Fantabulous Stories of a Mundane IT Job
"Be just a second"
Calling Tech Support for the variety of electronic devices that have a grim determination to find new and interesting ways of breaking themselves is one of the more mundane aspects of my ever-so-mundane IT job. Sitting with the phone glued to my ear listening to all manner of music for 10+ minutes while I await actual human contact is a mind-numbing task.
A call to Dell once had music playing that sounded eerily similar to the theme from Terminator 2. Huh? Did I just call SkyNet? Is Arnold going to pick up the phone and solve all my problems? Has the robot invasion already begun? I don't want my last few hours on earth spent trying to get a replacement hard drive shipped out. But the music, of poor quality in every way imaginable (except for the fake Terminator music, that rocked), isn't the worst part of tech calls.
Continuous music has a way of fading to the background in my mind so that I'm only vaguely aware of it. The real problem is that every 30 to 60 seconds a loud recorded voice feels obligated to interrupt the music and inform me of that company's superiority over all other companies in the same market. I'm already a customer, that's why I calling your tech support line, you don't need to keep selling me.
The latest call I made had me chatting it up with a woman who worked for Nextel in order to get somebody's cell phone activated or something, I don't even know. There were several instances where I had to wait while she did stuff on her computer. Not long enough to justify being put on
hold, but she must have had some bad experiences with customers not reacting well to silence from her, because just about every 5-10 seconds we waited she would say, "Be just a second" With a rhythm that suggested she'd been saying this all day long for many, many days.
One particular delay, lasting maybe 30-45 seconds, sounded something like this: "Be just a second......just another second......be just a second......waiting for the instructions to load, just another second....." Until at last she said, "Okay!" with a note of finality in her voice; clearly the instructions had loaded. Then she said, "Be just another second....."
Turned out to be another 15 seconds! But that's okay, I was amused by now.
I can imagine customers freaking out over 45 seconds of silence. People are idiots, you know.
Speaking of idiots, after I finally got down to business with the Nextel lady she said something that totally caught me off guard. She said, "You know, you really made this easy for me."
Huh? "How'd I make this easy?"
"Yeah, you really did."
Confusion washed over me. There's only one way to combat that kind of response: repeat myself, slower and louder. "......how. did. I. make. this. easy. for. you?"
"You followed every one of my instructions and did everything right the first time, I didn't have to repeat anything."
My momentary surprise quickly turned into high amusement and mild disgust. Here was more evidence that the world is brimming with brick-headed morons who can barely put their own pants on. And more evidence that I'm not one of them. Or, at least, I'm a much lesser moron. And I can live with that.
