Internet Tech Support- A Rant

[Soybomb]

" You get paid the same if the question is stupid or smart."
Actually no, if you get dumb as a brick callers and can't keep your call numbers high you run a good chance of getting fired. If you get people that can shut up and follow your instructions everything is fine.

"Why even say this? why not just tell them to hit the windows key? and tell them where it is."
The words of someone who has never done tech support. If I tell them to hit the windows key I guarentee you 80% will insist there is no windows key on the monitor so they can't comply. The other 20% will just say they don't know where it is on their keyboard or that they don't have one. Do you know the number of people that have to be walked through typing "@" and you think they know where the windows key on their keyboard is? No matter how you phrase something its going to confuse them....

 

[AstIsis]

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt and ran away! It amazed me how many people would call in asking you to fix something totally unrelated to their internet connection! I even had one lady ask me to find her a recipe..WTF!?!?! What do I look like..Betty Crocker!

 

[Hoober]

Originally posted by: AstIsis
Been there, done that, got the T-shirt and ran away! It amazed me how many people would call in asking you to fix something totally unrelated to their internet connection! I even had one lady ask me to find her a recipe..WTF!?!?! What do I look like..Betty Crocker!

I dunno, do you?

 

[AstIsis]

Originally posted by: Hoober

Originally posted by: AstIsis
Been there, done that, got the T-shirt and ran away! It amazed me how many people would call in asking you to fix something totally unrelated to their internet connection! I even had one lady ask me to find her a recipe..WTF!?!?! What do I look like..Betty Crocker!

I dunno, do you?

Heck no...I can barely manage to nuke stuff in the microwave. Kitchens are not my friend.


EDIT: And I am no where NEAR that old or domesticated.

 

[michaelh20]

I was on the customer service end of an isp.. that was fun..

Crappy old Ameritech.net billing system -- when it was billed to phone it took like 6 weeks to bill out, so people would quit and they'd be getting bills two months later. Other times people would move to a new phone number and the new person at the number would get billed for the other person's service -- we'd have to send them a paper check -- plus they might see another bill again -- those billing cycles again. Billing queue was months behind.. it might take months to even apply a credit to an account yet alone show on the CC etc..

Gotta love those raving lunatic calls -- why do people bother to call up and say they're not going to pay a bill? Like I care if they don't? As if it changes anything? I remember one guy called up and proceded to tell me that Ameritech sucks Ameritech sucks over and over again and said that "I'd better remove that charge or else" blah blah blah.

Plus of course -- love those people who don't know that internet service comes over telephone lines. One guy claimed he had bought his internet line and now why was I saying that he had to buy internet service too, he already paid for a line and all. Demanded that I turn on his internet service, given that they had the "Internet Line" and all.

We also sent out those freaking discs instead of registering people over the phone. Sometimes people never got them, sent them out a 3rd, 4th time

Always gotta love people who sign up for the 9.95/mo 1.95/hour plan over 10 hrs a month. Love it when they use like it's unlimited and run up hundreds or thousands of dollars cooooooolllll...... another satisfied customer!

Was also fun watching people's bill pile up for months or years at a time because customer's had the wrong billing information and *then* bill out the customer for hundreds of dollars -- that was also cool.. lovely billing system.

I'm not sure which side of the isle is worse

 

[Chaotic42]

I was going to take a job doing Debian tech support. That would have been even better.

 

[ScottyB]

OMG, I hold my mouse sideways. I just looked at my hand as I moved my mouse cursor straight up and my hand was moving diagonally.

 

[Soybomb]

why do people bother to call up and say they're not going to pay a bill?

Ohhhhh thats another favorite! Lol for all purposes the office I'm in is closed. We don't have the name of the ISP on the doors anymore, there are like 4 signs telling customers to put their payments in the drop slot next to the door (I'm the only employee in the office, and I'm not in alot). Everytime we take a payment we mail them a letter giving them the proper payment address and ask them to mail it there. They don't care and bring them anyway. Even better though a woman came by yesterday and demanded I fix her bill because she had been charged after she had cancelled. I told her I'd call the billing dept and let her talk to them. She didn't care and said she wouldn't talk to them again. I showed her on the bill she brought in that she cancelled after the bill was due and she'd been online using the service so she owed. It didn't matter, she didn't want to pay and told me she would refuse. I said thats fine, I'd note her it on her account and she'd get sent to collections either way

 

[Bootprint]

Three dead trolls in a baggy internet helpdesk video

 

[AvesPKS]

I don't know, I always find it the other way around. Some douche who just got his F+/CNNABC certification and thinks he's king sh!t...

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: ScottyB
OMG, I hold my mouse sideways. I just looked at my hand as I moved my mouse cursor straight up and my hand was moving diagonally.

heheh i just did that

 

[tranceport]

lol. Tech support.

oh the days.

