After going to university, and then deciding that i didn't actually want to do law, i eventualy through a round about way, became a tree surgeon, which i love.... except for dealing with the public.
The following is a conversation i had with a customer today, after I had already done the main job (felling damn conifers, blast B&Q)
The women client had another small conifer in her front garden, growing up close to her house, and asked if i could do anything with it, and after a discussion, she pointed to near the base of the tree, and said, can you cut it here.
Not a problem, said I, and indicated to the exact height i would leave the finished cut, just above ground level, to ask if that was sutible. She replied yes, that would be perfect.
She then asked me, 'What will the rest of the tree look like up here?' pointing at the top of the tree.
'errr, what?'
'Yes what sort of shape will be left'
'are you sure you want me to cut it at the bottom?'
Yes yes, but what will the rest of it look like?'
'there won't be any rest of the tree'
'what do you mean....ahhhhh'
Reality finally caught up, and that really is a short version of events
fruitbat
Tell me about it, every damn day I get some ******* that thinks he knows more than me and refuses to listen to the sense I'm talking. I wish they allowed us to say "if you know so dam much why the F are you calling me...?".Originally posted by roybaty:
Sounds like a Monty Python sketch LOL, "He's restin'"
You should be in tech support LOL. People INSIST what you are telling them is wrong sometimes no matter what.
I'm glad I got out of 1st/2nd line tech support.
Don't quite remember where I found this but it's a hoot:
Hi! I'm your Technical Support Rep. I have a considerable amount of control over one or more important aspects of your daily life: television, telephone, and internet. Sometimes one, sometimes all three. Before we interact, I'd like to share some thoughts with you:
* I am here, simply put, to fix your s**t. My job is not complete until said s**t is fixed. Please just help me fix this s**t.
* With that out of the way, know that I hate you exactly as much as you hate me. No more, no less. If you are at least relatively pleasant, I'm happy to help you- even to make small talk as I attend to the issue at hand. Conversely, if you are a total and complete *******, I will make this the worst 10 minutes of your week.
* Neither I, nor any of my coworkers, are out to f@@@ you. We are not idiots. We are college graduates in technical disciplines, the vast majority of whom are here to work their way up the IT ladder to more fulfilling positions. Sometimes we have off days, sure, but we know EXACTLY what we are doing. Note that this does not apply to anyone outside of our department. They are, in all reality, idiots who are out to f@@@ you.
* So you've already unplugged the "internet box" and plugged it back in? Brace yourself, you're going to do it again. Most of the time I do this for a reason...unless you're a ****. Then I do it to see how mad it makes you.
* Don't lie to me- I can tell you have a router. It isn't illegal.
* To those who think they are "computer illiterate": The vast majority of the time, you are lovely customers: Patient, willing to learn, and most importantly, willing to listen. Thank you!
* To those who think they are CompSci PHD's: The vast majority of the time, you are ******ed: If you already cycled your equipment and it didn't work, why did it work when I made you do it again? If you are so well educated, stay the hell out of the queue so that people who need help can get it.
* Supervisors don't have a magic wand that they can wave to make everything better. They are governed by the same protocol and use the same utilities as I do. In fact, supervisors are more likely to tell you to f@@@ off- believe it or not, they have other pressing issues to attend to. If a node goes down, they WILL put those 200 subscribers before you in Priorityland.
* Threatening to cancel does not intimidate us. We have an entire department that is paid to care about that, which means that I don't have to. Harsh? Sure, but I have more than enough work to do fixing s**t, yelling at field techs, following up on cases, and explaining the concept of email to your grandmother that it won't cause me to lose any sleep.
* It worked fine yesterday? Oh, then I must be wrong. Let me reconsider the 40 minutes I spent troubleshooting your Win98 box. Check it out: S**t breaks (see point 1); If s**t did not break, I would be mowing your lawn instead of sitting in this office.
* Speakerphone? Turn it the f@@@ off.
* Don't call back and have another rep troubleshoot the same problem. He will read the notes I left about how you spilled coke into your cable box. Even if he didn't, he would come to the same conclusion, and more people with undiagnosed problems would be stuck listening to that god-awful hold music.
* I am not blowing smoke when I say that I understand how frustrating it is to wait on hold, get transferred, and deal with bad agents. I too have called Dell's tech support line. The difference is that I actually DO care about your problem, so please just calm down before I kill your family.
* My company has over 20 million subscribers. I handle a region of about 2 million. To this day, none of them have ever called in to say "I just wanted you to know that my s**t is working correctly." Maybe someday?
