#call center

[probablyasocialecologist]

[rhetthammersmithhorror]

Invasion: UFO | 1974

[opendirectories]

[uuuhshiny]

Vladimir Yaglych in Call-center

Put it on. Now, lets try it, shall we?

[mattsmemes]

[lowkeloki]

"Ma'am I am going to need you to stop barking at me."

[jenthebug]

Interview update:

I think it went well! I liked them, they seemed to like me, and I answered the questions well! I should hear back by next week.

I got some good information, too. They randomly drug test. So if I work there, I stop using weed. 😭 It’ll be worth it, but fucking barely. I really like weed. I’ll hit my therapist up about that. “Hi, can you make me stop craving weed? It’s been 3 months, haven’t touched the stuff, but DAMN I WANNA BE STONED ALWAYS”

Also found out that I should hear back from the Big City by tomorrow. Possibly this afternoon. w00t! This is great news, because…

I got a conditional offer from the call center that I don’t wanna take! I’ll be talking with a recruiter about that at 1430, and let them know I’ll have an answer by next Friday.

Anyway if anyone needs me I’ll be obsessively refreshing my email.

[schibborasso]

Joana Vasconcelos: Call Center, 2014 Analogue telephones, metallized and thermo-lacquered mild steel, sound system, oscillators driven by microcontrollers.

[banafanax]

Just got put on hold to "In the Hall of the Mountain King." Between fits of incredulous laughter I wondered what message the company was trying to send. My guess is they thought "A rotating playlist of recognizable classical music sends a classy and professional tone," but all I heard was "You're about to be sent on a wild phone call goose chase you stupid asshat, so you better buckle up your five-point harness and brace for the most frustration you've ever felt in your life."

[rhetthammersmithhorror]

The Capture of Bigfoot | 1979

[thewitchoftherock]

Before I worked in retail at a lovely beauty shop, I worked at a call center.

Tech Support. For Comcast. It’s as bad as you think it was. Lemmie tell ya a story.

The year was 2011. I’m at the call centre, working away, doing my best and getting chewed out because I often helped people beyond what was required (driver issues and shit, instead of just following our LOQ. If you have someone who refuses to leave their script, they probably got written up for doing so just FYI. )

Anyway,

Buddy calls in, and right off the bat he comes in swinging. Rawr rawr rawr, my internet isn’t working, fix this now, you guys suck. like, dude, I don’t disagree with you, but I have literally no control over the company I’m a fuckin’ cog. Whatever. I go into his account to check his system/devices/account, and I see the modem is fully offline. That’s actually good, because it means it’ll be super easy to fix: either the damn thing is busted (needs a tech) or it’s out of power. So, I ask buddy to unplug the device from the outlet, wait a second, and plug it back in again. I didn’t ask this because I thought resetting it would fix it, I asked him to do this because peeps get pissy if you ask them if their stuff is plugged in.

Foreshadowing.

Anyway, he grumbles and complains, and does the thing. Nothing. OK. There’s one more thing I can check. I ask him if the modem is plugged into the wall, or a power bar.

“It’s plugged into a power bar.”

“Ah.” I say, “Ok. Can I get you to plug it directly into the wall?”

“Why the Fuck do I have to do that?”

Now, the answer we give is “well, that’s because sometimes the modem and the power bar don’t work well together, and it’s just easier to check it if it’s plugged into the wall.”

This is bullshit. The truth is that we don’t know where you got this power bar. We don’t know how old it is. We don’t know if you got this shit rigged up like the dad in “A Christmas Story” with three dozen things plugged into a set power bars all plugged in and twisted like some chthonic electro beast. I mean, sure, that SOUNDS hot, but it’s not useful when trying to do troubleshooting and figure out if your power bar sucks and is broken.

This guy *loses his shit* at me. Rawr rawr rawr, every time I call you got me running around doing all this shit, blah blah blah, No, I can’t unplug it, there’s no other outlets in the room.

Now I pause, the gears in my brain quickly clicking together. “There’s… no outlets in that room?”

“No, there’s not! Not any!”

Ok, well, ASIDE from that being absolutely not to electrical codes for modern houses, it also raises a new question.

“Sir… what’s your powerbar plugged into?”

“It’s plugged into a powerbar!”

“…. The same powerbar?”

There’s a moment of stunned silence, followed by a *Click*. I pause my line for a minute so I don’t get any more incoming calls while I take my notes, but really I’m watching this account. I refresh a few times, and after a minute or so, the modem is MAGICALLY ONLINE

This dude. This chaotic dumbass had his modem plugged into a powerbar, which was plugged into ITSELF. Like, I know there’s that meme flying around that shows that, and it’s supposed to be a joke on how stupid people can be, an exaggeration of sorts… But I swear, this is NOT an exaggeration. This shit actually happened.

