Please Don't

I work in a computer technical support call center.  We are an outsourced call center for various companies, meaning we aren't actually the manufacturers of products or services we support.  We're hired by those companies.  Anyway, I'm the one who listens to those calls who, if you're familiar with the recording, "may be recorded for quality assurance purposes."

Here are the people I couldn't cause to be fired this week:

1.  Agent who, at the end of his shift, got a call he didn't want to take.  So he decided not to greet the customer.  After about 2 minutes of silence, the customer still hadn't hung up.  So the agent transferred the customer back into the queue.  Furthermore, the agent stayed on the line and listened to the entirety of the customer's conversation with the next technical support representative.  He listened to the call until the end of his shift, at which point he disconnected and went home.

Nope.  Couldn't get him fired.

2.  Agent who was talking to a customer who knew vastly more about his problem than the agent did.  When the customer expressed doubt in the usefulness of the (bullshit) troubleshooting step the agent wanted him to take, the agent said "have a nice day" and hung up on the customer.  Oh, and did I mention that I listened to this call as part of a weekly conference call with our client, i.e., the company that pays us to do their technical support?

Couldn't get him fired either.  (But I'm still working on this one, maybe I'll get him fired next week.)

It's been almost three weeks since we moved out of the old apartment, and we still haven't cancelled the cable service.  They won't let us cancel until we pay the outstanding balance.  Because I was a naive fool, I had signed up for all the bills in my name.  It never occurred to me that my roommates, a boyfriend and a good friend, would be so willing to blithely fuck me over. 

It was a good month, a gift from the gods, if both of them managed to pay the rent on time.  I don't think there was ever a month when they both paid their share of the bills.  But my friend somehow had enough money to buy a car.  And my boyfriend had enough money to buy an XBox 360.  But they never had enough money to contribute to keeping a roof over our heads.

Several months ago, I declared the electricity and appliance rental to be my friend's responsibility, and the cable bill to be my boyfriend's responsibility.  And now I've moved out and owe the electric company more than $400, the rental company almost $200, and the cable company $200 as well.  My boyfriend said he would pay the cable bill last week.

This morning he says he can't pay it until the end of the month when he gets paid.

When rent is due.  Yeah fucking right.

I just want to die.  No, I don't.  I take it back.  I want them to die.  After taking out small life insurance policies with me as the beneficiary.  Just enough to pay what they owe me:  the bill money plus $1500+ unpaid rent.

The one who was my friend is no longer my friend.  I'm wondering if maybe the boyfriend should no longer be that, either.

I finally got the internet at my new apartment.  (How's my new apartment, you ask?  It rules.)

I decided to go with DSL because it is cheaper than Cable, albeit crappier.  At first I was real pleased with the service I got because the guy who signed me up was so nice.  But it was downhill from there.

First, the guy told me everything would be turned on Wednesday.  However, on Wednesday I came home to a note on my door from UPS saying they tried to deliver my modem but I wasn't home to sign for the package.  Wait a minute, didn't I tell the guy who signed me up that it was OK for UPS to leave the modem at the door?  Didn't he specifically ask me that?  UGH.  So I signed the slip that UPS left and Thursday I came home to a nice new modem.

I plugged it in, and having worked in tech support for a DSL provider before, I knew the DSL light had to be solid for me to be connected to the internet.  Nope.  No joy.  So, having worked in tech support for a DSL provider before, I knew the first step would be to make sure I even had a dial tone on the line.  Plugged in my phone.  Nope, no dial tone.

Call tech support.  They ran a test and said, "Yep, your line is messed up.  We'll send out a tech, and the problem should be fixed by Friday evening."

"Sweet!" say I, and Friday I go to work and come back to a note on the door from the tech they sent.

The tech apparently needed access to my apartment.  Hey, tech support.  THANKS for telling me.  So I call the technician and he's off work, he can come back the next day (today).  But he works 8-4 and I work 9-5.  So bright and fucking early in the morning (7:45, he was early but I was ready) he shows up and it turns out that the previous resident had cable phone and thus the line was disconnected.  So he plugged it up and I have dial tone and my modem syncs with the DSL service.  SWEET.

So I ran the installation disc for DSL, and of course, it didn't work.  What a surprise.  I am so shocked.  Called tech support.

The nice girl, Mia, walked me through setting up the modem/router and signing up for a username, and it turns out that because I don't have Internet Explorer, I can't activate an email account.

Um, what?  Are you kidding me?  HELLO, AT&T-SBC-Yahoo-Time-Warner-Disney-Exxon-Mobil-MegaCorp-of-Doom, Internet Explorer hasn't been updated for the Mac in like 5 YEARS.  The newest Macs are pretty much incapable of running IE.  IE is teh shitty.  Why the fuck should a standard service like email be dependent on a stupid browser?  I'd understand it a little more if it was webmail but it's not!  It's just a regular old POP account!  I signed up for a fucking PPPoE username, which happens to be mysecretusername@sbcglobalmegaconglomeratecorp.net so why can't that just be my email address?

