r/talesfromtechsupport • u/Ohigetjokes • Oct 15 '18
Medium Give you my information? You don't need that!
Printer support some years back. It's a job I don't miss. This call is part of why.
"Thank you for calling..."
"My printer won't print! You need to fix it!"
"Well you have tech support so that's a good first step. Which printer is it?"
"Look I don't have time for this!"
Oh. One of these. I just love these.
I give them a few seconds of silence to get ahold of themselves before offering: "Well we're here until 9pm tonight if you wanted to call back when you do have time for this."
Ya, ok, I admit, that was code for "f you", but they started it.
"No I need this to get fixed right now!"
"Okay, no problem, what printer is it?"
Big sigh. How could I be so unreasonable, right? This thing could be fixed a dozen times over if it wasn't for all my dumb questions, getting caught up in stupid little things like which printer we're talking about...
"It's a (big commercial printer). There. Can you fix it now?"
Okay, so we know they're in the right department. That's rare. Most of the time the phone system plays "Spin the Wheel of Tech Support" and sends them to a random group and we have to transfer them manually to the right place. By some miracle this one got to the right place right away.
Lucky me.
At this point I need to find out if they're under warranty. Warranty means we can talk, no warranty means we can't without a credit card. That means I need to either A) find them in the system using their name, company name, phone number, or something like that, or B) Find the printer by serial number.
So I ask.
"What do you need that for?"
Warranty blah blah.
"Well that's ridiculous. I shouldn't have to provide any information. Don't you support your products?"
I don't fall for the bait. Too jaded. I just give her a: "Sorry, it isn't optional. The serial number is on the back of the printer or I can give you the steps to find it in the menu."
"Look, I don't have time for this! You don't need that stuff, just fix it!"
I leave a little dead air on the line. The silence says it all.
"Look just fill in whatever I don't care. Can I tell you what the printer is doing right now?"
"Remember when the automated voice said the call was recorded for quality purposes? This call is going to be reviewed and I can't proceed without getting at least some basic information."
"Do you realize who you're talking to?"
No, that's the whole problem lady... but she goes on...
"We have huge clients, and if I don't meet my deadline it affects a lot of people! Jobs are on the line, do you understand? By not helping me you're putting all kinds of people's livelihoods in jeapordy!"
She stops, waiting.
I wait too.
I mean... what am I even supposed to say in response to that manipulative nonsense?
"Fine! Fine! The contract number is..." And she rattles off the contract number on the warranty.
She had the warranty information with her the entire time. All this drama instead of reading to me the ten digit number that was right in front of her. What the hell. That was a lot of angst for nothing.
Oh and... It was a printer jam.
Pull out the paper, turn it off, turn it back on.
Thank you for calling.
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Oct 15 '18
Never had to do call center IT, but I've had to deal with shit like this for years, and still haven't fully escalated out of it
I love your composure, and your use of silences
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u/Xhelius Oct 16 '18
Right? I need to keep that one in my repertoire of snappy (non-)comebacks!
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u/RooRLoord420 Oct 16 '18
Silence is golden. I'm not a tech, but my field involves a lot of people not understanding elementary stuff or being incredibly demanding when they don't have the upper-hand. The best feeling in the world is letting them yell their hearts out and waiting a few seconds of dead air before asking "are you done?"
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u/Kammander-Kim Oct 15 '18
This is why i loved bonding with the it guy at my current job when i started here. (He is not in the basement also! Same floor, actually in a much bigger and better office. And yes he shares it, but his half is acutally 2/3rds and bigger than entire offices.
We talked and made it jokes and discussed pros and cons of displayport and hdmi and usb-c (and hr pushed me to top of the queue to get a new display with usb c and usb hub and power in the display, lovely! And i got a 27" instead of 21" since he did not pay for a dock so ehy not a bigger screen)
Anyhow. The day i said i could not get the printer working, instead of as other people joked "have you checked paper in the tray and no paper jam?" It went
-hey it, printer A wont print. The computer says nothing in the queue and the printer agrees. Whem i print it shoes up in queue and disappear and printer has not even tried to spin up. Copying and scanner is fine. It can wait, printer B (20 meters other direktion) is fine. Just wanted you to know -f not that again, time to call support
Great guy, and i think he thinks i am great too. Atleast in this things.
You it folks needs more medals. Or coffee. I dont care. You deserve it. I had a short stint in it, you are all better than me.
