A wild customer appears

Years ago I used to work in an internal IT call center – the callers were the remote working employees of the company and the IT engineers were rotating shifts in order to be able to help people who called. Most of them used to need us after hours as they encountered most issues when getting to their home office at the end of the work day. So, we had our fair share of stressed colleagues as well as some weird new hires. I do have a collection of encounters with them. So here it goes:

1. We had a call late one night from a lady who was unable to start her company laptop. She had been the whole day in the field. At some point her computer went out and was now refusing to start. We went through the standard questions of how long was she traveling? How long was the laptop on? What happens when she pushes the power on button.

While we are asking the questions she gets progressively more stressed and at some point asks to speak to a man. (Yes, I'm a woman engineer). Well, none of those available – they all went home and it was my turn for the evening shift. So, she had to wait till the morning oooor speak to me. She sight a disgusted sigh and kept answering my questions as vague as possible. What I was hearing was a bit weird – she had been out the whole day, had unpacked the company laptop last night and I could not get her to confirm if she had been in the head office. Could it be? I asked:

- Ma'am, do you have your power cord on you?

- No! Why?

Ok, now I have to ask. I close my eyes and:

- Have you charged your laptop today?

- No. I do not have to.

O, boy!

- Well, you kind of do. Our batteries last around 4 hours and then they need to be plugged for recharging.

- You are kidding me!

- Sorry?

- In my previous company my battery lasted for 12 hours!

Now she is screaming. And in 2019 we still do not have batteries like this and this was several years ago.

- Ok?

- So, what do we do now?

- You will need to charge it. In the package...

- EXCUSE ME WHAT?!

- For the laptop to turn on you need the cable from your package. Please...

- NO! YOU NEED TO SEND ME A NEW LAPTOP!

- We will. I just need to confirm that this one does not start. Please take the cable out and plug...

- NO! I'M NOT DOING THAT! I USED TO HAVE AN ASSISATINT WHO WOULD DO THAT FOR ME!

- Ok?!

- So, you will send me a new laptop with a battery that lasts at least 12 hours and couple of spare ones.

At this point things have escalated so quickly and the screaming is so bad that no words can be heard. She is demanding a manager, technical miracles etc. I did promise to send this to another – male engineer and a manager in cc and hung up.

2. I came into the office one evening to relieve the new team member as they had called our manager and asked for help. Not directly but mentioned that they were having issues and needed some guidance. Now this was an issue. So they promptly got me out of my bed and into the office. The young person was sitting on the floor between the desks, head between the knees, headset on and a mouse detached from the computer.

I asked what's up and got a desperate look back. I motioned for them to put the weirdo on hold and let me know what is going on. As far as I remember the story went like this:

A call came in late and it was a person (I do not remember it if was male or female anymore) who insisted that the mouse is broken. Everybody who has worked on a computer knows that sometimes the laptop needs to be rebooted for the external mouse and keyboard to work again. No such luck. The person kept refusing out of fear they might lose the work they had done. So, my team had tried everything available in the book – switching USBs, control panel adjustments, you name it and nothing had worked. And now comes the difficult part – we offered them to use the touch pad as a work around and they said:

- This is not meant for this!

- For what?

- To be used like this!

- Oh, it is. If you move your finger on it, it will move the cursor for you.

What followed were 45 minutes of explanations how to do it. And no luck. They just did not get it. For some reason using the touch pad was foreign to them and nothing could change their mind. So, they demanded to speak to a senior engineer. Thus I was called.

I had my colleague let the person know they would be transferred and picked up the phone:

- Hi, I'm the senior tech expert on shift. How can I help you?

- I need a new mouse.

- Ok, you will have one in a few days as shipping takes time. Can I have you use your touch pad?

- My what?

- The square in front of the key board?

- How do I do that?

- Place your finger on it and press a little.

- Ok?

- Now move it.

- The square?

- No, the finger.

- Oh!

- You should be able to finish and save your work like this.

- Do I need to reboot?

- Yes, please. Your new mouse is in the mail.

- So you are a manager?

- No, just a senior.

- But I asked for a manager.

- I understand but you needed an engineer.

- I guess.

They called the day after to cancel the new mouse as after the reboot the old mouse worked.

3. At some point I decided to go back to school and learn how to code so I was studying in the mornings and covering the evening shift. Understandably I was very tired and had no real enthusiasm in my voice as it is customary for customer support. One beautiful winter evening I had been asleep at my desk as there was nothing to do when my phone rang.

- Thank you for calling my personal hell. How can I assist you?

- I want to speak to a real person.

- You are.

- No. I want a human on the line!

- Well, I'm human.

- Are you sure?

- Quite.

- And do you speak English?

- I'm.

- Do you understand English?

- Sir, what language do you think you are speaking at the moment?

Needles to say he had forgotten that laptops should be opened for the screen to be visible. He was sent to our main office for an IT-training.

4. This happened to me and my supervisor.

Due to my car being worked on and his being with his girlfriend we decided to share a cab on the way home from an evening shift. Our company had a contract with one of the cab companies so we got one of them.

I do have weird luck with taxi drivers so I begged and begged to be the last to get out of the cab so we decided that they will drive me home first and him later. We discussed the route and left it to the driver to decide what route to take. I was on my phone texting and my supervisor was on his laptop when a sharp left turn was made. We looked at each other. The driver had decided to take the longest most dark and unlit route to where we needed to be. Weird but ok. I texted my partner and started looking out the window. It had been a looong day so nobody was in the mood for speaking.

Suddenly the car slowed down and the taxi driver pointed to the right.

- See these bushes?

- What about them? - I asked irritated.

- See the parked car?

- So?

- Do you know what they are doing there?

He turns around and winks at me.

- We could stop as well?

He had forgotten that my supervisor was with us in the car.

- We could call your mother as well? - I hissed. I was holding the knife my partner gave me.

He was about to respond in anger when the voice of my supervisor sounded:

- You know? I changed my mind. I know what route I want you to drive. Take a right at the next intersection.

The driver was stunned. He was fired and his company lost their contract with us.