Most jobs where you have to deal with the average consumer will have you doing that...

we had to do a minor recall cause some lady confused a pessary for a tablet and almost choked on it... now it has a "WARNING: Do not try to swollow this" sign in red on the packaging...

sad thing is, the pack was never intended to have any tablets in the first place

some lady confused a pessary for a tablet and almost choked on it...

HOW?

I'm not IT. I see IT as something similar to working at the motor vehicle administration. Someone's got to do it, the job sucks, you deal with assholes all day, and because your job sucks, you suck at your job.

I rarely have a good experience with IT. They tend to "diagnose the problem" waay too quickly, assume I don't know what I'm doing, and as a result of their lack of listening, either don't solve the problem or take forever to solve the problem.

YMMV.

I think you're lumping all of IT with first level support.

There's some truth to both of these statements, especially "Someone's got to do it, the job sucks, you deal with assholes all day, and because your job sucks, you suck at your job." The simple fact is, the vast majority (think more than 90%) of first-line's calls are cookie-cutter tickets they see at least a dozen times a week. Of those, more than half won't be an actual technical problem, but user incompetence (that most helpdesks don't actually support. That's what the training teams are for.) Meanwhile, the poor helpdesk agents are being appraised on how quickly they can get off the call (most of them have a very strict "average talk time" metric they have to meet), and the fastest way for even the best of them to get off the call is assume the averages, and only investigate more closely when it becomes obvious that it's not a normal call.

Then they usually escalate to me. And half the time, it's still likely the user's own incompetence. What the hell does HR do to screen people's computer usage skills, anyway? Get them to identify a computer in a photograph? Scratch that, a good third of them can't even do that. (Ask them to turn off their computer, they'll turn off their monitor.)

My response when they ask why it is that I, a second level tech, cannot walk them through their complex excel spreadsheet creation:

"You are the driver. I am the mechanic. Do not ask me how fast to take the corner. I am here for when you have a mechanical failure. You need to know how to drive."

The quickest way to get through the tier one guy is simply to cooperate with them. Be patient and polite, and you'll be far more likely to get to where you need to be to get a problem resolved. If you're an *** (like 90% of the people that call) techs go into defense mode and will passive aggressively take out their frustrations on you. We talk to people all day, we know our rules, and we can get good at getting people worked up into a froth just by saying *no* and sticking to them. I've done it. Just follows the rule of "don't piss off your waiter". We're providing a service to you, and while you don't have to kiss our asses, it does behoove you to be somewhat professional and polite to us.

Then they usually escalate to me. And half the time, it's still likely the user's own incompetence. What the hell does HR do to screen people's computer usage skills, anyway? Get them to identify a computer in a photograph? Scratch that, a good third of them can't even do that. (Ask them to turn off their computer, they'll turn off their monitor.)

Get over it. You AREN'T special. You are a call you are a timer ticking. You want to blame someone - blame the idiot that thinks time metrics are all that count because it keeps cost (and quality) down.

We deal with people (even at my level) that can't tell IE from firefox from outlook - they are all part of "the internet" and hell so is MS office.

Your caller 24 in my 76 call day and you're getting treated exactly like that.

Everything that pisses you off on one call pisses them off on every call. Want better service - when they pick up say "Thank you for being there for me when I have these problems - what would you like to know?"

Can I blame you? Personally?

I don't care who's fault it is - IT generally sucks. You yourself just admitted it - "quality plummetted".



Get over it. Their incompetence and your poor working conditions is not my problem. Don't carry the baggage from your last 15 calls over into mine. Be a professional.



Which is poor service. I'm not responsible for the previous 23 calls, if you can't treat me properly and without the baggage of your previous calls, then you're in the wrong business.



I prefer to say "Thanks for being there for me - here's my problem."

Talk to me - treat me as an individual, not a checklist - that's just good service. If you want to follow checklists and watch your timer, fine. But guess what? Your service will suck.

So basically you're asking them to risk their job/wage rate in order to give you better service -- it's not exactly a fair position to put them in.

These are the cases where your ire really should be directed at the management, not the techs. And also, the fact that no one wants to pay for tech support, so you pretty much get what you pay for.

Yeah. You're 'that guy'.

Edit: Argh. Quote, not Edit! --Stathol

???

The point is: Customer service, and in particular IT, generally sucks balls. It doesn't really matter who's fault that is.