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Dealing with stupidity and irrationality
Being that I'm blissfully leaving Customer Support in the next 2 months, my lack of patience for the stupid and irrational is at an all time low. I literally just had this exchange with a customer...
Me - "I can tell you with 100% confidence that there has been no security breach on our servers. It has not happened."
Customer - "Well, I scanned my machine and it came up clean. You've been hacked! I want to know how!"
M - "Are you an IT professional, sir? We have trained staff watching over our computer networks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for attack. There has been. No. Breach."
C - "I'm not sure what IT is but I'm not it. All I know is you've been hacked! Tell me how they were able to do that!"
M - "If you are not an IT professional, then any explanation I may or may not be able to offer about an event that didn't take place is irrelevant. Let's focus on getting you some anti-virus on your machine so we can try to...."
C - "IT WASN'T MY COMPUTER! You guys need to encrypt your information! You're why I got hacked!"
M - "Sir, we use data encryption on par with government level security systems. If someone were able to compromise our system, our federal government would be very concerned indeed."
C - "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! GIVE ME YOUR SUPERVISOR!!"
I'm so tired of dealing with this level of stupidity. I long for a day when I don't have to talk to idiots all day. How the heck do you guys cope with dealing with these types of idiots?
Me - "I can tell you with 100% confidence that there has been no security breach on our servers. It has not happened."
Customer - "Well, I scanned my machine and it came up clean. You've been hacked! I want to know how!"
M - "Are you an IT professional, sir? We have trained staff watching over our computer networks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for attack. There has been. No. Breach."
C - "I'm not sure what IT is but I'm not it. All I know is you've been hacked! Tell me how they were able to do that!"
M - "If you are not an IT professional, then any explanation I may or may not be able to offer about an event that didn't take place is irrelevant. Let's focus on getting you some anti-virus on your machine so we can try to...."
C - "IT WASN'T MY COMPUTER! You guys need to encrypt your information! You're why I got hacked!"
M - "Sir, we use data encryption on par with government level security systems. If someone were able to compromise our system, our federal government would be very concerned indeed."
C - "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! GIVE ME YOUR SUPERVISOR!!"
I'm so tired of dealing with this level of stupidity. I long for a day when I don't have to talk to idiots all day. How the heck do you guys cope with dealing with these types of idiots?
Comments
I did deconstruct as you would have and he still didn't get it. It went something like this.
M - "So, you admit you are not a technical expert and have minimal knowledge of computer systems. You also trust me when I say we have highly trained IT professionals on staff watching our networks. You still hold you know more than us and we are at blame for the compromise of this accounts information?"
C - "Yes. You guys are clearly doing something wrong. What's with all these hacked accounts recently?"
M - "There is nothing "recent" about it. It's happened since the game launched. The day people assigned real world value to in-game currency, accounts were stolen. You're just aware of it because it's happened to you now. Let me get you a passwo...."
C - "So you're saying it's been happening for bloody years!? You guys need to get some help!"
Maybe I can send Churba on this guy. He was an Aussie.... No offense but I think I've read Churba is Australian. :-p
C: I don't understand what has happened.
M: It wasn't us.
C: I still don't understand how my data was compromised.
M: It wasn't us.
C: I'm still not understanding exactly how this problem occured.
M: It wasn't us. You are stupid.
C: I'm still not getting it. How can this have happened?
M: It wasn't us. I am far more intelligent than you.
The way I would have handled it is something like this.
Me - "I can tell you with 100% confidence that there has been no security breach on our servers. It has not happened."
Customer - "Well, I scanned my machine and it came up clean. You've been hacked! I want to know how!"
Me - "Sir, computer security is actually a complicated area, and there are many places along the way where data can be compromised. We're quite sure it wasn't our servers, and you are sure your computer is also secure. But during all of your interactions with our game, and with other people who play our game, there are ways the data can become insecure."
Customer - "How is that?"
Me - "When in-game purchases cost real money, people want to steal game accounts, as they are worth real money. The most effective way they do this is with social hacking. They don't attack computers directly, not your PC, nor our server. Instead they send emails, asking for personal information, or for you to log into a fake website. Or they guess your password. Or they know the answer to your security question. They may even call you, and ask for your password."
Customer - "I'm pretty sure that hasn't happened to me."
Me - "Let's play a game. It's called Pornstar Names. The way you work out your name is to take the name of your first pet..."
