the help desk is such a happy place

richard · 09-05-06 14:56:13

When I chucked in my 'proper job' and took up this for a living, one of things I was looking forward to, was not having to deal with people. I'm shit at schmoozing and I'd rather type than talk.

But there is this curious thing that happens when the face-to-face or even telephone contact with customers is removed. It goes soemthing like this help request I just received:

"my password/user names do not work. Either fix this or cancel my membership."

And that's nowhere near as arrogant as it gets.

The words 'please' and 'thankyou' appear in less than half of all help requests. About 80% blame us for their problems from the outset (whereas we cause about 1% to 2%). When we help the customer fix their problem, about 20% respond with a 'thankyou'.

This guy was typing his password incorrectly. "Check your own fat fingers before you blame me for your stupidity", I wanted to reply, but of course I can't, although I have other ways of venting.

I wonder if it's just the adult industry that has to deal with that, or is it the net in general?

blissed · 09-05-06 17:34:10

I work in a shop and many face to face customer complaints are like that. People suddenly feel they're the boss because their paying and like a bad boss who doesn't get the results they want from their staff, they're arrogant and rude. Of course a lot of people aren't like that, but I expect a lot more would be if they were totally anonymous.

ashmedi · 09-05-06 17:57:08

Probably a sign of the times plus he is a paying customer, which is no excuse for rude arrogant behavior.

I work in the Info Tech area for the government and handle computer problems, hardware and software, or at least I did till my vision loss caused me to take time off. My customers are not direct pay, internal paperwork, and even there I got the odd person who thought I should say "How High?" when he said jump. But for the most part, my clients (users) needed me more than I needed them and I have had very few problems in the 17 years I did that.

It's unfortunate that people behave like that and if I should ever come off like that, please do jump on me and wake me.

Elfman · 09-05-06 19:26:26

I'm a Civil Servant and at work I have a lot of telephone contact with members of the public. Many of our wonderful British tax payers seem to feel that since I am a Civil Servant (and they in essence pay my wages) that entitles them to be crass, rude, insulting and downright offensive; especialy when they don't get their own way. It is very anoying when I explain to someone that British law doesn't allow them to do something they want to do and they scream at me like it is my fault. I got really frustrated with one guy last year who just would not take no for an answer and after being yelled at for about 45 minutes I eventualy told him that if he disagreed with current legislation he should write to his MP and try to get it changed. "What kind of a system do you call that?", he sceamed at me. "I think they call it democracy" I replied and hung up on him.

It is probably a sign that I am getting old but I do think that standards of common curtesy have declined a lot since I was young. I was raised to beleive that civility costs nothing and have always tried to maintain high personal standards of curtesy. I regret to say that some people I know just see me as "quaint".

Elfman

Last edited by Elfman (09-05-06 19:36:10)

msnevil · 10-05-06 00:10:29

Elfman wrote:

It is probably a sign that I am getting old but I do think that standards of common curtesy have declined a lot since I was young. I was raised to beleive that civility costs nothing and have always tried to maintain high personal standards of curtesy. I regret to say that some people I know just see me as "quaint".
Elfman

Elfman I'm quaint as well. Nice to see another member.

Being that I'm the last of Generation X, I have noticed that morality has decreased about the time the Reagen kids were born. (US standerd)

I think the self absorbed adults of the 1980's/1990's generation have raised a bunch of self indulgent kids. Who have no respect, since they were never taught respect to begin with.

Granted there is "jerks" in every generation, And gents\ladies as well. But it seems the younger generation have more "jerks" in thier generation.

(please note: I'm not talking "religion". But just common good ethical behaivor to your fellow human's. Religion breeds the holier-then-thou jerks instead.)

Of course, I was smacked on my a$$. Everytime I bad mouthed a lady. By my Dad\Granny.

bluegrey · 10-05-06 01:28:06

In my experience - and I've done a lot of helpdesk/technical fixes - people are in fact rather more rude by email in general. It is unfortunately a lot harder to envisage an actual person on the other end of the line when one cannot see them, and since the vast majority of human communications skills relies upon visual cues, misunderstandings are rife.

