So my favorite little idiot is at it again. See this girl likes to tell everyone how to do their jobs. She thinks she can do everyone's jobs better. Yet, when SHE fucks up, and we call her on it, she acts like we're attacking her.
So she hands me this postit with a phone number on it... telling me that a customer wants me to call them back at said number... except that she forgot to write down his information and didn't log the call.
So how am I supposed to call this mythical person back without ANY information to go on?
Her solution is to suggest calling him back and asking for his account information before I can tell him what I need to tell him. Now what I have to tell him I don't really need his account information for, but this is stuff that I'd prefer to have ahead of time. I like to know what I'm getting into BEFOREHAND...
So I call the customer back and I get his answering machine, which this long and boring political message on it. Rather than listening to the whole message, I hang up.
When she asks me if I called the person back, I tell her I did, but I got a machine. She asks if I left a message. I tell her no I didn't because I don't have the specifics of his account. She proceeds to ask me why I can't just leave a message telling that what he's asking for isn't possible, without his account information? Because that's not the way I work, okay? What does she want me to do? Leave a message explaining that the she screwed up and didn't give me what I needed to provide the customer with an INFORMED answer, instead of sounding COMPLETELY lame?
::sigh::
No... I haven't had a lot of good tidbits to post in here lately... But this convo between Esowolf and myself... about one of my problem co-workers... deserves to be here...
EsoWolf: How long does it take him to test an account?
Me: You're asking ME about a guy who was about to submit a trouble ticket using the wrong form until I stopped him?
EsoWolf: Oh dear lord. Tell me you're joking...
Me: I only wish I was...
EsoWolf: ::hyperventilates::
Me: Welcome to my world...
EsoWolf: Your world frightens me.
Me: Normally I'd take that as a compliment... except my world is currently frightening and pissing me off...
EsoWolf: LOL
::sigh::
So, I send my "favorite" airhead a link for a customer. The information I send her includes a username and password.
Airhead: So can I just send him the link, without the username and password?
Me: No... you need to send him the login information.
Now... why would I give out information like that if it wasn't intended to be used?
From the mouth and tiny brain of the same co-worker who doesn't know her geography...
Airhead: This customer backed up his files but they're not on the disk
Me: Have him send us the disk.
Airhead: How's he going to do that?
Me: US Postal Service.
Why me?
My co-worker: Hey! District of Columbia is Washington state, up north, right?
Me: No, it's Washington D.C.
Doesn't ANYBODY learn geography anymore?
NOTE TO COMPANIES: When hiring people to support a product for business done primarily in English, make sure they have a grasp of the language.
Sometimes the lack of basic grammar skills practiced by those who are responsible for representing the company through email correspondence simply astounds me. for example, here's an exact quote from an email that was escalated to second level support this morning.
Customer Email: I'm sorry I cannot attach the file you requested.
Note from First Level support providing reason for escalating to Second Level: customer has attached requested file.
I'm sorry. did we not learn the difference between positive and negative when we were taught English?
More on the sales debacle front. Not only is the sales department setting up accounts without credit cards, they are setting up accounts where people actually do send us a check. BUT because the sales department activated the account without posting a charge, the check payment sits on the account as a credit towards NEXT YEAR'S annual payment.
To make things even more fun, the customer I ran across today has 5 accounts that were pre-paid annually... and they were never told that they had to send us extra money for usage fees, which has now eaten up a size of their annual payment... which hasn't actually paid for anything else yet...
Sales people, being what they are, will do just about anything to cut a deal, get a commision and generally go about screwing the customer.
But this is a first:
It seems our sales department has taken to intentionally setting up accounts without credit card information. The idea is that if there's no credit card, then the customer will be able to try our service for a month without having to worry about getting hit for money later, essentially making it the customer's responsibility to be honest and start paying for service in a month.
Now first of all, ANY time you sign up for a trial service, you're required to give someone a credit card.
And secondly, how many people do you know who are going to NOT try and milk this kinda deal for all it's worth?
Finally, think of all the backlash CS is going to get when we start trying to backcharge all these people.... Nevermind... let's not...
Out of the mouth of someone in this department: "I'm a senior citizen, what i say, I do." - Um... Not encouraging, considered that this country is mostly run by senior citizens...
More fun at the expense of that exec... (to alleviate confusion, we'll call him The Dictator - inside joke)... He forwards us a customer's request for account information. And then he proceeds to email us suggesting that we have a way for customers to enter their email address in order to receive their account info... Like we haven't had this available to our customers since... the very beginning... And this is a man who is in charge of our company...
Yesterday, the supervisors are forwarded this email one of our execs received. Said exec was bitching about why he was getting said emails. Said exec should know better than to add himself to the distribution list of a public email address if he doesn't want to receive email from customers...