The last week, and the upcoming week, have been really rough.
Work, some partying, some socializing, and some insomnia have combined make
this a horrid one.
If I’m grouchy when I see you, this is why.
Tuesday
Paranoia.
Bad in and of itself.
Insomnia ’til 05:00.
Also bad.
Wednesday
So-so C1 class.
The torpid pace makes me lazy and I stop being an asset to my square.
Then hanging out with a friend, having late-night discussions.
That in and of itself was wonderful.
The fact that we finished them at 06:00, not so much.
Thursday
Electronics problems were stressful.
Visit from a good friend, and the Patriots won.
But that meant that I didn’t get to bed ’til 00:30.
Didn’t fall asleep for another ½ hour since the end of the game had me pumped up / biting my nails.
Friday
The start of absolute hell at work.
First, my current boss quits.
A huge loss in terms of domain knowledge about the system I’m working on.
Next, we get to one of the joys of offshoring.
Our Customer Care Center’s primary location is in Jamaica.
Hurricane Ivan was getting ready to trash the poor island 5 ways to everywhere on Friday, so
we rallied the troops here in the local office and everyone who
can be spared did customer support. From the CEO, CIO, Head of Development, developers, to
marketeers, if our projects weren’t mission critical, we were manning the phones.
Dina was giggling every time she though of me doing customer care.
Anyway, I started on the phone at 12:00 and ended at 17:00.
More on details on call-center stuff later.
I have medical insurance / referral issues with my allergist.
<sigh />
Then we drive to NYC for a Dina’s brother Mario’s housewarming party.
I tend not to like parties where I don’t know many people, since, well, I don’t do well talking to new people.
I was planning on bailing quickly and finding some café or park to read in.
Didn’t happen.
Instead, got drunk, made out with Dina in every room of the house (the eVite suggested it),
danced, danced with cute girls (that was weird), and had a decent time.
I think that Dina was nice to me and got the hosts to prep some guests for me.
I had three conversations that went like:
Nick: Hi, I’m Nick.
Chick: Hi, I’m Name. I love your hair.
Nick:
… stammer …
Thank you.
… run and hide …
One guy stopped me on the street and complimented me on my curls… that was weird…
Saturday
Delayed payback.
Drunk enjoying party on Friday = hungover hating the sounds of NYC on Saturday.
Once the hangover subsided though, things were nice.
We touristed a bit, made Mario a cake for his birthday.
Dina had found a Super Mario cake mould, and spent the day with coloured icing.
Sunday
Up early to get back to see friends for lunch.
With good reason, since they told us they’re now engaged.
Woohoo!
Sunday afternoon was spent looking at houses.
Not much luck there.
Sunday evening, vegging doing stuff around the house, and watching
football. Still not enough to unwind from the previous few days
of lack of sleep and over-socialization.
Monday
Another member of my current project team quits.
Again, a huge loss in terms of domain knowledge and get-things-done ability.
I’m not sure how the project is going to cope with the double-whammy.
8.5 hours of doing customer care. Ick.
Learned that I have to do it through at least Thursday for 9 hours a day.
Ick.
I’m wondering if I like my company enough not to quit.
Customer Care Fun
-
My hearing sucks.
I have problems with accents.
Notable mis-hearings so far.
| Heard |
Actual |
| @emerson.com |
@msn.com |
| @willow.com |
@aol.com |
-
Nick: May I have your email address please?
Customer: edgmtc@domain.com
Nick: I’m sorry sir, I can’t find that in our database.
Customer: echo delta golf montreal tango charlie@domain.com
Nick: I’m sorry sir, I still can’t find that in our database.
Customer: You are using only the first letter of each of those words, right?
-
Customer: I need help with my order.
Nick: May I have your email address please?
Customer: I didn’t give you an email address.
All customers need to give an email address when ordering.
Nick: Do you have an order confirmation number?
Customer: No. I deleted the email you sent me that had that number.
-
You can only pay by cheque for orders of $10 or more.
I successfully suggested to some customers that they buy more of our products so as to be able to pay by cheque.
-
Why do customers feel like telling me their life story?
-
Some calls would go faster if I could interrupt the people talking as soon as I knew how to
fix their problem. Instead I have to listen to them babble.
-
WinXP SP2′s popup-blocker for IE is great for end users.
It sucks when it breaks your site.
-
Having to talk people through using Windows Update, or doing any technical support sucks.
-
It’s amazing how it takes me 3 minutes to get a user to do
Help | About Internet Explorer in Internet Explorer in order
to find the version number.
-
Nick: Ma’am, what version of Windows are you running?
Customer: I think Windows 98. My husband did it.
Nick:
Explains how to get browser version.
Customer: It says “Version: 6″ and then some numbers.
Nick: Can you read off the numbers please?
Customer: 6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158
That’s WinXP SP2′s popup-blocker screwing us again.
- Dialup is darn painful.
- Gift certificates are the butt of many jokes at our company since they impose
a huge complexity penalty on our system, and we’ve sold something like 11 since
they went live a few months ago.
I think I managed to upsell a customer on one today though
<shit-eating-grin />.
-
I just really don’t like dealing with people.
I either want to give them back their money, or tell them to screw off.
A few final notes from doing customer care some weeks ago.
First, when I got into work this morning (grumpy, after changing a flat tire in the rain),
I found a gift certificate for a night on the town for a decent sum from the company.
That, plus 2 weeks perspective, make me feel much better about things.
So… in the three stories that follow, I was able to resist doing the first two things, but not the last one.
