The Stupidity of Man

I really hate having to deal with customers some times. Tonight was a perfect example. One of the associates wandered over, a phone pressed to his ear. As he walked over I could hear him trying to talk with the customer, and I knew I was in for a tech support call from hell. The associate kept stuttering out things like 'Let me let you talk to a tech', or 'Could you please hold for a minute', but after six or seven tries of to get a complete sentence in, he simply thrust the phone into my hand like a hot potato and ran. Thus my nightmare began.

I answered the phone like I usually do, and was greeted by a five to seven minute rant (despite numerous attempts to just find out what the problem is on my end) about how the man had been transferred from tech support, to tech support, and how he was tired of the 'goddamn' merry-go-round, sprinkled in with various racist remarks about Indian workers. Now, if you've worked tech support more then a day and a half, you're pretty familiar with this process. Most tech support numbers work by a menu system. None of the workers are actually familiar with the software, they simply read off a menu. If you reach the end of the menu with no solution, they suggest you call someone else. I'm more then a little sympathetic for any customer caught in this loop, so when he finally finished yelling at me, I asked what the exact problem was. This lead to another three minute rant, about the piece of shit we sold him before he finally told me he couldn't send or receive mail via outlook express.

Ahhh outlook express, the worlds number one source for viral infections. Its actually a pretty basic piece of software, and while I'm completely unfamiliar with it, I do know a few areas he could be hanging up on.

'Have you verified that all the server information is correct sir?', I asked.
'I've already told you three times.', he spits back at me.

Wait, what now? No where in the last 10 minutes has he told me whether or not he's gone into the outlook express setting and verified that the server information is in fact correct. He's sworn at me, he's screamed about Indian workers, he's called me incompetent once already, he has told me that he can send mail directly from yahoo somewhere in that long confusing rant, but nothing about physically checking the outlook information. At this point, any sympathy I may have had for this guy instantly melts away.

'No, you haven't.', I say correcting him. 'You never told me that you had checked the settings. You've only told me that you can send mail from yahoo and that is all. E-mail from Yahoo has nothing what so ever to do with e-mail from Outlook. Now, have you gone into Outlook and physically verified that the information is correct?'
'I've done it three times!', he screams back at me.

that's pretty much it for me, I can tell why he's been given the run around. He's breaking the two major rules of over the phone tech support. Follow instructions, and don't scream at the technician whose trying to help you. At this point, I'm in the same mode as every technician he's talked before, dump mode. There's still one more thing left for me to try with him, but its time to explain that Microsoft is the only entity who can tech support his issue.

'Well sir, I'm afraid, I can't really support Outlook express, but lets try one more thing. Do you have a firewall up and running?'
'What do you mean you can't support the damn thing!', he screams back into the phone. 'I bought it there.'
'Sir, there is roughly over a thousand pieces of software on the shelves at this minute. I can not be expected to support every single one of them. Now do you have a firewall up?', I asked, trying to keep from screaming back at this guy.
'What are you incompetent? How can you possibly sell something you can't support?'
'Sir', I say, starting to lose my cool, ' there are over ten-thousand pieces of software released a year. I've been doing this for over six years now.....'
'Well you obviously haven't been doing it nearly long enough.', he yells, interupting me.
'I've been doing this for over six years now. Thats over 60,000 pieces of software, it is not physically possible for any person to support every last piece of software. Thats what the manufacture is for.', I press on, my back teeth clenching to stop me from saying something I shouldn't.

From this point on, the conversation went downhill quickly. He continued to insult me, calling me worthless, incompetent, good for nothing, and stupid. While I continued to explain that I could no longer tech support his problem, and that he needed to call the manufacturer. After five minutes of being sworn at and insulted, I finally told him that I was finished talking with him, that he had to contact Microsoft, and that was the end of it, and hung up.

My head hurts. *sigh*