to show your SysAdmin some love.
For is it the 9th Annual System Administrator Appreciation Day. Sys Admin’s are people too, show them some love. Send them a bar of chocolate, or a camomile tea to help ease their furrowed brow. They have a lot to contend with.
In what seems like a lifetime ago, I spent about 9 months on the telephones of a large computer company. It wasn’t sys admin, but it was a flavour of it. It’s a stressful occupation as people only ever ring with problems. Their problem is the most important thing in their lives at that time and “goddamit, don’t you know how much money I spent with your company…” – lah dee dah dee dah. I lasted about 9 months until I got promoted/taken off the phones as I was obviously showing signs of mental breakdown.
My personal coping strategy was to “think happy thoughts” and read inspirational quotes and books between calls. Everyone had their own special way of keeping sane. One guy used to occasionally answer calls with “f*ck you for calling XYZ company.” – but he said it quickly so it sounded like “thank you for calling…”. Another guy simply turned down the volume when a customer started ranting and played solitaire. People wanting to speak with a manager would often be transferred to another member of the team. Ah the fun and games.
More tech support funnies at Techtales. If you have one of your one – feel free to leave a comment….
No “Friday eyedrops” this week, just didn’t get round to doing last night.
- Excited
- Fascinated
- Amused
- Bored
- Sad
- Angry
Poor poor AJ, I pity you for your experience in a call centre. I have done many a temporary crap job in my life to keep the wolf from the door, allowing me to do what I like doing best, but thus far I have managed not to go down the route of customer adviser.
Spare a thought for the poor sod (the princely customer) at the other end. Only last weekend I had the most surreal experience with Virgin Media; my nerves already slightly erroded by being given various options to press 1,2,3,4 or just hold, again and again and again (oh, yes they keep you on hold for so long you are given five options as to what type of music you’d like to listen to whilst dying waiting); then each advisor gave me a different story and offered different solutions to the same problem; none of which worked. My good nature, charm and patience lasted about 62 hours after which time temper (mine) was beginning to get lost. However, considerate that I am, I kept saying to the operators: “I am not shouting at YOU, I am just shouting at the sheer incompetence of the company”. Admittedly, it was possibly underneath the belt when I told one of the advisors that I pitied her having to make a living working for such a shite company. There was a muffled sound which I took as agreement. Oh, AJ, I have nerves like steel but four and a half days and at least 15 calls later, many hours wasted, no result, I was ready for the white van; then I threw £150 at the problem and for the moment I am back in business.
Not to forget that some accents across call centres around the world are just unrecognizable; on the upside I got an update as to the weather in India last Saturday. Oddly, it’s only when you go for the jugular and ask to speak to the “Manager”, a “decision maker”, that you suddenly are connected to someone in the Midlands. Oh, bliss.
And yes, of course, you are right – it must be soul destroying to having to deal with other people’s problems – no wonder so many doctors are on the bottle and so many vets commit suicide.
Anyway, as weeks go – not too good, and now there isn’t even your usual Friday’s shot of eyedrops.
U
I’ve been at both sides of the phone so I can understand your frustration!
Friday eye drops take me about 2 to 3 hours to put together and I don’t know if I can really take so much time any more to do them.