31 Flavors of the Dumb
So for those who don't know, I currently work a fairly cushy and almost well-paying job doing technical and customer care support for a major telecommunications company which shall remain nameless. The training was lengthy and extensive, but 11 business days ago I was expelled from the protective womb of the classroom and thrown to the ravening pack of wolves that are our customers.
In that very brief period of time, I have already racked up enough accolades to qualify me for an end of the month bonus, so my proficiency, dare I say it, is not the issue here. No, the issue is that some of the people I talk to on a daily basis now are driving cars on the same roads as the rest of us and having children to inherit the world from us. This should terrify you more than it does.
Not all calls are bad, nor are all people stupid. The ones that are, however, could win medals for it, in the inevitability that incompetence one day becomes an Olympic event. When my phone beeps, I know I am about to confront one of five callers.
The Elderly
The elderly come in three flavors; chipper, lonely, and pissed off.
Discussing matters with the chipper is like having a conversation with grandma. No matter what you do, they support you, and the important thing is that you tried your hardest. I love these calls.
The lonely may have a technical issue, they may not. Mostly they want to tell you about the weather, or how much they love Christmas, or how their grandkids don't visit much any more but they love them anyway. These can be heart-wrenching calls, and if my average call time for the day is looking alright, I'll take a little bit of a ding to let them talk for a few minutes.
Then there are the pissed off. Half the time I don't even get to talk on these calls. There will be 5 minutes of angry diatribe about how no one told them it was a two year contract, and they are starving because of me, and we are greedy monopolistic bastards taking all of their fixed income, followed shortly thereafter by a disconnect. I want to feel bad, I do, but maybe there should be less anger directed at me, and more at whoever convinced Grandma Moses that she needed a fucking LG Shine. Know your limits. Please.
The Rednecks
Male rednecks have an issue. In fact, they have a whole list of them, and you are going to resolve all of them one by one, while weathering their passive-aggressive ignorance, or they are just going to have to take their business elsewhere. Some are valid (grandma got abducted by hill people last month and we went over our minutes negotiating with them). Some are trolling for a reason to whip the piss out of family members (can you tell me the last 50 numbers my wife has dialed). Some are fucking crazy (do you sell a phone that will attach to a CB antenna). But they are all very determined to get an answer that satisfies them. Even if you just have to make shit up.
The women tend to be congenial, to a degree, and usually just want to know what activity is listed on a specific mobile number, because they gave that phone to their daughter's boyfriend's son's babysitter and are afraid of the charges she may have racked up. Not a difficult call, just a chore explaining the math. Speaking of chores...
Teens, Tweens, and Young Adults
They understand the system, they can actually work the phone, they assume I am a moron, and 9 times out of 10 they are either contesting downloads or they have acquired momma's information and are trying to convince me to turn parental controls off. I can say, categorically, that I do not give shit one that the sound quality on your Flo Rida answer tone is not up to your standards. Fuck you, and your useless little toys. What did you expect to happen when you texted a number you saw advertised on USA at 3 AM with three paragraphs of fine print on the screen? Pay your subscription fees -- or, as I refer to them in the break room, your dumbass tax -- and get off my line.
More later. Tired.
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