Why are you a STUPID COMPANY?

But hey, my internet works.  And since staying on the line with tech support would have made me late for work anyway, I stayed home an extra hour and played some World of Warcraft.

Now when I get home, I'm going to try to connect my modem to my wireless router.  Hopefully it's as straightforward as bridging the modem/router they sent me, but somehow, I'm doubting it isn't.

My job makes me want to fly into an apoplectic rage.

And then cry.  And then quit.  Or any combination of the three.

I wish I wasn't worried that I could get fired for talking shit about my  job.  So I'll just be vague and give you a couple little snapshots of what life is like listening to mental midgets pretend to be highly trained technical support personnel.

The other day I listened to a woman who has been working for my company for more than a year tell her customer the most ridiculous thing.  My company has a product that is very popular worldwide.  The "technical support" agent, who I happen to know is a fairly smart individual in normal circumstances, agreed to arrange repair for her customer's product, when the customer revealed that she was living abroad, in Germany.  At which point the agent told the customer that service could only be arranged in the US and the customer would have to ship her product at her own expense to a friend in the US who could then ship the product to our company at which point we would repair it and send it back to the US address, who could then send it on to Germany at her own expense.  Despite the fact that we sell our product in Germany.  We sell it everywhere.  And it totally makes sense for a worldwide company with a popular product sold world-wide to only provide warranty repairs in the US, right?

But this agent, like most of them, can't conceive of the idea of something being possible if they don't handle that situation at least than once a week.  I imagine the thought process went something like this:  "Hm, I never talk to customers in Germany.  I've never set up a repair for a customer in Germany.  Ergo, we do not repair products in Germany despite our products being popular worldwide."  That is, if there was a thought process at all. 

We don't have scripted technical support, but we may as well have for all the thinking our agents engage in.

Another painful call was the one I just listened to, where the customer's product was making weird noises when he turns it on, and this happens intermittently.  The agent had the customer turn his product off and on and there were no noises.  So the agent gave some preventative troubleshooting steps, advised to call back if it happens again, and got off the line with the customer.  And then in his notes on the call he wrote nothing more than "general question about how to turn on device".

I love it. 

My job has made me hate the word "general".  As in, non-specific, not military.  Everyone here loves the word "general" because it lets them get away with anything.  In some circumstances, our technical support is fee-based.  But agents always ask their customers if they have "general" questions.  So if you can phrase your request using the word "general", you get technical support for free.  "I have a general question about what troubleshooting steps I should take to fix your product when it is not turning on."  And then they answer it, for free!  And their case notes say, "general question".

Someone, please tell me, what is a general question?  I have no idea.  The phrase has no meaning to me.  Maybe an example of a general question would be:  "What?"  or "Huh?"  Those are pretty non-specific questions.  However, I certainly wouldn't call tech support in order to as, "Huh?".  Other than those, I don't believe a general question exists.  There are specific questions about specific topics.  That's it. 

Or "general info"!  What is that??? What is General Info???  Please, someone, tell me!  ARGH!!  See??? The RAGE is coming through!!  I'm using multiple punctuation!  Sentence fragments!!  AAAAUUUUUGGGHHH. 

I WANT TO THROTTLE ALL TECHNICAL SUPPORT AGENTS WHO ARE IDIOTS WHICH MEANS LIKE ALL OF THEM PERIOD.

For the first time since my age was in single digits, I now have short hair.  Observe:

Haircut

Holy shit.

An video-game hating, hyperbole-spouting acquaintance at work has issued me an ominous warning that people have literally died from playing World of Warcraft.

No, friends, I have not died from World of Warcraft.  But I have disappeared off the face of the internet.  I promise I'll remember to eat, drink, and relieve myself occasionally.  And study Calculus.  I only got a B+ on my most recent exam.  That's almost like dying, right?

Weather.com says it is 93 degrees in Columbus today.

Clearly, it is a perfect day for the A/C to break down in the office.

Sad, but True:  90% of technical support phone representatives are deeply, deeply stupid.

