Thursday, July 17, 2008

It's time to rant

Most of you know that I work for an internet company. I manage the technical support staff, and most of the time I do the exact same thing they do. I answer the phone and help people with their internet related issues. Also, most days I'm perfectly content doing this. Then there are days like yesterday and today.
I have a few questions. Don't feel obligated to answer them, they are rhetorical questions. Just little things that I ponder from time to time.
Why is it that when the internet isn't working because we have a server or service down, people don't get upset, but if they make a simple mistake that prevents them from getting online, they yell at the technician like we caused their stupidity? :-)

Do fish get thirsty?

When there is a network outage, why is it the first person to call wants to talk about the outage for an hour while they can hear the phones ringing in the back ground?

When a person calls tech support, isn't it because they can't figure out the issue at hand? I can't tell you how many times I have asked a customer to do something, only to have them come back at me with "that's not going to fix this, I've been fixing computers for 3000 years..."! Blah blah blah. Countless times after hearing that statement, I hear this one: "oh, hmm. It seems to be working now..." Yeah, because I don't have a clue what I'm doing.

Did you know that computer illiterate senior citizens are easier to deal with than people in their 20's?

So today we had an outage if you couldn't figure that out on your own. It lasted about 6 hours. We took about 9 billion calls before lunch. Each call lasted an average of 30 seconds. Yeah, I know, the math doesn't work there. It's been a very busy day, and I was looking very forward to going to lunch. I was going to get out of the building, go buy a pop and maybe go get a hair cut. I left the office and drove over and got a pop. Then I drove up Main Street in Walla Walla on my way to get my hair cut. I heard someone yell so I looked over and saw a friend of mine that I used to work with and decided to stop and talk rather than get my hair cut. (Priorities).
Anyway, we're standing there talking and I look over and notice my tire is almost flat. Hmm, bummer. So I cut my visit short and headed up to Les Schwabs. Turns out the valve stem was leaking. They replaced it and I was off on my happy way again. I looked at the clock and my lunch break was just about over. Nice. Didn't get to relax at all really. I did stop for about 5 minutes to talk to a friend, but that was it. Didn't even have time to eat. Oh well, back at it again.
As I type this up the office is pretty dead now. All systems are back up and other than the occasional slow person that didn't call in this morning and hasn't tried connecting since then calling in, it's pretty calm. Being able to rant a little I feel much better though.
Oh, I just remembered. The truck is being a butt again. Yesterday I got in it to drive it to get a tool and just to make sure it was still in running order and it wouldn't start. I opened the hood and the positive battery cable was smoking. Yes, smoking. I know. Not a good thing I'm sure. It had melted the bolt-on terminal end and had started to melt through the negative cable (they touch but I never thought about it being bad because they are both covered). Yeah, so needless to say I need new battery cables. The saga continues.
I hope you all have enjoyed this as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Have a wonderful weekend everyone. I plan to. My children will be joining us for the weekend and I'm looking forward to my parents visiting next week from Seattle.

1 comment:

The Buck's said...

And I thought I was having a bad day! You win! Here's to a great weekend...I hope mine involves labor and delivery at Sacred Heart.