Darkness

[basildestiny]

You know what. I realize that I've never described what my job is like with any of my friends online. You all probably wonder why in the hell I complain about it all the time. I usually spare you because of all of the tech slang. I don't want to presume to be a tech god. I just know my job.

I posted this on the customer sucks community. The topic was to share the most annoying and yet amusing customer experience you've had. Here was my answer:

I have to admit that I forget about my customers as soon as I assist them. I work in a call center so the big thing is to take as many calls as possible while maintaining good quality. So I've taken countless calls in the almost three years I've worked there.

However, the funniest/most amusing/annoying customer that I can remember of late was the one from last night. I was trying to help her figure out why her DSL wasn't connecting. And since I'm Tier Level 2, she'd already talked with my retarded front line agent who had no clue. It wasn't a difficult call. I think I rebooted the computer, reseated the cables, and she was working again.

But I was having her check her IP address. I was walking her through it step by step. Each command and keystroke I made as obvious as possible. I don't have any expectations of my customers. I assume they know absolutely nothing about owning a computer or hooking up DSL. Well she was on Windows 2000 so we had to go through the command prompt for troubleshooting.

Me: Go to Start. Then Run. Then type in c-m-d.

We'd done that three times through our cycle of checking other things and rebooting. We'd managed to check the IP address all three times. On the fourth time when I'm pretty sure we've got it nearly fixed, I tell her "Go to start. Then Run. Then type in c-m-d." We've done this three times, she should know how to do it, but I repeat it because I hate having to explain things over and over.

On this fourth time, she goes "Wait. c-m-d, right?"

WTF, lady! The same thing you've typed three times before!!!

But really the work isn't bad. We have three call centers for which the Product Specialists (Tier 2) technicians answer. When there's overflow, we'll answer calls for PSes from the two other locations. Well the problem with that is the other call centers have retards working there. A higher percentage of retards anyway. And we can't walk over and smack the shit out of those retards. Train the retards, I mean. One call center in particular has a bunch of people who speak in Ebonics. I usually feel really sorry for their customers. It's not that these people are necessarily stupid, they're just lazy. Ebonics = slang = do NOT use in your calls, morons! I took the PS position to have 40 hours a week and a static schedule. We're losing that. We haven't had assigned desks for a while. Which actually means that there aren't enough desks to go around for us to have assigned desks.

Then add on to that the stress of taking Escalation calls all day. Hooray. Doesn't this job sound awesome? We're tethered to the desks with no way to let off steam unless we use our break. I mean it's a cake job as far as effort, but if you actually care about your job...well don't do that.

I will bless your day again with more fun soon unless I fall asleep in my bubble bath and accidentally drown.
~Bas

Comments

[jmshadowdancer.livejournal.com]

I can't say anything because I haven't been in your shoes, but that job sounds easier than working for UPS. Lol.. I lift packages all night, for about four hours a night and get paid.. not enough for it.. 9 bucks after a raise... and like.. if you don't make friends with those around you you're screwed because then you have no help when you're sick or sore, and people can tend to be hard to win over...

but yeah.. the job is mindless.. and I'm pretty sick of it sometimes.. but it's been almost a year and I'm good at it, and jobs are hard to come by... and I'm rambling. Lol. Hope you find a solution soon enough.

[basildestiny]

Yes, the physical challenge of your job vs my job has your job coming out on top. The most that I lift is a mouse. I have a friend who works for UPS. It's the mental challenge of the job. It's constant frustration of explaining to every customer who comes across your phone which button to click on. It's that 30 percent of your customers are pissed off. You don't even get customer interaction if your working the warehouse at UPS. The people who are going to be yelling are co-workers. I get to represent the company everyday in a positive light while trying not to get so frustrated at telling someone how to either a) do their job since I deal with the frontline agents, but having no power to actually make sure they receive proper training for troubleshooting b) what I can do for them to retain their business without having access to any billing tools or c) walk through getting a computer back online with someone who has already been on the phone for a while. I don't know about you, but which class was more tough and stressful for you? Physical Education or Speech class. Having the ability to move around and relieve stress does wonders for getting rid of the toxins of stress.