Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

Okay, some background first of all. I work as a customer service rep for a company which does repairs on computers on behalf of manufacturers. What my job entails is speaking to customers over the phone to arrange for their computers to come in for repair. I also deal with complaints and problems. Before they come through to me, the customers have spent a time speaking to some technical support folks to try and determine what the problem is, and if it software based (in which case they will repair it over the phone) or wether it is hardware based (in which case it's my time to shine!), and, if hardware, wether it's in-warranty (i.e a problem with the materials or manufacturing, which means free repairs all round) or non-warranty (i.e if Little Jacob has attempted to feed the CD drive some peas, in which case they have to pay). If it's hardware, they come through to me and I send out a courier to pick up their computar machien. Before the courier will collect it, they need the machine to be packed in a box with some internal packaging like bubble-wrap so that it won't get damaged (the courier's insurance won't cover any in-transit damage if the customers don't pack the units properly so we're quite insistent about this). We also try to keep the customers updated with repair progress as well, and quote those clowns who come through as non-warranty folks.
This is the worst job in the world, or at least the worst job I've ever had (and I was in the army). I really don't like it at all. Here are some examples of why my job is one of the worst in the world:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

EDIT: I added some artist's impressions of what I think the customers looked like using the smileys.

I called a customer one day to explain to him that his motherboard, graphics card and sound card were not replaceable in warranty because they were full of moisture which had caused them to burn out. I quoted him the (admittedly extortionate) repair charges, and he threw a hissy fit. "Why should I pay??" he screamed, "I have done nothing wrong!!" "But sir", I replied, "Your computer is full of moisture stains. This moisture has gotten onto the circuits and caused them to burn out. This is not a manufacturing defect it is your fault, so I am afraid you must pay!" Man was not happy. He could not see how the moisture had gotten onto his circuits. "Have you spilled onto the unit, sir?" I enquired, expecting the answer no. Man did not disappoint. "No!", he said, "The only thing I have done recently is fixed the fan!!"

"The fan, you say? Please, do-tell."

"Well sir", he says, "The main fan was squeaking loudly. Being a motor mechanic, I know how best to deal with such an emergency; I removed the cover and sprayed a miniscule amount of WD-40 (water dispersal spray for those who don't know, made of oil primarily, you use it on spark-plugs when they're damp or on squeaky hinges) onto the fan!!! I will not pay your repair charges!!"

Immediately it dawned on me what had happened. Being the clever chap that he was, he had sprayed this oil onto the fan in the hope that it would stop the noise, meaning that the next time it span up it spattered the inside of his computer with oil. The traces on the circuit board had then heated up (as they do) and heated the oil to frying temperature, which then fricaseed his computer. I informed him of this, and he went on to tell me I had no idea what I was talking about and swore at me several times. He then informed me he was taking this to his solicitor, and slammed the phone down.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

:
"Hi, I have received a letter saying that you will not repair my laptop because it is covered in a sticky substance. Has this affected the repair?"

Me:
"No, it is in warranty because as far as we can tell it should not have made your hard drive crash. However, since it is giving off a strong smell of urine, our engineers are unwilling to repair or even touch your unit."

:
"Don't worry about that. Myinfant son may have urinated onto the laptop before I sent it away, or possibly my cat. It is not harmful, please continue with my repair."

Me:
"No, I will now make arrangements to have this unit returned to you so that you can clean it before we touch it."

:
"I am not happy! It is only a bit of wee! I demand to speak to your manager!!"

So I put him through, and the manager there and then told him that he could expect his unit back unrepaired within the next 12 hours, so he could clean the p*ss off it to allow us to collect it again and repair it without our engineers having to touch the feculence. He then hung up on my manager and rang the manufacturers; who then rang me back and demanded we fixed the customer's unit whilst it was covered in wee otherwise they would pull the contract.....

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

:
"Hi, have you got my unit in there?"

Me:
"Yes, we have ordered a processor for it. It should be here tomorrow, you'll have it back before the weekend."

:
"Okay, that's fine, but you can't take the cover off."

Me:
"Erm.. come again?"

:
"Don't remove the cover! There are private things in there."

Me:
[Struggling to comprehend what he was going on about, I assumed he was talking about the information on the hard drive]
"But sir, your hard drive information is safe. We cannot access it unless we start up--"

:
"I am aware of that, I am not stupid!! What I mean is that there are private things stored inside the casing, and I do not consent to you removing the casing!!"

Me:
"We have to to replace the processor!"

:
"NO YOU DON'T I KNOW MORE ABOUT COMPUTERS THAN YOU YOU ARE A MORON THERE IS A PORT IN THE BACK PUT IT IN THERE DO NOT REMOVE THE COVER!!"