So what can I help you with today?
The feud between "We can do anything at anytime!" Sales Dept. and the "You want what, when!??" IT Dept.
My company developed online apps for a time and sales people would either not understand the apps or make promises that we'd customize them to get the sale.
After that debacle the bosses outsourced development and hosting to India now things are constantly glitching
Now were are bringing things back in house by buying some third party apps and installing them on OUR servers![]()
At least I don't have to talk to customers anymore as I'm a network/server admin now.
* Neither I, nor any of my coworkers, are out to f@@@ you. We are not idiots. We are college graduates in technical disciplines, the vast majority of whom are here to work their way up the IT ladder to more fulfilling positions. Sometimes we have off days, sure, but we know EXACTLY what we are doing. Note that this does not apply to anyone outside of our department. They are, in all reality, idiots who are out to f@@@ you.
Tell me about it, every damn day I get some ******* that thinks he knows more than me and refuses to listen to the sense I'm talking. I wish they allowed us to say "if you know so dam much why the F are you calling me...?".Originally posted by Urufu_Shinjiro:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by roybaty:
Sounds like a Monty Python sketch LOL, "He's restin'"
You should be in tech support LOL. People INSIST what you are telling them is wrong sometimes no matter what.
I'm glad I got out of 1st/2nd line tech support.
Don't quite remember where I found this but it's a hoot:
Hi! I'm your Technical Support Rep. I have a considerable amount of control over one or more important aspects of your daily life: television, telephone, and internet. Sometimes one, sometimes all three. Before we interact, I'd like to share some thoughts with you:
* I am here, simply put, to fix your s**t. My job is not complete until said s**t is fixed. Please just help me fix this s**t.
* With that out of the way, know that I hate you exactly as much as you hate me. No more, no less. If you are at least relatively pleasant, I'm happy to help you- even to make small talk as I attend to the issue at hand. Conversely, if you are a total and complete *******, I will make this the worst 10 minutes of your week.
* Neither I, nor any of my coworkers, are out to f@@@ you. We are not idiots. We are college graduates in technical disciplines, the vast majority of whom are here to work their way up the IT ladder to more fulfilling positions. Sometimes we have off days, sure, but we know EXACTLY what we are doing. Note that this does not apply to anyone outside of our department. They are, in all reality, idiots who are out to f@@@ you.
* So you've already unplugged the "internet box" and plugged it back in? Brace yourself, you're going to do it again. Most of the time I do this for a reason...unless you're a ****. Then I do it to see how mad it makes you.
* Don't lie to me- I can tell you have a router. It isn't illegal.
* To those who think they are "computer illiterate": The vast majority of the time, you are lovely customers: Patient, willing to learn, and most importantly, willing to listen. Thank you!
* To those who think they are CompSci PHD's: The vast majority of the time, you are ******ed: If you already cycled your equipment and it didn't work, why did it work when I made you do it again? If you are so well educated, stay the hell out of the queue so that people who need help can get it.
* Supervisors don't have a magic wand that they can wave to make everything better. They are governed by the same protocol and use the same utilities as I do. In fact, supervisors are more likely to tell you to f@@@ off- believe it or not, they have other pressing issues to attend to. If a node goes down, they WILL put those 200 subscribers before you in Priorityland.
* Threatening to cancel does not intimidate us. We have an entire department that is paid to care about that, which means that I don't have to. Harsh? Sure, but I have more than enough work to do fixing s**t, yelling at field techs, following up on cases, and explaining the concept of email to your grandmother that it won't cause me to lose any sleep.
* It worked fine yesterday? Oh, then I must be wrong. Let me reconsider the 40 minutes I spent troubleshooting your Win98 box. Check it out: S**t breaks (see point 1); If s**t did not break, I would be mowing your lawn instead of sitting in this office.
* Speakerphone? Turn it the f@@@ off.
* Don't call back and have another rep troubleshoot the same problem. He will read the notes I left about how you spilled coke into your cable box. Even if he didn't, he would come to the same conclusion, and more people with undiagnosed problems would be stuck listening to that god-awful hold music.
* I am not blowing smoke when I say that I understand how frustrating it is to wait on hold, get transferred, and deal with bad agents. I too have called Dell's tech support line. The difference is that I actually DO care about your problem, so please just calm down before I kill your family.
* My company has over 20 million subscribers. I handle a region of about 2 million. To this day, none of them have ever called in to say "I just wanted you to know that my s**t is working correctly." Maybe someday?