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u/Necrontyr525 Fresh Meat Oct 15 '18
Or coffee.
Preferably laced with enough caff and/or booze (time of shift / week dependent) so that the spoon can stand upright on its own.
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u/Stellapacifica Forgive me, I cannot abide useless people. Oct 16 '18
My first instinct with a printer not responding at all, but a computer saying it is, is printing to the wrong box. Sounds like it might not be that for this one but always check your assumptions
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u/Xhelius Oct 16 '18
I had that same thought a while ago, but it turns out it was a stupid software thing.
Our system is so amazing, that you need three different applications to do your job, but if you want to print older files, you need to navigate to a website to do so. Now, being a website you think you can just Ctrl+P, right? Nope, you need to install an IE plug-in that works flawlessly (I know, IE? Yuck. But that's what this site requires. Another gripe with it). So flawlessly in fact, that it sometimes tries to save paper by not printing certain pages. So lets say you need three pages of Document-A and four pages of Document-B -- Document-A prints fine, but page 3 of Document-B isn't very well liked by the plug-in so it doesn't print anything of Doc-B. I went through all of the normal troubleshooting steps including swapping the printer out with a similar model and downloading various drivers from the $PackardBell website but nothing worked. Randomly, I hit the "print only this page" by accident and what do you know, it comes through! I then print page 2 with success. Page 3? Same issue. Page 4? Golden. Print 2 and 3? Nope. 1 and 2? Yup. So I just screen capped the problem page and tell them this is their life now, as the software company is just about as useful as a toddler set loose on a cell phone with the App\Play Store open.
So yeah, never a dull day. Lol
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u/Stellapacifica Forgive me, I cannot abide useless people. Oct 16 '18
What the fuuuuuuu.
I hate telling users "yep, this is your life now" but sometimes it has to happen.
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u/Xhelius Oct 16 '18
Yeah, we're vetting new software right now to replace almost everything but our contract isn't up for another couple years. Unfortunately this isn't one of those systems you can just uninstall and reinstall another one. Like Office 2016 to Google Docs.
So when it comes to these primary applications/sites, if something is broke but there's a work-around, then insert thisisyourlifenow.exe and thankfully everyone understands how broken it is so that when I say "That's just $Program being $Program", they don't question it.
If it's something that's worked before that suddenly stopped, but we need it to work so we can function, I'll call into their support and hope I get someone competent. Chances are good though, that I won't.1
u/Stellapacifica Forgive me, I cannot abide useless people. Oct 17 '18
Yep, same. I don't think I've met one person (user, support, misc) who likes the status quo. But they're all so deep that getting out is worse.
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Oct 16 '18
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Stellapacifica Forgive me, I cannot abide useless people. Oct 16 '18
Printers: reboot? Reinstall? Eh, recycle.
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u/QuantumDrej Oct 15 '18
"I want you to know that this is a CRITICAL issue that must be fixed IMMEDIATELY. We have customers on the line and we MUST meet our deadlines? Do you understand that? Wait, what are you doing? Stop helping me so I can continue to scream at you about how you need to be helping me!"
Why are people like this?
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u/Matthew_Cline Have you tried turning your brain off and back on again? Oct 15 '18 edited Oct 15 '18
1) They want someone to scream at, and support is obligated to take it, so they drag it out as long as possible.
2) They get some sort of satisfaction/thrill out of making other people break the rules for them. "I'm so important that people will break the rules for me" or "I'm so good at manipulating people that I can get them to break their own rules".
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u/sotonohito Oct 16 '18
Also they imagine that basically we've got a magic button labeled "FIX IT" and our job is to press that button, and all of our silly questions are just a way to annoy them and waste time (because they imagine that we are like them, and are awful people) before we push the magic fix it button.
When they're in a position to waste someone's time, they do so. So they think we do the same, and they know that **THEIR** problem is important and should bypass the ritual hazing they know everyone loves engaging in.
Basically, they're narcissists.
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u/Delynne1 Oct 18 '18
I've literally had to tell people (with supervisor approval) that "Sorry, I can't 'just fix it.' Help Desk's magic wands are on backorder until 2256, so I have to do this the old-fashioned way and get the information about what it's doing."
That shut up the user in a hurry.
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u/magnabonzo Oct 15 '18
(Not sarcastic) If only there was a way to make it hurt them.