Me:
"I'm sorry, we have to."

:
"Put me through to your manager."

So I did, and the manager agreed with me, so Man rang the manufacturers who also agreed with me (for a change). The processor came and we removed the casing only to find that he had a large bag of what we assumed was cocaine taped to the inside of the casing, which he had neglected to remove before it came into us. His computer was passed to the police, and he tried to blame us for planting it. Nice try there, Druggie Dan!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

:
"MY DOG CHEWED SOMETHING ON THE COMPUTER AND NOW IT IS BROKEN THIS WAS NOT MY FAULT I DEMAND TO NOT PAY!!"

Me:
"Is dog-chew a valid manufacturing defect?"

:
"NO BUT--"

Me:
"Then it's out of warranty."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

:
"You have recently returned my computer to me after a repair on the dial-up modem, however now my son cannot use the internet. He tried to connect it said there is no dial tone I want to speak to the Managing Director of the company immediately I will take you to court and you will all die!"

Me:
"Have you checked the connections between the computer and the phone line?"

:
"Don't insult my intelligence! I checked all those whilst I was on the phone to tech support!"

Me:
"Were you trying to connect to the internet whilst using the telephone?"

:
"YES!!!!"

Me:
"I am perturbed by your stupidity."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

There are more, but I cannot be bothered to type them out. Please, if any of you out there hate your jobs as much as I do, share your pain so that it may help to alleviate mine.

_________________
**Here comes the Thnikkaman!**

ok that is a little too much to read can you give us the readers digest version of that thank it would be much appreciated.

_________________

That seems a bit similar to this:
http://rinkworks.com/stupid/

WARNING: CONTAINS MILD PROFANITY

_________________

How am I posting? Please call Homestar Runner Wiki Forum Guest Services at 1 (248) 434-5508 with comments or concerns regarding my posts. Have a nice day!

While your stories are funny, they beg the question: if you hate your job, why don't you quit?

Yes, you can quit.

_________________

This all reminds me of Lucas from Ctrl-Atl-Del. Hates his job (computer repair) and has to deal with the dumbest of customers. (Like one who, when told he had to clean out his computer, took it apart and washed it with soap and water.)

_________________

[Removed by InterruptorJones.]

Anyway, ANY customer service job is torture. While my exploits as a fast food drone and a mall survey guy can't nearly compare to what you've gone though, I've had my share of times when I wanted to assault someone...

The mall survey thing was the worst. Nothing like having to walk around LOOKING for people to interview, otherwise I don't get paid. At least with fast food, the people came to me, and I got paid either way if business was slow. Not only that, but you'd think FREE MONEY would be an easy seller. Seriously, I screamed FREE MONEY!!! and barley anyone took notice. Then, the people I actually DID get to take a [omitted] survey, most of them were the most computer illiterate people you'd ever meet. Well, not so much as those people who called Mr Snrub, but still! After all that, I ended up quitting after only 3 months... which is a long time for someone to actually work that job. Most only last 4-6 weeks...

_________________

I'm dyslexic. i can only read so much or my mind will start to jumble the words up.

_________________

I work in a bookstore, and while it's a great and rewarding job most of the time, we do get our share of stupid customers.

"I'm looking for a book, I don't know the author, I don't know the title, but the cover is blue."

"It's a cookbook! The author's name is Shirley Something!"

"My son asked me for this book? It's about monsters?"

"What do you mean it's out of print? Does that mean you don't have it?"

Our store is next door to a Staples, and people often ask if they can borrow the book, run next door and photocopy it, and bring it back.

For those of you from the Great White North, you probably know that Indigo (and Chapters) stores often have couches and comfy chairs for customers to sit and read. We had one customer who took that for all it was worth: When I was working full-time, he would come in at opening (10am) and stay until my shift was over at 4:30, reading erotica novels. Creepy.

And the best ever: One of my coworkers told me that when the store first opened (we're a pretty small city and it was our first Chapters store), a customer asked if we sold books by the chapter.

Maybe we should rename this thread the "Stupid Customer Rants"!

_________________

Guh. I used to work at a coffee shop.

Coffee shop people drive me freakin' BONKERS.

"Yeah, I'll take a Caramel Machiata (or however you spell it)"

Me: "Uhhh...this isn't a starbucks..."

Them: "So? Just make one"

Me: "Okay...look on the MENU! Find something that's on it. Come to me and tell me. Then pay. Otherwise, be a yuppie somewhere else."

