Hang on… I’m just on the phone

Posted on 26 February 2007 by boryssnorc

I’ve only just got home. I was supposed to finish work tonight at 20.00, but I got stuck on a call with a poor guy who couldn’t connect his NEXT G wireless modem. I’ve only been doing this job for a few weeks, and already I am sick to death of the idiot sales staff who are selling these products to people. This guy got sold a wireless product, and even though he reported to the sales chickie that he has no mobile phone coverage at his property (ie he is in a mobile black spot) she assured him it will work fine anyway. No only that but the sales chikie told him he could use that modem with more than one computer and anywhere in the house, that it didn’t need to be cabled to the PCs….. what a lot of crap! These products are wireless, but not wifi! Grrrr…….. I spent two hours going through every possible problem, only to get it working and then have signal that isnt powerful enough to get through the registration process.

I had another lady last week who was sold a NEXT G wireless product who was in her late 70s. She had one desktop PC and she mostly uses it to email with her grandkids etc. And she lived in Bathurst… in town…. in Bathurst. I can’t for the life of me figure out why they didn’t hook her up to a standard ADSL account with no wireless or wifi nonsense, it’s be significantly cheaper for the poor old bitty, and much simpler to install and trouble shoot when she has problems. Something tells me the sales people are on some sort of fantastic bonus scheme for pushing the NEXT G wireless stuff…. cos we keep getting people who would be better suited with other products.

God help me though if my shifts run late too often….

Out of left field call for the day:

“Welcome to Goliath Broadband help desk, this is borysSNORC, how may I help you?”

“Hi, I’d like to make a complaint….. the CT who installed my cable wireless was making inappropriate advances to my 17 year old daughter….. flirting with her and giving her his private phone number. Can I lodge this complaint with you?”

“Ummmm… you’ve reached technical support… can you hold the line a moment while I find out who you need to speak to?”.

BOFH w~ MCustomer#62

Posted on 14 February 2007 by boryssnorc

HelpDeskChickie: Hello this is borysSNORC calling from the Goliath Broadband Help Desk. Am I speaking with MCustomer#62? It is? Great. This is just a courtesy call to see if the ADSL fault you logged last week has been rectified. Is your service up and running okay now? (operator smiling audibly over the phone)

Customer: “Yeah, it’s all up and running foine now. It’s going pretty good aktually…”

HelpDeskChickie: Okay well I am going to go ahead and close this case for you. Is there anything else I can help you with today?? (Compulsory closing sentence I’m obliged to say but would rather not have to utter…)

Customer: “Yeah there is.. i keep doing these searches on the indanet and I always get those pawnography pages coming up. Can you fix it?”

😐

Dreaming … Dreaming of being….

Posted on 14 February 2007 by boryssnorc

I am totally not used to this work stuff! It’s thrown my sleep patterns out the window something fierce.. I haven’t had to set an alarm to wake me up for years now, always had the little guy pulling alarm clock duty. Now I’m setting the alarm clock each day and waking up before it. Also when i used to wake up in the middle of the night, I used to be able to get back to sleep without too much trouble unless my back is stirred up. Well since the job’s stirring my back up pretty drastically, I’ve been waking up like last night at 3.20am and not being able to get back to sleep.

Did finally doze off for about half an hour at 5.30am and had the weirdest dream…. I was at work and scheduled to work 7am-3pm and had turned up a little early to get all logged in and ready (yesterday was a nightmare – took about 28mins to get into all the systems and configure my profiles correctly). But because I was early, I went and had a bit of a lay down in the break room. When I got out to the floor, my shift was just finishing, and the guys I was supposed to be working with were all heading home. I sank to the floor (which was a grass lawn btw), and watched as the night shift people came in. There was four or so chicks in purple Tree of Life panne velvet ‘renaissance’ (and I used the term loosely) styled dresses, walking around trying to find somewhere to hang up some fancy purple stone mobiles on all the windows, calling themselves Amethyst Goddesses and making a blessing before sitting down to work. Then a couple of muslim fellows started doing their call to prayer in the middle of the office while trying to figure out which way was west, cos there’s no natural light in the place… then a group of coal smeared miners with tool belts marched in, and one of them make a short speech about ‘making this a great day with no OH risks – lets go!’ And then I woke up……………..

