The I Hate My Job Rant Thread - Customer Support FTL

General Discussion
1

I’m fairly new to my job and as low man on the totem pole there are certain things that come with the rank, and nature of the job. I work in tech support, so I get to deal with customers all day. For the most part it’s not so bad, but every once in a while you get that one customer who wants to explain to you in thorough detail why you’re an idiot and your software/products suck the mean dick of defeat.

“Yes doctor I understand your complaint…no doctor I cannot change that as that would involve me changing the hard coded software of the program…”

Somewhere out there the software engineer who wrote the pile of shit that I support is laughing his ass off as he changes the version update by editing the numbers on the top of the display window calls it the latest version and ships it out for sale as he collects fat checks. Where as I am trying to teach people who can’t even begin to find the start button in windows how to use it for peanuts.

The rude people aren’t even so bad. Most of the time they’re justified in being angry because our products are simply not working. The real bastards are the non-tech-savvy types who call in for help. You might be saying well that’s not so bad because you can still remotely connect to and control their computer, so you can bypass their lack of knowledge with the program!..and you’d be right…most of the time.

But even in this day and age there are still offices that are without internet. You heard me right. At this very moment there are functioning dentist offices that DO NOT have internet access.

IT IS 2010 GET A GOD DAMN INTERNET CONNECTION YOU CHEAP PRICKS. OUR ACCOUNTS DEPARTMENT KNOWS HOW MUCH MONEY YOU MAKE IN A MONTH EVEN A PREMIUM SERVICE PROVIDER PACKAGE WOULD RUN YOU A COUPLE HUNDRED BUCKS AT MOST WHEN YOU MAKE 5 FIGURES A MONTH!!! FUCK YOU!!!

Even still this is not the worst part of the job. Every other job in the world has a specific end and start time. Not for tech support…Oh you got a call 1 minute before you were supposed to clock out? Well you need to support the call. Oh it’s Friday, and you had plans?..well that doesn’t change anything still support the call. :bluu:

2

cry more. It’s your own fault for working in a call centre.

3

Oh yes, the software engineers are laughing their way to the bank while you do the lions share at your company. Sure, they are putting in 70 hour weeks as deadlines approach, and have to be on call for emergency response after hours after new deployments, but lets face it, they are just changing version numbers and pushing the same product.

4

I worked tech support for directv a while back. Worst job I ever had. They had strict rules about scripts, if the script didn’t say to do it, you’re not allowed to say it, even if you know the answer to their problem. 90% of calls were people complaining their remote stopped working and forgot to realize it needs new batteries (yes, this was the vast majority of tech support phone calls). The other 10% that called with “advanced” questions that even if I knew the answer, I couldn’t tell them because it’s not in the script. I quit after a week. BTW, don’t call DTV tech support, you’ll either get the run around or some dumb scripted answer that probably won’t work.

5

I work tech support currently and in my mind, the worst people aren’t the ones who genuinely don’t know anything…it’s the ones that think they know everything. You know the type. The guys that insist you refer to them as Dr. because they have a degree, yet their Master’s didn’t prepare them for plugging in the fucking electrical cord to the device. :rofl:

6

I once had a guy call in complaining that he had bought an HDMI cord but didn’t have an HDMI port on his 360. He suggested that it was our fault and that we should put on the packaging what it works with and what it doesn’t work with, I told him that we expect that customers to know what they’re buying and whether or not they have a port for it before they buy it. After a pause he then said “…Fuck yourself.” /end of story

7

I just got directv in my house.

8

I work for xbox customer support on their escalations team, so I pretty much exclusively deal with pissed off people.

I’m also considered a supervisor, so when someone asks for one I have to deal with their rants and quotes of made up laws.

There are a lot of angry xbox owners in the world.

Just don’t take anything personally and stay calm at all times and it’s not a hard job.

9

That’s interesting. I wonder how many other companies do that too.

Most of you have probably already heard of this website, but it has some pretty hilarious customer service stories - Not Always Right | Funny & Stupid Customer Quotes

10

:confused: damn son I feel sorry for you especially if you was there when the rrod started to hit. But yeah I don’t think call centers are that bad its just the technical support aspect of it especially with internet connections and pcs. If you don’t have a competent customer it makes things even worse. I used work for ATT as a DSL Technical Support Rep and that was not the best job in the world not even mainly on the customers either it was just the rules and guidelines they had. From the beginning to the end you have to actually follow this flowchart called the “process flow” its like the scripts that the other guy was talking about. The only thing about it you had call metrics you have to meet or average a week and following the flow chart messed it because it took more time to follow that than just to go through the basics steps. So on top of stupid customers and the company working against you shit was weak. Doesn’t help that att modems have a rrod issue right now and continues to sell the same model modem for 4 years.

11

You know, people look down on guys who work for McDonald’s or even grocery stores (hi there, VSLASH! You lowlife piece of shit). But call centers…man, they certainly got it tough. I can tell, because I worked at one for little over a year. Believe me, you get to deal with the worst scum of the earth which will make you lose whatever hope you harbored in favor of mankind.

Working at customer support for HP (Hewlett-Packard), you get to know quite a few of them. I could tell you about this kid who kept saying he had a virus but insisted that he never downloaded pRon (seriously, he kept repeating that like a dozen times to reassure me…it’s OK kid, no one wants to know what you do in your “personal time”), but the HEAD HONCHO of all mental cases goes to this guy:

Caller: “Yeah, well, this computer is pretty crappy and all, but at least the cup holder is pretty nifty!”