When starting college I sent my work study application in late, and when you do that you end up working in the cafeteria. I got the same job as most cafeteria workers, "breakdown", which is just a weird name for washing dishes. Half the time I spent scraping half-eaten food off of plates and feeding them to the huge industrail dishwasher. The other half I unloaded steaming hot dishes from the dishwasher and stacked them. I hated it intensely for the first few days, maybe two weeks at most. Then I stopped hating it, because it honestly wasn't that bad. Other people's food is no more gross than your own food, and sticking your hands in it (with rubber gloves, of course) isn't bad once you realize that, and in breakdown we were pretty much unsupervised and were free to chat and whatnot. And it was work, which meant that I was getting paid (just above minimum) and getting the satisfaction of a job well done. After I figured that out, the only times I really minded it was when there was a side of black beans, because at the end of the meal they'd bring the whole container of steamy leftover beans and dump it down the disposal. I'm not a fan of beans to begin with, but that many cafeteria black beans was enough to make me nauseous any day.

Though it wasn't so bad, I was still thrilled when I got two job offers elsewhere at the college, one in the Comp. Sci. department and one on the Web Team. I didn't hesitate to take the latter -- the hours were more flexible, the work was right up my alley (and could go on a resume and, indeed, got me the job I have today) and it paid about $1.50/hr. better than any other work study job on campus.

My worst job ever, in fact, was my first job. I was in high school and got this computer job with this tiny consulting firm that I was way over-qualified for. Most of what I did was data entry. One of our biggest projects was taking this huge (i.e. 3,000 pages) print catalog and putting every single item into a database. Fortunately we didn't have to type it all in; we had the original Quark files, but it was still mind-numbing. We also managed the databases for a couple of real estate MLSes, but that was a little more interesting. And we also did some print mailings for a local grocery stores, so we spent entire afternoons sticking mailing labels to mailings. (Apparently the words "mail merge" were greek to my boss.) Once in awhile I got to do something interesting, like design a new database or a web site, but that was rare. Most of the employees were high school kids, for no other reason than that they're cheap labor. We were all working for $6/hr., doing work that any adult would get paid $12/hr. at least for, and which the clients were paying $30-50/hr. for.

But really it wasn't so bad. At first. See, when I started out we were in a small four-room office space. My boss (also the owner) was very shrewish (or hawkish?), but she had her own corner office so the employees were free to chat and relax (as long as we kept working). The work was boring, but I was happy not to be at McDonald's. But then after I'd been there about a year, our boss built this huge new house out in the country (with all that money she wasn't paying us) and our office moved into the big furnished basement of this house. That wouldn't have been a problem, except that the new office was just one big room, loft-style. In one big room, the employees were all within earshot and eyeshot of the boss, who seemed to get even more hawkish, and pretty much any and all non-work-related chit-chat was suddenly strictly verboten. It was awful.

I quit after about two months. I can tolerate a lot of different kinds of work, but not if I'm not allowed to talk to my co-workers.

_________________

Ah yes, data entry. I too did that once. I lasted four months and then simply stopped turning up. Two months later I got a letter from the firm saying that, due to the fact I had not turned in for the required period of four weeks, I had been deemed to have terminated my employment voluntarily. Gee, y'think duhuhuh??!?

As far as quitting, I have no aversion to it ( I haved had more than 15 jobs in the past 4 years since I started working). However for some reason I feel the need to find myself other employment before I quit this job; normally I wouldn't bother. Is this what they call.... "growing up"?....

_________________
**Here comes the Thnikkaman!**

Don't take this the wrong way, I'm really just trying to be helpful, but after 15 jobs in four years, are you maybe beginning to suspect that the problem isn't the jobs, but, um.. you?

_________________

I would just like to say that this thread may leave no hope to some of us with hope for the future. I have a lot of hope because I'm am one of those students put into all the gifted classes.

P.S. Welcome to the forum.

_________________

"I'm am" also one of those students, and by no means is my bookstore job a career-type job. Also keep in mind that most of these posts are concerning part-time jobs, worked while in school.

_________________

Exactly what I was thinking! Just get a new job! No one's putting a gun to your head and telling you to keep the job! Are they?

_________________

Speaking as someone who has always hated every job they have ever had: busboy (yuck), temp (errrgh), waiter (AAA!), sales clerk for a drug store (zzzz...), meat cutter (ewww)...

I currently have a job that rocks! I am very happy at my new school, teaching gifted kids (like some of you, it looks like). My advice is, if you hate your job, great therapy is to make a resume. Always be thinking about your resume. Spice things up: visit old people, volunteer at camps, volunteer anywhere. Go to night school, if you don't mind the loans.

Just quitting isn't enough. Having a job that you enjoy improves your life 400%. Waking up happy is awexome, I'm tellin' ya. 40 plus hours hating something will shorten your life. Shop that talent around!