So what can I help you with today? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Thats good ****, lol, glad i don't work with computers!
She liked the shape of the tree, especially the top. She just wanted it shortened a bit from the bottom.Originally posted by thefruitbat:
'errr, what?'
'Yes what sort of shape will be left'
'are you sure you want me to cut it at the bottom?'
Yes yes, but what will the rest of it look like?'
'there won't be any rest of the tree'
'what do you mean....ahhhhh'
Reality finally caught up, and that really is a short version of events
fruitbat![]()
My favorite bits of "Public Service" have always been while working some kind of entry control, namely in my case.. Military Bases, and the like. Some of the arguments you get are fun fun fun.
A good example.. (happened, wow 5 years ago..)
I'm standing at Gate 1, Great Lakes Naval Station. An individual comes driving up to gain access to the base. Lets throw in some factors.. It's North Chicago- In the winter. It's 2300. No sun.. it's COLD outside. So there I am, standing outside freezing my rear-end off.. Back to the individual driving up: He has his window up (doesn't want to let the cold air in). He doesn't even LOOK at me and just half-arsedly puts his I.D card up against his window.
(little side information, this was not long after 9-11, Force Protection con was high, and the Base Commander has put out that all I.D checks were to be HANDS ON CHECKS).
So, I just kind of sit there and stare at him. Didn't wave him through. After about 10 seconds he cracks his window and says "WELL?!". (This was a Chief Petty Officer, and at the time I was just a Third Class.. E7 vs E4). The rest of the conversation as follows:
Me: "Can I see your ID please?"
CPO: "I just f**king showed it to you!"
Me: "No, you pressed it up against your window. I need to physically handle it."
CPO: "The f**k you do! I don't have to give you my ID card.. It belongs to me!"
Me: "Chief.. first of all yes you do have to give it to me. Base Commanders policy. Second, that ID card belongs to the U.S Government. Now would you kindly follow my instructions, or you aren't going to be allowed on base."
CPO: "Look PO3.. I'm a CPO, and I out rank you. You can't tell me what to do, I will not give you my ID!".
Me: "Chief, need I remind you of Article 1038, Naval Regulations which states that all Sentry commands will be followed regardless of rank? Plus you must not have heard this is also base policy. Now if you do not give me your ID card so I can properly verify it's validity I am going to scrape the base decals off your vehicle. Then I'm going to turn you around and you will leave the base, and be required to walk onboard. Keep in mind that I will check your ID again. It's cold out, and I don't think either of us need to go that route. Now may I see your ID card please."
CPO: "Thats it! I want to talk to your watch commander!!!!!!!!".
Just so happened, my watch commander had been standing 3 feet away the entire time. He was a E6 (First Class P.O). He walks up, introduced himself and says "You need to comply with PO3's instructions or I'm going to scrape your stickers. Everything he said is correct and you are out of line Chief...".
CPO: "@#$%@$!!! Fine! Here's the #@$%ing thing!!!.
Me: "Thank you, have a good evening and welcome to NTC Great Lakes".
Total time of this conversation.. about 5 minutes. I gave the edited down verson. What really cracked me up about it, was that he could have been on his merry way much sooner. Also, he learned that you should be nice to the poor frozen gate sentry.. Especially when pissing him off just makes your night get longer...
I don't deal with the public in my line of work, but I have had to deal with mechanical design engineers before. I really don't know when it happened, but I started noticing that some of them started to lose their common sense back in the '90's. What I mean is that if one of them would walk into the welding dept, they would stand and stare at someone arc welding.If I was busy turning handles on a mill, making all kinds of flying chips, these dorks would stand right in the flight path without any safety glasses on.
Then there was one sneaky b@stard that would pull a switcheroo with the blueprints if you were not looking. The reason was that he sometimes made a mistake with his dimensions that would conflict with another set of prints that would result in the parts not fitting. I guess that he would notice too late, well into the part's manufacture. Chances were that a machinist would be well into the job and not notice the switch, the results being the machinist's responsibility for the the messed up part. He finally got caught doing this because I saw what was happening. I made a copy of the original print he made, and hid the original. I would then hand the copy to whoever was making the part. The engineer came up to the table when nobody was around during break, and switched the print. A few days later, the machinist who made the parts was called into the office and was asked why he messed up all the parts. I then showed the shop owner the difference in the two prints. If the engineer was so F'n smart, how come he is so F'n busted!![]()