How’s the serenity… in what is promising to be a recurring theme of idiotic behaviour discovered amongst the general poplulace who have me by the short and curlies at work – the short and curly phone cord that is – I offer the following interaction… if you’ve ever thought yourself to be not the brightest spark in the box… take heart 🙂

HelpDesk Chickie:  Your username is moroncustomer@goliath.net.au….

MCustomer:  @goliath.net.com?

HelpDesk Chickie:  No – @goliath.net.au…..

MCustomert:  @goliath.com.au?

HelpDesk Chickie:  no that was – @goliath.net.au….

MCustomer:  @goliath.com.net.au???

HelpDesk Chickie:  No!!!!   GOLIATH dot NET dot AU !!!   

grrr and snarl  😐  sometimes I wish I could tell them to put the damn thing back in the box and send it back.   I need to get some sleep…  I need hot chocolate … I need new shoes!!!!  sniff … sniff

Comment from myself to customer this week about CD EOMs-

Help Desk Chickie: “It goes in silver side down thanks George”

We get some strange stuff going on at work, from some rather strange callers.  I guess that’s what you get when you’re dealing with the public all the time.  Maybe it’s cos we’re on the phone and we’re always dealing with people who don’t know what they’re doing… but I’m starting to get a warped perspective on how ridiculously stupid ‘people’ are.  Or perhaps it’s cos I’ve kept myself pretty well insulated from ‘them’ (the hairy unwashed masses) for years that I’ve not noticed that we’re actually surrounded everyday by that which is positively asinine and inane.   Either way, we find ourselves constantly shaking our heads at how unbelievably stupid some people can be…. and it’s not always just ignorance of technology… which is totally forgivable in my book.

Call Yaleman had this week –
me: “welcome to goliath, this is yaleman.. how can I help you today?”
customer: “Well I don’t know what modem I’ve got so you’re going to have to tell me”
me: “what colour is it?”
customer: “where would I find it in my house?”
me: “uh… I don’t know where things are in your house sorry…”

And this one is a corker as my Dad would have said –
HelpDesk Chickie:  What can I help you with today?
Customer #27  I can’t connect to the internet, the little window says it can’t detect the modem…
HelpDesk Chickie:  What sort of modem do you have?
Customer #27:   Ah… is that the little blue stick thing?  uh.. I think it’s in the kitchen
HelpDesk Chickie:  Can I get you to plug the device into your USB port please…. 

No shit – I actually had this conversation this week.  And so on and so forth… and this is just from the last couple of days.  So I find myself wondering – are ‘people’ en masse truly that  stupid… or is it just an unnatural cross section that we’re dealing with here?  

It’s been a very… very…. long day…. starting this morning with a particularly horrific call at work that is kinda painful to recall…. though no doubt someone will find this amusing…

Customer had a wireless broadband modem (The little blue one with the two antennas?   Yes… the one with the two antennas) and it looked like it was working… says it was connected and I could see in our system that it appeared to be connected…. but it was bringing up ‘page cannot be displayed’ and spitting up a couple of messages that sounded like it was trying to dial up….  So I spent the next hour or so, torturing this poor customer trying to figure out why he had no data flow…. checking drivers, confirming the account details, sussing out his network connections, defaulting his IE bullshit, rebooting the hardware, enabling this, turning off the firewalls, unticking that, running the connection wizbang,  eventually uninstalling the doover, deleted his dial up crap, reinstalling the thingamebob…*   and so on an so forth as laid down in the gospel according the Trouble Shooting Database….. Amen.  😐  

Eventually frustration starts to settle in…..  I don’t get it…. it should be fucking working!!!!

Customer#63 : Well… what do you know!

HelpDesk Chickie:   Not a lot apparently … 😐
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I’ve had what feels like a pretty busy and mostly fun week at work …. The busy bit started last Sunday with a 10 hour shift that finished at 2300, and the fun bit started at the same time when about 10 mins before I was due to finish up that shift one of the most socially challenged and (doubly cursed) unattractive guys on the floor came up to my desk, took one look at me, said “You look like hell, Borys” and walked off again.   Well I ask you….  Who does look their best at the end of a 10 hour shift at 2300 on a Sunday night???

I think I would be insulted if I thought of him as someone whose opinion mattered in any even remotely infinitesimal manner what so ever… but as it stands, one can hardly be expected to muster the energy to feel insulted by someone who’s social and professional standing appears to be decidedly lower and less useful than that of an office stapler.  What a prat!   And this coming from a man who hadn’t shaved all week, and often wafts a trail of BO behind him as he walks through the office!  Bleurck!!  Just wish I’d been thinking on my feet well enough and awake enough to have thrown back a pithy retort… which i didn’t!   Instead, I’ve been telling everyone about it all week to demonstrate the hardships involved in working alongside so many geeks!   🙂

Anyway, I was reassured by one of my other co-workers, that I didn’t actually look as hellish as lead to believe, and that it was no doubt just an expression of disappointment from a socially ill adept tosser who… on having come to lurk in the vicinity of my desk…. had the misfortune to discover that ‘the twins weren’t out”.  Yes that’s right….  to restore one’s confidence in their appearance, my colleague reassured me that ThePrat had just come round to perve at my tits and was disappointed to find me in a boring and demure top that day !!!!    (insert vile retching noises here!!!)

And this, Ladies, is what you get for working in IT……     😐

After waiting 2 full mins for a customer’s machine to open the device manager…
HelpdeskChickie: Is your PC normally this slow?
Customer#56:  I don’t know….we’re in a country area, so it’s probably a little slower than normal…
HelpdeskChickie:  Oh i see…. 😐
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