Me: “The…cup holder, sir?”

Caller: “Yeah, I press this button on the main unit, and it ejects a cup holder! I like to put my cup of coffee on it! Isn’t that swell?”

Me: “…”

Yeah, that type…

12

Hahahaha, dude thought a disc tray was a cup holder? That’s fucking classic.

13

Wait, you mean that’s not what it’s there for?

14

ahhhah disc tray…

customers at dollarama are lazy idiots… It’s not hard to find things in a store, because there’s a reason it’s organized into aisles… i get customers asking me where a certain aisle is right when they step into the store…like REALLY?

“excuse me sir, are these headphones good quality?”

15

is this thread just for customer support, or anybody who hates their job?

My backroom at work sucks ass, and is overloaded to shit. It’s a fire hazard and I should report the fuck out of them. The other day I go to move shit, and it comes toppling down at me. I dodged it, but tore one of my intercostal muscles. Every time I cough or sneeze, it feels like I was stabbed in the side

16

That was another huge problem of mine, the entire company felt like they were against you. The scripts actually favored people that don’t understand anything at all about the product. I have a pretty good understanding of how DTV installs and hooks up everything but surprisingly all that knowledge actually worked against me. I was able to answer many people’s questions off the top of my head with out taking the extra 10 minutes to go through the scripts, but I got in trouble because my bosses listened to my phone calls and complained I didn’t follow scripts, whether I helped the customer or not was irrelevant. I seriously don’t know why they even have human beings working at those places since you can get a computer to read scripts and ask very basic questions.

17

My first real job was an arcade change guy. I quit after a week and a half.

My second real job was a busboy at a hotel. I quit after a week and a half.

My third real job was a tech support guy for a local ISP. I wanted to quit after a week and a half, but I figured if I didn’t fight the anxiety of actually having a job I’d turn into a fucking bum, and my pride couldn’t weather that. So I stayed on. Four years of my life wasted at a place where shit flowed downstream, and there was a huge shitbasin at the top.

It was around this time that I realized the two years of college I took (for IT and Systems Design) were wasted, as a) school is garbage (mostly because teachers are petty fucks; more in another thread) and b) anything I wanted to learn, I could, just by reading books, the internet, and trying my hand at shit (I’m a kinesthetic learner). I decided I wanted to, as a long term goal, write fiction (mainly novels and movies), and knew I had to get there in steps.

So I started looking at where documentation was missing for the ISP staff internal processes, and wrote those guides. And they were good. And praised. And credit stolen by my boss. But my job was done: I took those samples and, with no past related work experience or schooling, got a job as a technical writer for a healthcare software company.

At first, it was glorious: I was learning by doing, I had flexible hours, I could wear sweatpants to work every fucking day (and I did), and a good number of my coworkers were gamers, movie buffs, and nerds (the likable variety). But the company’s leadership was, let’s just say, confuddled: money wasted on go-nowhere projects, a new building bought after we lost huge clients (and money), discontent in the ranks, and finally, massive layoffs to save money. The entire documentation team was laid off; after four hard-working years I was jobless.

And then I felt… weird. I started the tech writer job literally the day after my last day as a support tech, so I’ve been working non-stop (except weekends and vacation time) for eight years. By the time I was laid off, I decided I wanted to be a screenwriter, and possibly even a novelist and game designer. I was doing a lot of that in my spare time, and now suddenly I have a lot more spare time.

… I have no idea where I’m going with this story, so I’m going to end it here with a statement about how you can suck Dr. B’s cock and still be a real man, that’s how manly he is. Yes hetero.

18

funniest thing that when I was in training when we had a day to sit in on one of the agents calls the one vet I was with told me f the “process flow” and just my luck when I got hired they started cracking down on agents about not using it. But when those monthly reports would come in and efficiency was down by 15% our manager would suggest we don’t have to. Another thing to was the trouble of calling a tech to come to the customers house. With another stroke of my bad luck on top of the process flow being mandatory when I got hired we had to get approval from the service leads which sounds not too much of a big deal right? only thing was you had to go to a chat room with like 10 service leads trying to get request from at least 50 agents. So you’ll have to wait for a agent to get to you, you have to tell a customer you have to get approval from your super for them to call a tech, wait probably about 30 mins, have a cool customer get irate for having to wait that long… its just making even :mad: talking about it but you guys get what im trying to say.

19

btw who the hell is Dr. B?

20

King Sun, sounds like your place was set up like the place I worked. When ever we had to transfer calls we had to have a supervisor approve of it and we had to request through chat. So something as simple as transferring a customer could take 10 to 15 minutes, by this time even the most patient of customers are pissed off. The worst part is the supervisors would fight you every step of the way, it looked bad for them if there were too many transfers in their department. So it would take around 10 minutes to get the first response which was always some BS like “where does it say to transfer in the script?”, then you’d answer and they wouldn’t reply for another ten minutes. It got to the point I stopped requesting, I just transferred and signed the supervisor’s name on the transfer slip.

This kind of bullshit is why I quit within a week. I’ve had bad jobs where the bosses were idiots before, but no where near this level. Everything was so inefficient it was nerve racking. After a couple days I was so jaded I just started hanging up on people if I thought their call was going to take over 3 minutes (3 minutes was suppose to be our average handle time, which was virtually impossible considering all the hoops we had to jump through with each call) and couldn’t give a shit less. At least I got 6 weeks of easy pay during the training.