In general I think of myself as polite, but I fear I did, while working as a helpdesk/web officer at a university, react with great glee when I saw a gentleman downloading porn on the network - we had closed circuit TV so I could see everything in all my labs. In a classroom environment, it's of course completely inappropriate and against the usage guidelines - not to mention the fact that university links can be notoriously slow and he was crippling his class' multimedia design projects as a result. I used to go and stand behind him, lean over and say "Boo!" very softly into his ear and watch him jump a mile and frantically click the mouse to hide what he had been doing.

When I worked as a civil servant, people were very nasty by phone and would say things like 'I'll see you never work again!' which to the seventeen year old I was then seemed very scary. I was the person who sent out fines for non-payment to big businesses so this was pretty common. Fortunately I had a wonderful boss who would then explain politely to them that threatening people is a crime in Australia, and as I was working for the Australian Securities Commission, they could expect a call from the government's lawyer.

Someone once did try and punch me over the helpdesk I was on at the Uni, but they sort of tripped and hurt themselves a bit, so we patched them up and sent them home with a stern warning.

aven frey · 10-05-06 01:31:58

I worked as a stripper for about a year and sometimes after dancing for 15 hours in stupid shoes you can feel a little like this (disclaimer- not all the punters were this bad! and I do not agree with points 25 and 26)
http://www.erosblog.com/archives/00000653.htm
but stripping was no where near as bad as working in an inbound call centre/help desk. And msnevil I can guarantee that most of the down right evil people were of the older generation. Someone actually threatened to wait outside the building (which he actually knew!!!) where I worked until I finished (3 in the morning) and stab me in the eyes unless I took his sms bar off his phone!!

cynicism · 10-05-06 09:47:49

richard wrote:

<snip>
I wonder if it's just the adult industry that has to deal with that, or is it the net in general?

Short answer: no.

Long answer: HELL, NO!

Many complainants seem to think that help requests are handled by robots, and discard all forms of politeness. Many also seem to forget how to think when dealing with computers.

Cruiser9 · 10-05-06 16:43:50

I am a civil servant as well, and I have one of the most thankless jobs one can have. Can't say how many times I've gone on a domestic violence call and stopped a husband/boyfriend from kicking the shit out of his female partner only to get finger from the victim who called for help in the first place.

I think when you work in any industry where you have to deal with lots of people, it is reasonable to expect that you're not going to get pats on the back. If you are looking for a "thank you" or "please", you're just setting yourself up for disappointment.

Yes, people can be terribly rude and get in your face over petty things. Most people are thin-skinned and easily pushed over the edge. Some just use any excuse to keep a fight going even after the dust has already settled and "refuse to let things go".

It's all about choices I suspect. If you're going to have a help desk or any job where you have contact with people, you just have to have broad shoulders and expect that rudeness is part of the game. The key to survival is how you handle it. There are some things a man should never allow himself to become. It's up to each person to decide what that is.

gala · 17-05-06 17:29:33

max: i did the call centre/pager operator thing as well, and i can say that few things in my life have been as degrading. i'm glad to have someone second me on that, becuase my co-workers seemed to think it was just a super place to be.

Will · 17-05-06 19:42:04

Unfortunately it's everywhere. Manners cost nothing, and I am a big believer in them. Unfortunately there are so many people out there who don't feel the same. Not that I wouldn't complain if there was cause to, but the sheer ignorance of people keeps on surprising me.

I have worked in bars and restaurants before, and the way some people would speak to you is disgusting. Working in any sort of service industry at times can be so demoralizing and really bring you down.

Last edited by Will (18-05-06 17:31:11)

Elfman · 17-05-06 20:03:57

Will wrote:

I have worked in bars and restaurants before, and the way some people would speak to you is disgusting. Working in any sort of service industry at times can be so demoralizing and really bring you down.

