July 06, 2000
It's a Conspiracy, I Tell You!
<whine>
Oy. It's been one of those days. As if the cranky customers haven't been bad enough, several cranky coworkers have gotten together to make it one of those days. Examples:
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I get a call from a customer service rep regarding daily reports (a.k.a. the tree-killing reams of paper that print everyday that almost no one reads). "Yeah," he says, "can you guys deliver those earlier in the day? I heard the print out first thing in the morning." I should mention that his reports print out about five feet from his desk, and every morning someone in his department brings them down to our department, so we can take them back up there in the afternoon. I politely informed him of that fact. He sounded surprised, said he'd look for his own report in the morning, and hung up.
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During the front desk receptionist's lunch hour, her calls forward to us -- unless someone within the company dials '0'. Those calls just sort of go into limbo. It's something we've addressed, but no one's done anything to change the phone system. So around 12:15, someone from development comes storming up to my desk full of righteous indignation: "Don't you people answer the phones up here?!" I looked up from my three ringing phone lines and politely said, "Yes, we do." "Well, I called three times and no one answered!" Once I ascertained that she was calling the front desk, I carefully explained the correct procedure to her and sent her on her way. I managed not to smack her.
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Later that afternoon, while calls were still coming fast and furious (emphasis on "furious"), another customer service rep called over to transfer a customer to support. It turned out that he didn't need to transfer it to me at all, but that he could have taken the message himself. I took the message, and asked him to tell the customer that support would call him back. Fairly typical procedure, to save the customer from being transferred unnecessarily to extra people. "You want me to tell them that?" "Yes, please." "Even though you're the receptionist." "Yup," I said cheerfully. "Thanks!" And then I hung up. Apparently I asked him to do something beneath him while dodging out of my own job. Because, you know, we were just slacking off over here today, what with only doing one of the 'a call every minute' sort of day again.
And now I just got told in an extremely sarcastic manner, "You've been a real help, I'm glad you're answering the phones," from someone who didn't know who they needed to speak to in a 500+ person company. As most of the company is closed at this time of day, I wasn't able to provide much help. Life will go on, but damn. Some days I feel proud of myself for not having gone postal on people.
Did I mention I have a project due tomorrow? If I don't stay late today, I'll be working overtime on my birthday.
