I failed an audit (evaluation) over this one.

[sld72382]

For those that don't work in the call center area, an audit is where a supervisor or an outside company listens to your calls and evaluates how you did. It's funny that they pick the worst calls to do the audit on, as in the case here....

This was a few month ago, but it still sticks out in my mind:

Guy calls up to explain a problem with his laptop. Now mind you for laptops we send people to the store, but this "problem" merely needed an explanation, so I figured I would help him.

Me: "Can you explain the issue you are calling about? For issues with laptops we request you bring them to the store, but maybe I can offer a suggestion."

Idiot: "This laptop is supposed to come with 256mb of memory, why is it saying in system properties that I only have 192mb?"

I then POLITELY explain to him that on certain low end laptops (should have called it entry-level as they subtracted points for that. ) the video card shares some of the system memory to use as it's own, so even though the system still has a 256mb stick in there, 192mb is only available to use for windows. I then advised him that as laptop graphics are not upgradeable, if he wants more memory the only way to increase it is to buy more memory (I know you can go into the BIOS and decrease it, but I can't advise clients how mess with that stuff on laptop service plans, plus it worsens the graphics). Well Mr. Idiot then tells me:

"But I paid for 256mb of memory!"

So I explain to him AGAIN with he needs to do to fix his issue. Not good enough for him. Again, he says the exact same thing as above. I apologize for his problem, and explain this is not really a "problem" and AGAIN explain what he needs to do. He then spews the same sentence as above, so I tell him again. He then tells me the same thing yet AGAIN, so ad nauseum I explain the he simply needs to buy more memory to fix his "problem." Finally Mr. Idiot gets the hint and says, "OK. I guess I'll have to buy more memory. Thanks."

Well one day later I was informed I was audited on this call, and I fail because according to the auditor, I had a rude and condescending tone! I couldn't believe it.

[Depot Denizen]

That sucks!

[HawaiianShirts]

Sometimes, it doesn't matter how often you repeat your explanation, the customer just doesn't get it. Either that or they're trying to get you agree with their supposed "injustice" and give them something free.

I had a guy a couple of months ago complain about the hard drive space on his new Gateway laptop. Gateway (like many others now) put the system restore information on a partition of the hard drive instead of on a CD. That means you have less space available than listed on the spec tag. The computer in question had an 80gb hard drive. With the partition (6gb) and Windows, only about 67gb or so was available for storage. He pulled the same line with me that your guy did. "But I PAID for 80!"

It took four explanations until he accepted it, including four explanations that ALL laptops do the same thing now. I think he understood after explanation #2 and was just pulling for free stuff afterward because he tried to threaten to return it and never shop with us again and get me fired and talk to corporate and so on.

I can sympathize with you on this one, sld72382.

[Depot Denizen]

I was slightly irritated at a drive I bought, though. I picked up a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10, 320 GB of storage goodness. SATA interface, PRT for fast seek times. Only problem was that the formatted (NTFS) capacity was 300 GB! I lost 320 GB in the formatting process.

[MacPrince]

I was slightly irritated at a drive I bought, though. I picked up a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10, 320 GB of storage goodness. SATA interface, PRT for fast seek times. Only problem was that the formatted (NTFS) capacity was 300 GB! I lost 320 GB in the formatting process.

320 - 300 = 0?


I do believe you mean that you lost 20GB in formatting, not 320GB.

[jb17kx]

The best part is the conflicting measurement of a gigabytes by manufactuerers. A gigabyte is actually 1024 megabytes, but is often calculated as 1000mb, just so as they can say the drive is bigger than it really is...

[ditchdj]

Wow. I'm glad I know I'm smarter than that dork. I wondered too why the computer we have listed 512MB but only showed up as 384MB. My wife explained it to me that the video card was using some of the memory. I looked at the video card's specifications of 128MB, added it to the 384 and there's my 512.

[Depot Denizen]

320 - 300 = 0?


I do believe you mean that you lost 20GB in formatting, not 320GB.

Yes. I'll actually be testing it tonight, now that I have the rest of my parts in. It shall live!

[HalloranElder]

The best part is the conflicting measurement of a gigabytes by manufactuerers. A gigabyte is actually 1024 megabytes, but is often calculated as 1000mb, just so as they can say the drive is bigger than it really is...

Umm, actually it's the other way around.

1 kilobyte = 1000 bytes
1 megabyte = 1000 kilobytes
1 gigabyte = 1000 megabytes

The 1024 thing came about from when computers where a lot less powerful. 1024 = 2 raised to the power of 10 (ie 2^10 = 2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2). That means any number from 1 to 1023 could be represented in 10 bits (8 bits = 1byte). Because computers were a lot less powerful, they tried to lessen the amount of calculations computers had to do as much as possible.

Dealing in base two in much easier for a computer (since that's how it thinks natively) so they left all the sizes in 1024 lots, rather than switching it back to a base 10 number for normal people (remember, back in those days, only real geeks had anything to do with computers). Now that computers are so much more powerful, that restriction is no longer necessary, so the industry is trying to catch up with what it should be.

The k, m, g and so on prefixes are standards (SI prefixes) and have to mean 10^3, 10^6 and 10^9 according to the body that decides such things (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_prefix for more information).

A lot of the old computer people still think in terms of the 1024 base numbering system when the industry itself has mostly updated itself to the "proper" base 10 system.

Confusing, what?

[LostMyMind]

Umm, actually it's the other way around.

Actually, that's not why.

The down and dirty reason is, computers started as base 8 not base 10 as is our normal counting system. Which meant computer was coded using number 0 to 7 (there are alot of computer still does this). Computers got alittle better and became base 16, so it counts 0 - F. This is where the extra 24 comes from in the 1K. Computer still uses base 16 for everything, we still convert that to base 10 for our viewing.

The lost of 20meg from 320meg hard-drive is probably due to NTFS horrible space requirement for it's internal table.

The hard-drive industry still uses the standard computer 16 base counting system, because modern computing hardware still use this system.