Ahhh... The Joys of Phone Support.

[DevilInTheDetails]

The comic the other day reminded me about an event that happened to me while I was a Tech Monkey for the worlds most re-know coaster provider.

One of my friends who is female was rather upset. I Asked her what was up and she told me this guy on the phone wouldn't talk to her becasue she was a girl. I said, "No problem, I know who we need to get to take this call."

His name was Rickey, he was one of our floor superviosrs. he was also Bi which seems to a popular choice in this business for soem reason. I expalined to him the situation and he agreed to take the call.

When he piekced up the phone I don't know really how to describe it other then two words. FLAME ON!!!

It embarrased the hell of the customer and made my female freind and I laugh.

Now talk about your paranoids, I had this call once were a member was asking me to chnage his password. A very simple thing to do but he felt his phone was bugged. I tried to reason with that I would give him the password and then he could sign on nand change it himself right away. He wouldn't do it.

I fianlly convinced him to get in his car, drive out of town and find a deserted pay phone and call us back.

That seemed to make him happy.

[Symok]

I fianlly convinced him to get in his car, drive out of town and find a deserted pay phone and call us back.

[Clothahump]

Many, many (way too many) moons ago, I used to be a deputy sheriff. I started out in communications and worked my way into patrol. You would not believe the types of calls a law enforcement agency's dispatch center gets.

My personal favorite was the little old lady who called in about once a month (yes, the moon was full) and complained about the aliens landing in her front lawn. She didn't mind them pulling up the weeds in her lawn as food, but she objected to the ray that they shined on her house that was cracking the mortar in the bricks. One night, she called in and it was super busy and the dispatcher didn't have time for her BS, so he blew her off by telling her that we had been in contact with the FBI detailing the situation and they suggested wrapping the house in aluminum foil to reflect the rays back on the aliens.

About three days later, I happened to drive down her road and nearly wrecked the patrol car. She must have used six dozen boxes of Reynold's Wrap on the house. But it apparently worked, because she never called back again.

It's all about customer service!

[Dynamo]

A tiny bit of background is required for this exchange. I support a client-server application that doesn't hide the length of the users' passwords from the administrator. Users are given 5-character default passwords. This user has called to complain that he can no longer login.

User: [Rambling diatribe about how computers are hard to use]
Me: [Ignoring diatribe while counting asterisks. 4... 5... 6... what the fu...]
User: And Bill Gates is just plain evil!
Me: Sir, have you changed your password?
User: Uh... yeah, I think so.
Me: Have you tried the new password?
User: No. [pause] Do you think that would work?