked for his last name and the nearest airport, and the technician was just too curious, so he gave it to her.

She told him after a moment to call the airport near where we are and to give his name. He called and was told that he had a first class round trip ticket waiting for him, bound for New York. He was absolutely shocked, and told her he couldn’t accept it. The guy who was coaching the call told me he wasn’t sure how to score that one, 100% for resolving the customers’ issue, or 0% for not providing customer satisfaction.

One of the first calls I had when working for Dell involved a woman that was very imperious when I answered the phone. She was trying to put me in my place as an underling right away. when I answered the call, verified the woman’s’ name and address, I asked what the problem was she was having, ‘I want you to send someone out to Mah-ssahge my computer’ (Sorry, but the tone inflection was just too intense, very high brow) My response, ‘Excuse me?’ ‘I said, I want someone to come out and massage my computer.’

It took a bit for me to not laugh, because her imperious tone refused to brook any argument. I could not help but imagine someone who spends once a day a week in a spa to have her nails, hair, full spa day for her looks, as well as perhaps servants in the home. The problem? She had a floppy disk stuck in the drive.

I told her it was not possible to send someone out without troubleshooting first, she became almost hysterical, ‘I’M NOT going to do THAT!’ when I asked if she had a paperclip. Her voice was rising into a higher pitched tone, almost akin to panic, I thought. I was calm, explained that she would indeed need to troubleshoot with me, and she stated that she would sue, because it was misrepresentation.

After much haggling, she finally managed to get a paperclip, pulled the floppy out of the drive, the metal plate lying inside. She had put in a diskette she knew was already bent, in the hopes to have a computer masseuse to arrive and assist her, because she wanted her entire operating system checked out. When it was fixed, she was huffy and complaining more, and when again she started ranting about misrepresentation and lawsuits, I could hear her husband say, in a tone completely filled with disbelief, “What ARE you doing?!” She started then telling him all about misrepresentation and then a click as she hung up the phone. I could not help but feel sorry for him.

If people enjoy these, will write more later, but it’s my first foray into writing something less intense in what my personal life is..