Ways to tell you are speaking to a deeply stupid tech support rep:

1. He or she uses big, technical words without explaining what they mean.  This is a sure sign that they are trying to intimidate you into not noticing that they are deeply stupid.
2. He or she childishly anthropomorphizes your technical devices or the troubleshooting steps he or she is about to perform.  For instance, he or she asks you to shut down your computer and explains that they are giving your computer a rest because it is tired.  This is a sure sign that the representative has no clue how your devices work or what the function of their troubleshooting is.
3. He or she immediately starts making you do seemingly random tasks on your computer without asking you any clarifying questions about your issue.  Unless you are extremely technical and knowledgable yourself (or your issue is really really really straight-forward), chances are your description of your issue has at least some level of ambiguity and it is the tech's job to figure out what's going on.  If your tech doesn't ask clarifying questions, chances are he hasn't listened to you at all and is about to troubleshoot the issue he wishes you had, rather than the one you actually have.
4. He or she is at all condescending or in any way makes you feel bad or stupid.  It is not your job to be smart about computers, that's your tech's job.  If they treat you this way, it is because they suspect that you are meek, mild-mannered, and submissive, and they can intimidate you into not noticing that they are  deeply stupid.

Basically, most tech support reps are poorly trained, deeply stupid, and know how to deal with, at maximum, 3 or 4 straightforward problems.  If you happen to have a problem or question that isn't one of those, the best you can hope for is a well-meaning stupid person who will spend 2 hours flailing around on the phone with you but will eventually fix your problem out of sheer determination rahter than skill.  Or, you might be really lucky and get someone clever who thinks on their feet and knows their stuff.  But mostly, you'll get some idiot blowhard who thinks two weeks of training makes them a genius, evidence be damned.

Why, how did you guess?  Yes, I do, in fact, work in Quality Control at a tech support call center?  How did you know???

:-)

Last night, after my Calculus class, I turned in the extra credit problem I wrote about earlier.  I had actually done it wrong in that entry and had to do somewhat more complex Calculus to really vigorously support my conclusion.  But I got it right this time.  And then my teacher took me aside to talk to me.

At first I was kind of confused as to what he was talking about, because he started explaining to me that there are interesting questions about the issues we're covering in class right now that are way beyond the scope of our class.  For instance, you probably have learned that A+B=B+A.  But we are working on infinite series (∑) -- which are essentially adding up infinitely many numbers -- and there is the question of whether ∑f(x)+∑g(x)=∑g(x)+∑f(x). Stuff like that.

And I was thinking, "OK, fine, but what is he getting at?" And then he told me that he'd like to lend me an advanced Calculus text so I can read about this sort of thing and see if it interests me, because that is the sort of thing I would be studying if I continue with a Mathematics degree.

That's the closest thing to encouragement that I've ever received in a Math course.

Math seems to occupy a strange place in education these days.  You go through school and you have to take certain subjects, including English, Math, Science, Government/Civics, etc.  And it is my experience that you are expected to do well in every single one of those subjects except for Math.  Of course, you must pass them in order to graduate from your grade, but your teachers don't expect you to be good at Math.  The message is constantly, "it's OK that you're bad at Math because it is so very hard."  But you don't hear, "it's OK that you're bad at writing because it is so very hard" even though the rules of grammar they expect you to know are at least as difficult to learn as Algebra and quite a bit more complex, if only because they're so contradictory. 

The quintessential image of "student fighting back against the Man" is the bold young rebel standing up in Algebra and asking when they're ever going to use this in Real Life.  But you probably use Algebra more than you use your knowledge of the parts of a plant cell, but we never see or applaud young rebels questioning the validity of their Biology courses.

So you hardly ever seem to come across a teacher who really encourages their students to be good at math.  Instead, they try to make it as easy as possible for students to pass rather than trying to help them understand and really learn things.  They try to endear themselves to their students by saying that they know math is horribly boring and hard but it'll all be over soon. 

To me, this all adds up to discouraging students from being interested in math.  So it is a rare and, frankly, quite cool experience to have a teacher who expects his class to learn and understand, and is willing to actually encourage their students to continue.

One of the spiders in my garden molted last night. 

Spider and skin. Click for a larger version

This is the same spider I've showed you pictures of before.  You can see above her is a mere shadow of her former exoskeleton.  She will probably eat it and use it to make more silk. 

You might also have noticed that her stabilimentum has morphed from a nice, clean zig-zag to a tangled mess.  You can't see it very well in this picture, but her web is also really messy.  My uneducated theory is that it is because she was so cramped in her old exoskeleton that she just didn't have the agility to make a really nice, clean web. 

The other spider in my garden molted the other day, and since then her web has become much nicer than it was.

Spider Close Up. Click for a larger version

Speaking of the other spider, to your left is a picture of her!  In addition to cleaning up her web, she has repositionited it a bit so that I can get better pictures of her.  How thoughtful!

Here you can see she is eating some sort of bug.  It is too digested for me to identify her prey.  You can see that the stabilimentum in her web is much nicer than her sister's.  If you click on the picture it's got some good detail of the markings on her back and the little hairs on her legs.