I don't suspect anything, I know. I hate working. That's why I called my thread "I hate working". I am lazy, I need a job where people pay me for being me. Either that or sell drugs to children.

Still, you have to admit, even if I wasn't a workshy scumbag thems still some atrocious things to deal with. People need to realise that the universe does not revolve around them. And also that if your hard drive is broken THEN YOUR DATA IS GONE AND IT DOESN'T MEAN OUR ENGINEER FORMATTED THE HARD DRIVE MALICIOUSLY IT MEANS IT IS BROKEN SO STOP RINGING ME AND THREATENING TO SUE ME BECAUSE YOU LOST 5 YEARS WORTH OF PORN AND STOLEN MP3S. LEARN TO UPGRADE.

_________________
**Here comes the Thnikkaman!**

You are definitely in the wrong field.

If you work tech support, then for the time between clock-in and clock-out, your universe does revolve them, because they are the client. That's the only reason you are there, it's the only reason you're getting a paycheck. If you think you're there for some other reason, then you need to start questioning yourself, not the client.

_________________

I think you need to have a nice little ride on Mr. Jones's "Goat of Success" if you really hate work, then ask yerself what makes you hate it. If its the idiotic customers then...dont do anything involving sales, if its just the work...uhhh...I dunno 'bout that...go read the comic strip "Dilbert" might help.

_________________
Sister, now that we're grieving
Our fingers will falter
Our lungs will be leaking
All over each other and without even speaking
We'll know that it's over and smile and go greeting
Whatever comes next

a ha ha ha ha.. i hate doing work, but I love playing games.

_________________
Hot!

I'm getting a sneaking supiscion that you're my teacher. Ewww. Gotta go, um, shave or something.

But if you're not my teacher, I would be a gifted kid, yes.

Because I'm still a young-un, I've not had any really challenging sort of jobs. I worked at a fast food chicken place (guess which one) for the better part of 4 years.... it was about 4 years too long. I'd changed to 3 stores because of family movements, and the last one I was at totally sucked. I was in my first year of university, and most of the staff were 15 year old high school drop outs, there were about 2 other decent people there, and there was one 21 year old who was functionally illiterate. I don't know why they let him count the 'mony' in the float all the time. And he stank, and was annoying and had the worst singing voice, and all he listened to was Metallica, hence, my hate for Metallica now (sorry to all the fans on the forum).

I worked at a surf clothes shop for about 4 months, that was an awesome job. Small staff, nice and friendly and discounted clothes! Unfortunatley we had to shut down because the rent was too high and we couldn't compete with the larger surf wear store 200 metres away.

I'm a waitress now, so we have our fair share of numbskulls that come through the restaurant. Some are genuine complaints (syrup's run out of the Coke, not hot enough etc), but some are just stupid. Only yesterday we had a customer order a burger, and when I took it out he said he asked for the meat to be rare (another girl took the order, so I didn't know about it). I explained to him that you cannot have mincemeat rare, it will make you sick, like undercooked chicken. He called us a 'half-hearted McDonalds' (we're a steakhouse) and spoke to the manager, who told him the same thing I told him about rare mince.

He replies "WELL I'M 60 YEARS OLD, HOW OLD ARE YOU? I'VE BEEN EATING IT ALL MY LIFE AND THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ME"

On customer feedback cards, people will write "The air conditioning is not working properly OUTSIDE". There is no airconditioning outside, because it is OUTSIDE. You choose to sit outside at the hottest time of the year because you are filthy smokers (no offense to anyone here, that's just my thoughts on the subject), so don't complain to us about the choices you make.

When we deliver a meal, we go back to the table after they have started eating, to make sure the steak is done right and there is nothing missing that should be on there. After we meal check and they say it is fine, we can only assume that everything is fine. Then people will go to pay, and say, "I have a complaint, I had this missing, there was too much fat, it was under/over cooked". Well, don't say we didn't ask, no discount.

It's not a bad job, I like the people I work with and it;s a fun and happenign place.

Enough of my ranting, I could go on and on.

_________________

I have to say that I get some of the dumbest people at my work. I actually had one customer ask me if the macaroni salad had macaroni's in it. I had to stop what I was doing, stare at their stupidity and just walk away. No words out of my mouth.

_________________

If you think your job stinks, try working customer service (read: lie in floor, let customers kick you, then doo-doo on you) or anywhere else in Wal-Mart. You want to see some dumb people? Try going to Wally World on a Saturday, about 3 in the afternoon. Man, I don't miss those days at all... Strangely, I still work for the company (until meteorology grad school this fall), but I don't deal with customers anymore. It pays good (good enough for my soul, anyway), and it's not too bad, although travel is a pain in the buttocks.

_________________
If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.