So, the moral of the story: If you’re on the line with Tech Support, and they ask you to just “Check the wires” or “Make sure the device is plugged in firmly.” Just do the thing. We’ve dealt with a lot of dumbasses in our time.

Before it’s asked: No, this was not an elder gentleman. It was a Prime-Of-His-Life dude.

[uuuhshiny]

Vladimir Yaglych in Call-center

Open up

[biodegradablebisexual]

Translating what your coworker in the customer service department said to you:

They said: (Customer) is dedicated to making sure this is resolved quickly.

They meant: (Customer) will not allow me to disconnect this call until we have an answer for them, so I need you to figure this out.

They said: (Customer) advised they are expecting a call back from you.

They meant: This person let you a voicemail a week ago, why the fuck haven’t you called them back?

They said: I advised the customer that you will have to assist them with this issue moving forward.

They meant: This is so far above my pay grade and I have neither the time nor the will to cover the fact that you messed up.

They said: (Customer) asked me to pass along the following suggestion about (thing we do here).

They meant: Here’s some utterly unfeasible and high-key insane “suggestions” from someone who does not understand the logistics of what we do here. I hope you laugh as hard as I wanted to.

They said: I do think it’s important that we bear in mind the timeline we’re working on.

They meant: You’re delusional if you think I’m going to have time to get that done before the deadline that you gave me.

They said: Just a heads up, you’re probably going to get a really weird email from (Customer) pretty soon.

They meant: I was unable to give this person everything they have ever wanted, plus my first born, and $7 billion, so they’re about to send you an email letting you know how Incompetent and Disrespectful I am 🙃

[the-warlock-syndicate]

As a reminder, you should use the NATO phonetic alphabet whenever you are on the phone, and quietly dying inside as you try to spell your name while hoping to God the person on the other end got it right. Rest assured, they are dying on the inside too, and are thinking about how many time they can ask you to repeat your long-ass name which defies most spelling conventions, through your mumbling over the dodgy call center connection.

I hate the military too, but just grit your teeth and get over it, this shit is genuinely useful. Each word is common enough that most English speakers will be passing familiar with the words, they are audibly distinct enough that you don't get G as in Grand versus B as in Brand scenarios, they are short, fairly easy to memorize, yet not so common that the person on the call will mistake them for regular conversation.

Let me tell you, I work in IT, and this is one of my little mantras that I chant to myself during rush hour. Just run through the set, make a note of any that I am slightly hazy on (Uniform is a large offender here), and check the alphabet when I have the moment. I also count up places in binary, but that isn't nearly as useful.

I am begging people, just learn it so we can all standardize. I don't want to hear S as in Stan ever again. Use Sierra like a reasonable human being, and when both parties are familiar, they can just rattle off the letter rapid fire and be intelligible. Ignore this post if your name is something so basic that no one can fuck it up over the phone, or you are so famous everyone knows your name anyway. This is directed to John Smith, Jane Doe, and Joseph Biden.

[everydayecclecticwitch]

So apparently, Milton is dangerous enough to close down the main call center I work for, but it's OK to keep my ass on the phone because I am work from home. I live in the same city as the main call center. What the actual fuck.

[heidiamalia]

SO.

Asked last Friday night after the horrors to discuss OT compensation with the HR rep last week. I was brave about it - I am on salary and according to the handbook I'm exempt.

But I'm still logged in until my last rep signs off at the end of the night, and I was asked to sign in first thing on Saturdays to verify phone lines are working and all the morning shift is logged on. This takes time. I tell her this. I tell her my schedule.

She agrees. She files to meet on Monday.

I tell her sorry, don't work Mondays. I remind her of my schedule.

She apologizes. Books for Wednesday at 3. Perfect. I agree. Wow, that was easy.

She returns an email Monday for which I don't see until Tuesday. Sorry, 4pm is better.

No, sorry, 4pm is my lunch hour and I work the night shift and will not be willing to move that due to coverage purposes in the evening.

She is out sick on Tuesday.

Okay, she says on Wednesday. Thursday at 10am.

I say no. I remind her of my schedule again, due in fact that I don't come in to work until 11. Because of the night shift.

She says on Wednesday, oh, sorry, please submit a time that will work for the both of us.

I say sure. It takes three seconds. I used the scheduling assistant in Outlook. I see she's pretty tightly booked on Thursday. Let's not jam another thing in there. Let's make it easy again and decompress for Friday.

She agrees. We have finally confirmed a short meeting for Friday at 230. Praise. Took all week. Things are looking up.

Friday is here. I sign in.

She sends me a declined invite and an explanation that she's following up with compensation about my question. Once she gets some clarity she'll send me an invite.