Bacground: I got a job for tech support about 6 months ago. I was pretty happy because I needed a job and I like troubleshooting/tech support. When they offered me the job they described it as internal technical support, but after I started I come to find that I have to answer customer emails and phone calls.
I was a little peeved by this and actually quit after about 60 days. I told them that the job wasn't what I wanted to do, but HR offered me another $2 an hour and my manager said that I would not have to do as much customer support any more, so I figured I'd stick around. Things got better for about 3 weeks, but for the past 3 months of so I've had to do more customer support than any of the other techs. I HATE CUSTOMER SUPPORT.
Customers are idiots. They call in with the most idiotic questions and refuse to listen. The worst are the people that call in for tech support and are NOT at their computers. I've had people call me from the bus, the car, and even an airport. They seem to think that I can just give them a single answer that will fix all of their problems.
Customers are rude and obnoxious. I have to kiss their a$$. People will call in cursing and yelling and I have to give them what they want. Last week a customer called in and right off the bat was throwing around the f bomb and said "I can't get into your site" so I asked her what she meant and she said "it just blows away with the wind" Now WTF does that mean?! So I ask her to type in our web address and she says oh I'm already in your site, so I ask her to do it anyways so that I can help her. Her response? "No I'm not going back, you'll help me from where I am I don't have time for this $h17" Well this makes things much more difficult because customers lie. I have no way of knowing where she is on our site. For all I know she isn't even on our site, yet she wants me to tell her which links to click on. I said "Ma'am I'm trying to help you, but I can't do that if you won't follow my instructions." She finally acquiesces, and I help her get what she needed she sounds happy so I end the call and put in the notes for the call. I even wrote that she was rude and cursing.
The next day my supervisor comes in and is asking me questions about some customer so I check my notes and I told him the situation. He then tells me that the customer wrote in and said that I was extremely rude to her and that I did not know what I was doing and should be fired. So my boss decides in his infinite wisdom that it would be best to have me CALL THIS TOOLBAG and apologize. Unbelievable, he wants me to call her and apologize. I told him that I would not do it, and if it meant consequences I was prepared to accept them. He was kind of taken aback, he isn't really a great manager, he has very good technical skills, and is a nice guy, but does not handle the management side very well.
They do not have a budget or anything like that for the IT department. He just doesn't make one. In order to keep costs under control we just have to use free software, and we don't stock ANY spare parts. We have old CD-ROM drives that have been pulled from old machines that sit in our (non climate controlled) warehouse. If an employees hard drive goes bad, we've been told that they will take one of the tech support computers and we will have to do customer support using a pen and paper while they investigate prices. Basically the policy is tech support doesn't matter, and while I tend to agree that resources are more efficiently used for divisions that generate profit, it makes it difficult to troubleshoot and access our database without a computer.
Another great managerial decision: Last week some guy in sales that gets paid like $6.50 and hour went to his supervisor with this list of phone numbers and said that it needed to be updated but he didn't want to do it. His supervisor asked one of our developers to do it (making around $25 an hour) who said he couldn't because they are so busy. So my manager says that he will get someone in support to do it and chooses me. The project involves going through 700+ pdf files and taking the information out of them and updating the list. I make $13.50 an hour, now why they thought it prudent to pay double price for the same work is beyond me, but my manager said I have to do it and that is that.
Ah well, thanks for letting me get the rant out, back to the classifieds 😛
Cliff Notes:
Customers are idiots
Customers are rude
My company sucks
My manager does not know how to manage
I was a little peeved by this and actually quit after about 60 days. I told them that the job wasn't what I wanted to do, but HR offered me another $2 an hour and my manager said that I would not have to do as much customer support any more, so I figured I'd stick around. Things got better for about 3 weeks, but for the past 3 months of so I've had to do more customer support than any of the other techs. I HATE CUSTOMER SUPPORT.
Customers are idiots. They call in with the most idiotic questions and refuse to listen. The worst are the people that call in for tech support and are NOT at their computers. I've had people call me from the bus, the car, and even an airport. They seem to think that I can just give them a single answer that will fix all of their problems.
Customers are rude and obnoxious. I have to kiss their a$$. People will call in cursing and yelling and I have to give them what they want. Last week a customer called in and right off the bat was throwing around the f bomb and said "I can't get into your site" so I asked her what she meant and she said "it just blows away with the wind" Now WTF does that mean?! So I ask her to type in our web address and she says oh I'm already in your site, so I ask her to do it anyways so that I can help her. Her response? "No I'm not going back, you'll help me from where I am I don't have time for this $h17" Well this makes things much more difficult because customers lie. I have no way of knowing where she is on our site. For all I know she isn't even on our site, yet she wants me to tell her which links to click on. I said "Ma'am I'm trying to help you, but I can't do that if you won't follow my instructions." She finally acquiesces, and I help her get what she needed she sounds happy so I end the call and put in the notes for the call. I even wrote that she was rude and cursing.
The next day my supervisor comes in and is asking me questions about some customer so I check my notes and I told him the situation. He then tells me that the customer wrote in and said that I was extremely rude to her and that I did not know what I was doing and should be fired. So my boss decides in his infinite wisdom that it would be best to have me CALL THIS TOOLBAG and apologize. Unbelievable, he wants me to call her and apologize. I told him that I would not do it, and if it meant consequences I was prepared to accept them. He was kind of taken aback, he isn't really a great manager, he has very good technical skills, and is a nice guy, but does not handle the management side very well.
They do not have a budget or anything like that for the IT department. He just doesn't make one. In order to keep costs under control we just have to use free software, and we don't stock ANY spare parts. We have old CD-ROM drives that have been pulled from old machines that sit in our (non climate controlled) warehouse. If an employees hard drive goes bad, we've been told that they will take one of the tech support computers and we will have to do customer support using a pen and paper while they investigate prices. Basically the policy is tech support doesn't matter, and while I tend to agree that resources are more efficiently used for divisions that generate profit, it makes it difficult to troubleshoot and access our database without a computer.
Another great managerial decision: Last week some guy in sales that gets paid like $6.50 and hour went to his supervisor with this list of phone numbers and said that it needed to be updated but he didn't want to do it. His supervisor asked one of our developers to do it (making around $25 an hour) who said he couldn't because they are so busy. So my manager says that he will get someone in support to do it and chooses me. The project involves going through 700+ pdf files and taking the information out of them and updating the list. I make $13.50 an hour, now why they thought it prudent to pay double price for the same work is beyond me, but my manager said I have to do it and that is that.
Ah well, thanks for letting me get the rant out, back to the classifieds 😛
Cliff Notes:
Customers are idiots
Customers are rude
My company sucks
My manager does not know how to manage
