some Helpdesk rules to follow

[TGilb2007]

These are the unwritten rules from the highly over worked, but highly under paid technical support staff at an Internet service provider near you...

1. DO NOT talk over me. Listen damn it, you can't do what I tell you to do constantly jabbering bull**** over me. I talk... you do. Why did you even ask me a question if you are going to answer it?

2. DO NOT call me and then put me on hold. You called _me_, genius. You want my help, stay on the line and listen. We have much better things to do than talk to you anyway.

3. DO NOT read long error messages to me unless I ask you to. Do you honestly think we get anything out of a 50 digit hex number???

4. DO NOT start off a call by saying anything in the neighborhood of "hi, how's it going" or "busy today?" That just serves to piss us off.
Get to the problem so we can get you off the phone. The day was great until I had to start answering your totally moronic questions.

5. DO NOT get pissed when we tell you that your system is royally screwed. We didn't screw it up. It wasn't us. We're simply telling it like it is.

6. DO NOT call about unrelated products. We DO NOT know the intimate details of every piece o' crap shareware program you dredge out of the internet. Nor do we want to. Stop it!

7. We DO NOT manufacture modems, write e-mail programs or engineer browsers. If something in this arena goes wrong, call the people who made the thing. YOU DON'T USE THE INTERNET TO FAX!!! Can't stress that one enough.

8. DO NOT compare us to AOL when something goes wrong with your connection to us. If you had the computer literacy of an 8 year old with a broken Atari 2600 you'd know better. Everyone else connects just fine.
It's just you. Keep that in mind. It's just you.

9. DO NOT call simply for the purpose of giving us your thoughts on the content of our homepage or to request that we send you flyers so you can pass them out at bridge tournaments and bingo night. Not only is this a waste of our time, but it encourages just the type of user tech support reps fear most... the elderly.

10. DO NOT make us sit there on the phone while you tip toe through setup instructions so easy they were originally tested on lab chimps. We have better things to do than act as zoo keepers.

11. DO NOT call us and complain about a problem with your system and then say you're not in front of your computer when we try and help you.
We aren't technological psychics.

12. DO NOT call us assuming the problem you're experiencing is our fault. If your computer crashes, performs illegal operations, gives you the blue screen of death, or flips you off and runs away with the toaster to Mexico, you can be damn certain it isn't us who caused it.

13. DO NOT call us and announce to us that you don't know anything about computers. This really pisses us off. Trust me, we're well aware of that fact. We figured it out the minute you called and announced "help, the internet is broken!" Something here definitely needs help. People who know computers don't call us.

14. DO NOT call us and act as if you know all that are computers and that you're doing us a favor by gracing us with your call. This pisses us off more than 13. Chiming in with stupid suggestions and comments only increases the already tremendous temptation we face to use you as an unwitting instrument of destruction and really do some damage to your system. Not that you'd notice.

15. DO NOT (in addition to 14) say acronyms you don't know the meaning of or even what they are for. Just admit your completely lost and leave the techno stuff to us.

16. DO NOT call in if you can't speak English. This might seem like a small thing to you, but we find it just a tad annoying when we try and assess your problem and we can only understand every fifth word you say.
And no, just because those words may be 'computer' or 'broken' doesn't absolve you of the offense.

17. DO NOT call in hoping to get another tech rep to tell you something different than the first one did. If one of us tells you your system is ****ed, it's ****ed. The second guy is going to simply look at the log and tell you the same thing, it's ****ed. That is of course unless you really piss him off and then he's going to make sure your computer has the functionality of a house plant.

18. DO NOT be stoned or drunk when you call us. You wouldn't think this would need to actually be said, but believe me it's come up. For god sakes, if you can't control yourself and must call, at least have the common courtesy to offer us some of what you're on.




Someone in my helpdesk IMed this to me....and wow....ive had all of these at one time or another.

[igo4bmx]

im glad i don't do helpdesk anymore

[TGilb2007]

yea.....this ish it getting old....i cant wait for a new job.

[Drftpretty]

Also, no ****ting on the coats.

[TGilb2007]

^......huh? Yea....we dont do that here

[james_ls]

That is the PERFECT list...

...eff that madness...

[Ender81]

When you work helpdesk you have to accept two things.
1. you are there to HELP people, if they knew what they were doing they wouldn't call you.
2. You are not gods gift to technology, you are however level one customer tech support. Sorry boys and girls just because you have your A+ and built your own computer doesn't mean much.

Forgetting these two things is one of the main reasons it's so easy to send this work to India.

[smoger]

i dont do help desk but part of my job is helping the people here when a problem pops up,.. and yeah.. that list is perfect.

the thing that pisses me off the most is that people DO act like it's your fault when **** breaks, and yet when you fix things it goes unnoticed(especially when you do it so well that the fix is seamless and invisible to end users)

im sure noone here cares that i was here at 6:50 to swap out a mail server. but the second they think an email they're waiting for isnt in their inbox yet, theyre running to me screaming. yeah.. take a hike.

[cburwell]

Originally Posted by Ender81

When you work helpdesk you have to accept two things.
1. you are there to HELP people, if they knew what they were doing they wouldn't call you.
2. You are not gods gift to technology, you are however level one customer tech support. Sorry boys and girls just because you have your A+ and built your own computer doesn't mean much.

Forgetting these two things is one of the main reasons it's so easy to send this work to India.

Good advice. I guess it can be easy to get mad when you don't get the "perfect customer" calling in every time.

[smoger]

ha.. just had a woman in the office come looking for me. i went back to her office and asked what she wanted.. she told me the guy who sits in there was having computer problems and "why dont you just give him a new computer?? he has problems every day! (real bitchy tone)"

so i turn to the guy and immediately see he is not having any problems. i ask him whats wrong and he says... "umm it used to be bigger?"

"what used to be bigger?"

"the screen..."

"the screen is built into the computer"

"no.. the... ::points at the monitor::"

::i lean over and turn his resolution down to 800x600 ::

"oh! that's good!"

[TGilb2007]

see.....my helpdesk work is ONLY over the phone troubleshooting. Now, granted, I know there are a lot of people out there who fear technology, and dont understand how it works, they just want it to. What annoys me is when these people call in, either NOT abe to describe the issue, or read, verbatum, a 25 line long error message to me.

Another thing that really annoys me is that we support prolly 200 different vendors, and something like 1500-2000 different locations, and someone cant even tell me where they are. Not even a city, or sometimes state. I mean seriously people, its not that hard to remember what state you are in? I know Delaware and Rhode Island can be rather small, but please folks, its not hard t figure it out.

[boosted1eight]

Originally Posted by Drftpretty

Also, no ****ting on the coats.

WHAT?? i hope that wasn't on my coat!

*disappears*

[CobaltGrl]

I can just imagine how the IT guys at my place feel....

Commerce employees are always doing silly things that screw everything up.

Its funny, the guys you talk to at the help desk are always so nice and friendly, but the techs they send out tend to be a little more frustrated and annoyed....

[mostasteless]

I really don't mind the people who don't know what they are doing, the dangerous ones are the people who THINK they know what they are doing. Nothing is more annoying than the people who call then ignore your advice and proceed "fix" the problem there way, whenever that happens I just tell them to call back when they are done screwing it up and are ready to listen and hang up.

[mostasteless]

Originally Posted by CobaltGrl

Its funny, the guys you talk to at the help desk are always so nice and friendly, but the techs they send out tend to be a little more frustrated and annoyed....

Thats because the guy on the phone can easily pass you off if you are a PITA and say "I'll send down a tech to take a look". I work both ends and even though I would much rather go down and see someone their some days you really wish assault wasn't frowned upon