[geeks] Re: (geeks) funny way to start the day

[John]

    I have done support at several places and several levels. It never
fails. There is always a screamer. At a trading floor that I supported, it
was a guy I will call Bob. He called me at 6:00am one morning screaming
obscenities. He said in colorful language I will not share that I was to
come fix his machine as soon as possible. I managed to extract from his
tirade that his sound was not working. When I arrived, I calmly looked at
his system as he was yelling at three other people about a trade with
Frankfurt. I then called him over to his machine and told him "Bob, see this
light on the speaker that is dark? If you press this button labeled 'Power',
the light will light up and the sound will work." At that point, he
confessed to being stupid and from then on, I was the only support person he
never yelled at. I call this my "Kindergarten Teacher" aproach. It works on
almost all but the worst of the cranial-anal impacted. All you have to do is
remain calm, smile, speak in a soft, friendly voice, and demonstrate to them
that they are stupid without insulting them. Many will then insult
themselves for your entertainment or elevate you to godhood. Some will do
both. For some who don't respond to this tactic, simple information overload
will sufice. You start slowly telling them more than they ask when they ask
questions untill they start that knowing nod that really means they are
hoplessly lost in technobabble. You then can tell them anything that you
want them to remember and it will be treated as god's own truth. If you
increase the information enough, the eyes will glaze over and they will just
stay placidly in place untill you finish whatever upsetting process you
desire to inflict on their machine. I like to call this "Verbal Anesthetic".
It is not a universal cure, but it can help one keep the remainder of one's
sanity...

John at tequies.com

>From: "Bill Bradford" <mrbill at mrbill.net>
>> etc.  I spent way too much time in tech support.  One of the
>> best times I ever had, was when I actually got to say:
>
>> "Yes, sir, you  may be a {doctor|lawyer|etc}, but right now,
>>  you have a computer problem, and I'm the person who is trying
>>  to help you fix it despite your attitude.  You wouldn't try
>>  to tell your mechanic how to fix your car, or wouldnt like it
>>  if someone told you how to {perform surgery|do a court case},
>>  would you?  Thank you.  Now, follow my instructions.."

>Hehe, BTDT. I used to actually quite enjoy the aggro customers but
sometimes
>they get so out of hand it's just not funny anymore.

>We had one bloke who would just consistently phone us to complain about
>services (or the proceedures for dealing with problems with the services)
>without even giving us a chance to help, *really* obnoxious. Eventually we
>were told not to deal with him at all, just hang-up. When *his* management
>found out he'd been doing this I think they fired him in the end.

>I actually heard one of the non-techie helpdesk people the other day tell a
>guy to "calm down before you give yourself a heart attack." Which brought a
>smile to my face. :)

>> Someone told me once that I got this "tech support voice" when
>> doing phones that had this "dont fuck with me, I know what I'm
>> talking about" tone to it.

>I think this is something you need to develop if you're going to survive
>doing support.



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