It's also cowardly to be rude and offensive to someone who because of their job is not in a position to defend themselves.

Will · 18-05-06 17:32:05

Wait untill you see the ones after us. It's going to be carnage I tell you!!!

blissed · 18-05-06 20:45:14

Oh I think the old days were the best. They were wonderful times for us all

.

Last edited by blissed (18-05-06 20:46:58)

nihpuad · 19-05-06 05:48:04

msnevil wrote:

...I have noticed that morality has decreased about the time the Reagen kids were born. (US standerd)
I think the self absorbed adults of the 1980's/1990's generation have raised a bunch of self indulgent kids. Who have no respect, since they were never taught respect to begin with.

(Hmmm... how to put this politely? Oh, never mind...) Codswallop!

I get awfully tired of this sort of "the kids these days..." moaning. I was a young adult in the 80s (born in 1960) and became a parent at the dawn of the 90s. There might be aspects of my life that would seem self indulgent to some (spending $$/month on a website devoted to "The Art of Orgasm," f'rinstance! ), but I'm also hardworking and diligent, with a keen sense of duty to my family, my friends, and my colleagues. And I'm intensely grateful for the good fortune (much of it unearned by any merit of my own) that has enabled the "self-indulgent" pleasures of my life.

My daughter may not say "sir" and "ma'am" much -- those dry formalisms never really had anything to do with respect anyway, except respect for arbitrary social custom -- but she's thoughtful, caring, intelligent, and hardworking, and nobody who's met her has ever said she was unmannerly or disrespectful. Her friends, too, are engaged and engaging young citizens, more concerned, not less, with the feelings and wellbeing of the people around them than my friends and I were at their age.

Yes, they have more and better material things than I did, as I had more and better material things than my parents did when they were kids... but there's a difference between "fortunate" and "self-indulgent." Just as there's a difference between being formally "polite" and truly respectful.

The world may well be going to Hell in a handbasket, but it's not because kids my daughter's age aren't polite enough; it's because people old enough to be her grandparents, people named Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and (sadly, because I once thought better of him) Blair are busy screwing their fellow man, all hidden behind polite smiles and firm handshakes.

Feh!

Sorry to rant like that, but this casual dismissal of the moral worth of my generation and my daughter's really does cause me some frustration.

blissed · 19-05-06 13:31:46

I'm sending you a copy of tuppeny whores to cheer you up, and make you grateful your not living anywhere else but the present Society's norms are always changing. It's only when you go back a long way do you realise how physically and mentally comfortable we are. I think the act of trying to change public opion is really interesting and can be rewarding as well.

Last edited by blissed (19-05-06 13:55:49)

aven frey · 20-05-06 04:41:30

gala wrote:

i'm glad to have someone second me on that, becuase my co-workers seemed to think it was just a super place to be.

Oh yes I remember filling in for a day shift worker once and was completely shocked and horrified by the general content and professional atire my work collegues displayed. Coming from night shift which was mostly staffed by uni students and stressed overworked single mums I couldn't believe the enthusiasm for copping abuse on the phones these day shift people had. Men were wearing suits and ties even when they were allowed to wear jeans and t-shirts!!

#1 09-05-06 14:56:13

the help desk is such a happy place

#2 09-05-06 17:34:10

Re: the help desk is such a happy place

#3 09-05-06 17:57:08

Re: the help desk is such a happy place

#4 09-05-06 19:26:26

Re: the help desk is such a happy place

#5 10-05-06 00:10:29

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#6 10-05-06 01:28:06

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#7 10-05-06 01:31:58

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#8 10-05-06 09:47:49

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#9 10-05-06 16:43:50

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#10 17-05-06 17:29:33

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#11 17-05-06 19:42:04

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#12 17-05-06 20:03:57

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#13 18-05-06 17:32:05

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#14 18-05-06 20:45:14

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#15 19-05-06 05:48:04

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#16 19-05-06 13:31:46

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#17 20-05-06 04:41:30

Re: the help desk is such a happy place

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