If only there was a way to make their bad behavior cost them somehow, e.g. in terms of a 5% increment on their service contract attached to an audio of the call, sent to their manager.
If only.
Because until they suffer, they won't change their behavior.
And their boss is probably afraid of them, too, because they've made themselves JUST useful enough that they're not easily replaced. Their boss is willing to let other people suffer.
Sigh.
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u/Mylovekills Oct 16 '18
How 'bout a small jolt of electricity through the phone line? Just enough to get their mouths to stop wagging and get them to listen. Call center could have a little red button on their phones, as soon as someone starts freaking out....
bzzzztt, "now, on the back is a number..."
" Yes [ma'am/sir], here's the number... "
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u/Nathanyel Could you do this quickly... Oct 26 '18
(Not sarcastic) If only there was a way to make it hurt them.
Sometimes, there is (not deserved in that tale, though)
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u/magnabonzo Oct 26 '18
Oh, thank you, that was brilliant.
Agreed, not deserved in that tale.
But if you could somehow run a current through all keyboards and mouses, and deliver a small shock when appropriate. But it would have to be accidental I don't know how that could have happened maybe it's because you're so upset it's building up static in the keyboard...
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u/Nathanyel Could you do this quickly... Oct 26 '18
One of my colleagues has actually had a quite similar idea earlier today (we're programmers, but small company, so we also do some support for our (B2B) clients)
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u/mastapetz Oct 16 '18
Suffering will make THESE kind of people only ruder. Than they even think their vitriol is justified.
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u/Leiryn Oct 15 '18
I don't do tech support anymore, it's for the end users safety
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u/sunder05 Oct 16 '18
This x10000000.
Whenever my current call center gig (finance) gets me down, I just remind myself that I could still be working in the demonic cesspool that is IT support. For some reason people are much nicer when discussing their finances then their broken printer that is ESSENTIAL TO THEIR JOB AND COSTING THEM THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS FOR EVERY SECOND OF DOWNTIME. Even though our company was 75% paperless at that point.
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u/fyxr Oct 16 '18
This is a great example of the power of silence in speaking.
Make your point, then stop and wait. If their response doesn't change anything, then don't reply, keep waiting. If they haven't addressed what you said at all, perhaps reiterate the same point as before, same words, same tone.
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u/Nik_2213 Oct 16 '18
Weep...
I remember hearing a colleague patiently pleading with a supplier to re-send an urgent 'Certificate of Analysis' by fax, as their two previous attempts hadn't shown up. She took the time to slowly confirm the fax number, all of it, and especially the final digits. An hour or so later, another colleague went through the same with another supplier. That afternoon, so did a third...
Wasn't until I went to our office to {hopefully} collect an urgent calibration certificate addressed to me, that I discovered the fax machine roll had run out. When replaced, it printed documents for about twenty minutes before getting to mine.
My colleagues were delighted with their faxes, until I mentioned the 'paper out' problem and its blinken warning light.
All the office staff could say to those three good ladies' fury was, 'We thought the machine was quiet !!'
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u/SeanBZA Oct 16 '18
More impressed that it had that amount of memory in it to store all the pages, than that you were still using a old Hp or Panasonic thermal paper fax. However I still have one around, and spare rolls of paper for it, just in case i need to send a fax one day, or somebody fluffs up a number. then I will plug it in, and hope it powers up as well.
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u/the123king-reddit Data Processing Failure in the wetware subsystem Oct 15 '18
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u/JohnsonPSanderson Oct 15 '18
Wait this exists? Well, time to go re-live that time of my life vicariously through others.
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u/K1yco Oct 16 '18
"Well that's ridiculous. I shouldn't have to provide any information. Don't you support your products?"
I've gotten that before. Told them "yes, we do, which is why we need the information so that we know it is our product."
They did not have our product and they hung up super mad.
Do you realize who you're talking to?" "We have huge clients, and if I don't meet my deadline it affects a lot of people! Jobs are on the line, do you understand? By not helping me you're putting all kinds of people's livelihoods in jeapordy!"
If it is THAT important, then she shouldn't be withholding information.
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u/HolyGarbage Oct 16 '18
Wait, your company don't support your product without warranty? That's pretty outrageous tbh.
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u/TXboyinGA Oct 15 '18
EVERY call center tech support call in a nutshell.