I think working is sending me balmy. :S Next I’ll be getting visits from crazy discworld type characters – like Death of Office Recycling or the OHS Witch or something!

Goliath

Posted on 10 February 2007 by boryssnorc

I’ve been so busy the last few weeks, and stressed out the wa-hoo (though I’m not entirely sure what/where a wa-hoo is ?!?!) I started a new job the day after my Dad passed away, and it’s the first full time job I’ve had since 1994. My first day was a nightmare, I woke up and procrastinated about whether or not I should even turn up. I didn’t want to go because I felt like an emotional train wreck, and I wanted to be around in case Mum wanted us, but then I wanted to go because I didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity. In addition to this I was concerned that everyone would think I was a heartless baggage for going to work the day after my father passes away! I felt absolutely drained and my decision making abilities were shot to sh!t. Definitely not your typical Monday morning. In the end I did go to work, partly cos of Dad. He was always the pragmatic one, and I could almost hear him, saying ‘get over it and get on with it’. Though he would have definitely worded it in a kindlier fashion.

We’ve been in training for the last few weeks, and the poor trainers have been trying to smash a veritable encyclopedia of telecommunications information into our unwilling heads over the duration. I’ve been struggling a bit, most of the group (30 of us – I’m the only girlie) have fairly significant IT backgrounds, and have a much better grasp of the material than I do. The job itself is going to be something that I will be quite good at once I get a grip on the resources I think. I am sure it will all come together over the next few weeks, but it’s been a very steep learning curve for me. The wireless broadband stuff is giving the long term staff there headaches, so no wonder I’m not feeling confident. 😐

So between dealing (or not) with my polarized feelings about Dad passing away, worrying about Mum, maintaining the rage over BigSal’s behaviour and coming to grips with grasping the requirements of my new job….. I’ve been feeling a little bit on the stressed side. Not sleeping great, tension headaches, problems with my hearing and of course, the obligatory cracked tooth. Whenever I am under ridiculous amounts of stress, it manifests itself in a tendency to clench my jaw while I sleep. I don’t grind my teeth exactly, just clench them and this causes problems for one of my front bottom teeth – which tends to quite literally crack under pressure. A little chip cracks off and then it’s off to the dentist to have him fix it….. again!

BigJobs dot com

Posted on 16 January 2007 by boryssnorc

Had a job interview at a recruitment agency in the city this AM. It’s been a long time since I went looking for work, and the last job I was interviewed for, I got over looked in favor of an 18 year old bint with no experience! Hmmm what a monumental waste of time that was…. if they wanted to hire a junior, then they shouldn’t have bothered interviewing anyone else.

Interview went well I think. They made me sit a typing test, which I wasn’t expecting, and even though I felt like I was flubbing it (felt like I was typing really slow on unfamiliar and not very responsive keyboard, also felt like I was making mistakes left, right and center compared to my normal typing) turns out I did okay – 69wpm! Not too shabby huh.. and such an auspicious number 😉

So interview went well, and now just have to wait and see.

Update: Got a call to offer me the job – starting Monday! Woot that happened quick!… Might have made a bit of an error in judgment on the names I gave them for referees though… copy of email correspondence that went down today…. 🙂

Hi Guys
Just letting you guys know that I had a job interview this morning for a Helpdesk job. I have given them your names as referees, so just giving you a heads up in case they call.
Wish me luck!
RMB

And here is the comment my referee of choice sent back to me! God only knows what he told them!

They already have.
I said that you give great head.
I mean that you can make my head swim with big words.
I said you was good…. real good 😉
So they most likely think I was lying!
TT

I guess I might have to rethink the whole asking TT to referee for me in future!
.