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  • Being Short-Handed Sucks

    Eugene is on vacation until the end of the week. Mark is unavailable the beginning of the week and on vacation the rest.

    That leaves me to answer phones by myself. It wouldn't be a problem, but we just came out with a new version, that everyone wants.

    So it's been busy. Lots of orders and quotes. This is a good thing, but lots of callers increases the chance that there will be SCs. And there were:

    We had one guy who somehow manages to destroy his trial period for the new version (proably by trying to cheat and get it as a free update, which he doesn't qualify for). He insisted on having his hand held to a ridiculous extent so we could get him through the convoluted process of restoring the 45 day trial. To make it worse, he didn't like to listen or read. It took an hour.

    While this was going on, the phone rang and rang. Nobody left messages so I could get back to them. It pissed me off that some of those may have been people who wanted to actually BUY something who gave up while I was helping "I need my free trial NOW!" boy.

    Then we had a babbler. You know, the ones who have to tell you their problem THEIR WAY along with their life story? Most of them can handle a polite interruption so you can ask the relevant questions to get them the help they want. Not this guy. Every time I tried to redirect him, he'd tell me to let him finish and start all over again. He also wanted the free trial.

    Fine. I'll just listen and ignore all those people trying to buy something. Oh good. He's finally stopped talking. So I try asking him a question and he tell me, "I'M NOT FINISHED! Will you PLEASE let me finish and stop talking over me all the time?"

    Great. Next time he stops talking I don't say a thing. What does he do? "HELLO! Are you there?"

    And, no. I was not able get him straightened out. I had to consult with some of our programmers and they think he's going to need to download a repair tool from Microsoft and edit the registry to fix it, so I'll be calling him back tomorrow[whimper].

    And the next SC was somebody who has called us before, but never spoke with me. He thought I was new and didn't believe that I'd been here since 1999. I guess if you've never heard of me I don't exist.

    Anyway, he bought something (which is cool) and made friendly small talk (also cool), but then I made a tactical error. I told him that we'd let email him to let him know when he could activate and invited him to call us if he had any questions. Big mistake. His reply was, "I can't call you because you're never open when I'm home! Why can't you have people available until 7 or 8?"

    Oh, jeez. So I explained that we set our hours according to what is most convenient for the majority of our customers and that expanding our hours would mean raising prices so we could pay for the extra staff we would have to hire.

    He seemed to feel that wasn't an excuse. I guess we should just start expecting everyone to work after hours for free or something. I dropped it and let him rant himself out.

    Later I talked to Carl, who works from his home office, by phone. I mentioned the after hours SC asked me to say hi to him. Carl let me know in no uncertain terms that he HATES this guy. He has Carl's direct number and leaves pissy voice mails expecting because Carl didn't take a call at 9pm. Then he demands that Carl call him back between 6am and 7am the next day.

    The effect of that, of course, is that Carl makes darn sure not to check his voice mails until he is on duty at 9am and therefore can plead genuine ignorance of the after hours call and politely restate our business hours in the voice message he leaves promptly at 9am on the SC's home answering machine.

    Carl also told me that this SC HAS a copy of the software installed at work, and that he won't call during our business hours because he feels he "shouldn't be calling [us] when that's not the job [he's] paid to do." Since he works for a state government agency, uses the software to do his job and somehow manages to find the time to call us during business hours when he REALLY needs something (such as today), I call complete and utter bullshit on that excuse. He's just being an idiot because we won't keep special hours just for his passive-agressive ass. Fie!
    Last edited by Dips; 06-16-2008, 09:28 PM.
    The best karma is letting a jerk bash himself senseless on the wall of your polite indifference.

    The stupid is strong with this one.

  • #2
    *hands over cookies and booze*
    Ridiculous 2009 Predictions: Evil Queen will beat Martha Stewart to death with a muffin pan. All hail Evil Queen! (Some things don't need elaboration.....) -- Jester

    Ridiculous 2010 Predictions: Evil Queen, after escaping prison for last years prediction, goes out and waffle irons Rachel Ray to death. -- SG15Z

    Ridiculous 2011 Prediction: Evil Queen will beat Gordon Ramsay over the head with a cast-iron skillet. -- FireHeart

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    • #3
      What a jerk. It's amazing how these people turn up when you least need them (not that you ever need them).
      1129. I will refrain from casting Dimension Jump and Magnificent Mansion on every police box we pass.
      -----
      http://orchidcolors.livejournal.com (A blog about everything and nothing)

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