 

This was when I was at Staples (By the way, would Staples be the first place you call for tech support if you owned a Comcrap? I didn't think so.)

Caller: My Comcrap keeps locking up and giving me some kinda DLL missing errors.

Me: Have you recently backed up your files.......(cut off by caller)

Caller: Listen, I think I either need to reload Millineum or add a hard drive to fix this.

Me: Funny you should say that, I was just about to recomend a new hard drive. You're good to go!

Caller: Thanks.


What do they expect when they call looking for free tech support continously, and rudely I might add?

 

[Instan00dles]

can you download the internet on a floppy disk for me?

 

[Cyberian]

Originally posted by: Instan00dles
can you download the internet on a floppy disk for me?

You could have done that a couple of years ago, but it's too big now and you'll have to use a CD.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Cyberian

Originally posted by: Instan00dles
can you download the internet on a floppy disk for me?

You could have done that a couple of years ago, but it's too big now and you'll have to use a CD.

no way you need one dvd for that! :|

 

[Fritzo]

Originally posted by: Soybomb
Lol I swear I used to speak to at least 20 people a day who always went:
Luser: "I can't get my email"
Me: "Okay, what error are you gettting"
L: I can't get my email.
M: No what specificially does it say on your screen
L: Error getting email.
M: Really, what email client do you use?
L: Windows Explorer
M: Hmmm....So what does it say across the big blue bar at the top of your screen
L: I'm not at home right now.
M: Call back when you are *click*

*another favorite*
M: This should be an easy fix, first click on Start
L: But my computer is already on......

The number of people who don't understand that a modem requires a phone line, and in fact ties it up during operation is also quite astounding.

Actually greater is the number of people that think thier computer IS the modem and their monitor is the computer. It's really astounding!

 

[everman]

Help, I tried doing water cooling on my system because I thought it would be quieter, but after I got done filling my case up with water nothing happens! Should I have the hose spray over the cpu?

 

[Fritzo]

Originally posted by: SammySon

Indeed, but where else can someone 18-19 make $30K+ a year & spend all day surfing the web?

It serves it's purpose, but it's not something I intend to make a career of.

Viper GTS

True, but, usually people get stuck in a tech support rut. Most tech suppt. jobs out there won't bring in 30K.
\m/

I'm at 32K + 401K matching + profit sharing We actually hire decent people for support since that what we use to separate us from other services. Seems to work well, but DAMN is it frustraiting. Here's some more of my experiences from the week:

- IF YOU LEAVE A VOICE MAIL, I NEED TO KNOW WHO YOU ARE, NOT JUST WHAT YOUR PROBLEM IS: "Uh, yeah...I can't connect, so call me back as soon as possible. It's an emergency!"

- IF YOU CALL ME AND THE FIRST WORDS OUT OF YOUR MOUTH ARE "I'M A COMPUTER TECH AND YOU GUYS DOWN!!!" I'M GOING TO TREAT YOU LIKE AN ASS: I get this all the time. I appriciate you know more about computers than the average person, but you don't know how our service is configured or how things work behind the scenes, and since we have 98.7% up time, it's most likely a problem on YOUR end. My latest jerk said he could connect but couldn't go anywhere. He said he couldn't ping anything and tracerts died on the first hop, so we were definately down. I said I couldn't replicate that so lets take a look at your computer. He went BALISTIC and started calling me names. I calmed him down and took a look at his network settings...he had an old static IP address on his network card from PSInet and a subnet of 255.0.0.0.. Therefore, any websites that had an IP of 206.x.x.x would be searched for on his PC. Instead of apologizing, he gave me an "uhhh...oh. Thanks." and that was it. My finger hovered around the deactivate button on his account...but that would mean he would call back, so I held back.

IF YOU CAN'T HEAR, DON'T...I REPEAT DONT, CALL ME ON THE PHONE: It's amazing the amount of elderly people that will call and can't accept the fact that they no longer have the sense of hearing, yet insist on having me try to ignore that fact. Conversations go like this:

"Hello, can I help you?"
"Yeah, this confounded thing won't connect!"
"What happens when you try to connect?"
"Pardon?"
"What happens when..."
"What hardens?..."
"NO WHAT HAPPENS?"
"I can't connect."
"I KNOW THAT...WHAT ERROR DO YOU SEE WHEN YOU TRY TO CONNECT"
"You'll have to speak up...I'm hard of hearing."
"WELL BUY A G*&^*& HEARING AID YOU OLD COOT!!!!"

I'm glad there's a 7 day waiting period on guns :|

 

[Maleficus]

All i have to say is if you work for Roadrunner you are a moron, Every RoadRunner tech i have ever spoken to is a Grade-A moron

 

[Fritzo]

Uh, no. I can't plug the service I work for due to forum rules, but it is a respected nationwide dialup service

 

[Viperoni]

The greatest pissoff:

"What did you just do to make the error happen?"
"I dunno"

/hangs himself