Customer - "And put it with you mother's maiden name. Yeah, I know his one. I played it online once, and it posted my result to my facebook wall. My pornstar name in Nobby Jones."
Me - "And now I have the answer to two of the most popular security questions. See how easy that was? If you had a Yahoo Mail account, I could probably get access to it with that information. I could then search through your emails for all the internet services you've used. One of them will have sent you your password unencrypted, which is bad practice, but many do. The chances are you re-use the same password over and over. I could then try that same password for every other internet service. Who knows, maybe I could use it to log in to your game account?"
Customer - "Oh shit!"
Me - "Exactly. No computer hacking required, or needed, or even useful. Not of your PC, nor of our servers. I can't say that the story I told above is true in your case, but that is far more likely than someone hacking our servers."
Customer - "You're right."
Caller: I want you to help me fix my printer problem! it's not working with your software! Everything is printing all mashed up to one side!
Me: Ok, what make and model of a printer is it?
Caller: A Foonly 2000p! We got it from your company when we bought our computers from you as well!
(At this point I know that the customer is full of shit because I know full well that we don't sell Foonly printers, have never sold Foonly printers, they're not supported for use with our software, and it states as much on our supported hardware list on our website's FAQ. But I still have to treat him like gold and handle him with kid gloves, because "the customer is always right.")
Me: I'm sorry, but we don't sell Foonly printers and it's a known issue that they don't work properly with our software, but what I can do-
Caller: (cutting me off) So what you're telling me is you sold me a printer that doesn't work?
Me: No, what I'm saying is that printer was not purchased through our company and-
Caller: (again cutting me off) I know we got it from you!
Me: I'm sorry sir, but we have never sold Foonly printers in the entire time our company has been selling PC hardware. But what I can do is-
Caller: (once again cutting me off) Well it's obvious that you can't help me! I don't know why I'm paying you people for customer support! I should just return all this hardware and software and get my money back! I'm calling my sales rep, because he's the only one that can get anything done for me! *CLICK*
At which point the sales rep calls in twenty minutes later and talks to your manager, filing a complaint that you didn't help out "one of his best customers" (and yet somehow every customer is a rep's "best customer").
Trust me, it's not a job you want to be stuck in for any length of time.
The correct answer is "Don't invest yourself in a shitty job.
The hardware department where I work has super-busy mornings because our clients are coming into their offices, trying to fire up their computers, and OHNOES IT IS BROKEDED WE CAN'T WORK CALL THE SUPPORT PEOPLEZ. They're clueless and can't troubleshoot on their own for crap, so we get a metric fuckton of calls between 7:00 AM and 10:00 AM. At that point it slacks off a bit and the rest of the day is a mix of our field techs calling in for assistance or part numbers and offices calling in with stupid piddly crap like "my wireless keyboard and mouse won't work" (Well, when was the last time you changed the batteries? Oh, you say it doesn't need batteries because it's wireless? You must have one of the new models that runs on rainbows and unicorn farts.) or "we just got the Internet installed in our office and now none of our computers will connect to the application server" (That's because the dumb-ass tech from the ISP unplugged your server from your network and jacked the modem straight into it without bothering to tell you, and failed to mention that you'd need a router to go between the modem and your switch before he left. Oh, and you've got the whole Internet right there in your office? Paint me impressed.) After that there's a small spike around 4:00 PM when people are trying to run their nightly backup and having issues, and typically after five it goes dead, so our night staff gets next to no call volume between 5:00 PM and 7:00 PM. If you're working mass retail then there will definitely be times when there is no one in the store or in your department to annoy the piss out of you, but you're still going to have to do weak shit like cleaning up your department, restocking product, and reconfiguring display areas, and you typically won't get a say in when you take your breaks or lunch. Plus the call center job is more likely to have the added bonus of having internet access while on the job; the only way you'll get that in a retail job is if you're using a smartphone in your downtime.
All that being said, as Rym said, it's not a job to invest yourself in. It's good as something temporary or as something to keep money coming in while you're looking for a new job, but it's not a job anyone should aspire to hold. If they do, I want $20 worth of whatever they're smoking, because it must be the good shit.
You do run into customers who get it, though. One thing I've found is that while there are many impatient and inconsiderate people, there are a handful of people out there nice enough to almost make up for them.
The key is "almost." The job eventually burns you out.