Light? Neutral? Chaos?

[gunsage]

I'm not too sure how I feel about this one, thus the oddly vague thread title. Allow me to explain...last night, something really CRAPPY happened and unfortunately, it's not the first time a similar incident has happened. Yes, this is a tech issue, but I will try to simplify it because, though a tech issue, it has to do with coworkers, responsibility shirking, and overall general suckiness.

One of the things our department does, as tier 3, is provision modems. By that, I mean that if you have an Internet signal, it doesn't necessarily recognize your modem until it's sent proper "wake the **** up" signals. Anyway, a tier 2 calls me up...

T2: "Hi, this is Complete Asshole from tier 2. I've got a customer on the line who needs to provision his modem."
Me: "Alrighty, phone number?"
(Phone number acquired)
Me: "...Uh...there's no equipment on this account."
T2: "Well right...he just picked up his modem."
Me: "Oh, so he's got a customer owned modem, then."
T2: "Well, no, he just picked up his modem."

Me: "...Okay..."

At this point I'm rather confused because what he was implying was that he picked up a modem at the local office...but there were no notes backing this up. In fact, it looked like it was a brand spanking new account. Suspicious, I send my signals to the modem to wake it up, verify it's good to go via my diagnostics, then...

Me: "Okay, he should be up and running now."
T2: "Great! Do you want to take the customer?"

Me: "Um, the issue's already resolved..."
T2: "Well, what do I do if he still can't browse? I mean, we can't just keep bouncing the customer back and forth here!"
Me: "His modem should be good to go. I'm not understanding what the problem is."
T2: "Okay, fine!" *CLICK*

There were really only two possibilties of error here. One, the customer may still not be able to browse despite my diagnostics looking good because he needs to powercycle (refresh, in a way) his equipment. Two, the customer has issues with his ethernet card, thus it should go to standard support (tier 2) first anyway. I thought everything was done...NOT. 2 minutes later...

Same T2: "Yeah, I went back to him and he still can't browse!"
Me: "That's funny...did you powercycle?"

At this point, I'd like to mention that I looked back over his "modified" trouble ticket to find that he included "Tier 3 refused call?! Customer still not browsing!" and such other badmouthiness. Therefore, I'm really not too happy at this point and wondering why, even though he took the customer back, he would put that on his ticket.

T2: "Look, I've been doing this for 4 years! All we do is find powercycle, can't find the mac address? Well, it comes to you with a provisioning issue and blah blah blah."

Yes, the tier 2 proceeded to LECTURE me about how to do my job and why he was right. I didn't bother trying to argue with him, but I did try explaining to him about 3 times as to WHY powercycling BEFORE there was so much as a mac address on the account is NOT SMART and WON'T WORK. I ended up taking the customer anyway, but as soon as I got the customer...

Customer: "Yeah, uh...it's working now."
Me: "...Very good, sir. You have a good one, now."

The point of the title is what do you guys think? Here's what I worry about...

Light Path - I was wrong for not taking the customer initially just as soon as the agent asked. Regardless of whether or not I truly believed the problem was resolved, it was my job to see it through to the end.

Neutral Path - What I did was right. The agent was a jerk and I hope he gets what's coming to him, though he probably won't. Good thing I don't know his face.

Chaos Path - I should've chewed him out and demanded his supervisor. He had no right to talk to me as he did. The customer was handled anyway, so what the hell was his problem?! I should recall that ticket, get that call pulled, and hopefully get him fired.

[Pedersen]

Gotta vote for Chaos path, myself. Someone chews me out, especially when they have no right to do so? I'm going to introduce them to several reasons to change their attitude. And no, none of them are illegal.

All of them, though, are going to make that person's life hell until they apologize to me, though. Sometimes, even well after that.

[gunsage]

I'm only worried (enough that it's been toiling in my head even now) that I'm going to get in trouble. I don't know why...maybe it's because theoretically I could've taken the call and everything would've been fine. The primary reason I didn't is there should have been no reason why the customer wasn't surfing unless it was standard support...in this case, it was because the agent was highly impatient (like me) and untrusting (like me).

In the end, he got what he wanted. Therefore, what's REALLY tearing me up right now is...

- He badmouthed me in his ticket. Yes, I left negative feedback too, but still.
- He acted like an asshole.
- He forced the customer on me, technically, TWICE. Neither time was truly necessary.
- He didn't follow proper troubleshooting. Any COMPETENT agent understands the purpose of powercycling.
- He was shifty, but somehow, given the events, I'm worried that if it's reviewed, I'LL look like the asshole.
- There have been accusations of me performing call avoidance before. While not true, whatever supervisor I go to will probably have that bias going into an investigation.

In any case, the chaos path is my true feelings. I should've NAILED him. In fact, there was a point during his rant where he made the comment "Look, if you feel I failed in my troubleshooting somewhere, by all means, confirm with your supervisor and you'll see I'm right." Let's see that again...

"Look, if you feel I failed in my troubleshooting somewhere, by all means, confirm with your supervisor and you'll see I'm right."

First off, I'm trying to tell him why and how his troubleshooting failed. Next, another insinuation by this comment is that I'm obviously some sort of trainee and my supervisor, who's most likely looking over my shoulder shaking his head, is who I should be going to right now to confirm I'm an idiot. It also implies an air of smugness. I just can't stand people like this.

[Jester]

Suggestion: Go immediately to your supervisor and tell him all you told us. Show him the notes. This will do a very important thing for any future shenanigans the T2 asswad may try to pull over this incident. That important thing has a very technical term, so bear with me....in legal circles I believe they call this

COVERING YOUR ASS.

I suggest implementing this strategy immediately.

[MadRocketScientist]

I vote with Jester, someone in T2 is messing with you, start doing the CYA moves, document everything and bring every such incident to the attention of your supervisor.

[Broomjockey]

I agree with Jester et al.

Though I do protest that being labelled chaos. It's more darkish than anything. Chaos would be tracking him down and letting all the air out of his tires and removing two wheels off his desk chair.

[gunsage]

Actually, chaos would be more along the lines of using what I have "learned" via Manhunt 2 when I find him. But no, I did finally talk to my supervisor and feel a lot better. Basically what he said was that I should have taken the call initially, but I was right in documenting what he did, etc. Basically put, he said that next time to just take the call and document. Normally, that's what I do, so it's not like I was expecting anything different.

I was more worried I'd be in trouble. Turns out these tier 2 bastards have been complained on a LOT lately (I thought I was the only one that complained) and are being "investigated." In any case, I'm one of the few to actually confront him about it, so likely something will be done, especially since he said he will be talking with the dude's supervisor. On a final note, now that I fully understand protocol, I'm untouchable.

See, I look for ways to multitask, shortcut, and plenty more. But mostly, I look for loopholes. That means that if I suspect someone's being an asshole, I'm not going to stall them, but I will ask as many questions as possible so as to clarify the problem. Moreover, if they protest or continue to act like an asshole, POW, added right to my feedback. Bada-bing.

[rvdammit]

I agree with Jester et al.

Though I do protest that being labelled chaos. It's more darkish than anything. Chaos would be tracking him down and letting all the air out of his tires and removing two wheels off his desk chair.

Light side and dark side and binds the universe together? Duct Tape!

[gunsage]

After complaining about this tier 2 and...well...THIS GUY...I received an interesting e-mail today from my supervisor. The e-mail was directed to the entire department dictating that if future occurrences occur, to report them immediately (and he was specific as to WHO). Things are looking up for justice in work ethic.