Among the states we dreaded most was Florida. there were many reasons for this. Mostly because the majority of the people calling in for support, help or information fell into a couple categories with few exceptions during spring break.
1.) The snow bird. The snow bird is the person who lives in the north in the summer, and can afford to live in the south in the winter. These people tended to be old, crotchety and had no concept of technology let alone what we had to do to make two accounts work. All they cared about was that they paid, and wanted email.
2.) The retired self employed person. If you were to judge it purely on calls from us, you would think that EVERYONE in Florida own their own business. When the network would go down they would call screaming how they were loosing thousands of dollars. The reality of this was that they were either running / buying Ebay auctions or they were day traders. These calls often lead to the reading of the terms of service (which were printed and hung in the cube next to mine, thanks FerroMancer ) and often times a supervisor call. But we will be visiting that later =)
3.) The redneck. This person probably has several cars on their lawn, none of which run, and all of which are on blocks. An old TV being used as a TV stand for a semi new one, several well kept guns, skoal tobacco by the case and about 398,471,346,134,108,934 kids. These people would make up their own words and often times threaten bodily injury to phone agents because their Internet was down and they couldn't download their porn, or get their updates on their NASCAR races.
4.) The Old Timer. No concept of technology, no concept of what year it was, could barely hear you and more often then not hailed from Boca Raton. Invariably the calls would have some reference to the "Good Old Days". The people were very lonely and used the tech support line as a chat line for human contact. These calls would also always take you over your call time if you weren't an asshole, luckily for me I was a lovable asshole and generally got away with murder.
5.) The retired techie. These people are smart in their own rights, however their area of expertise ends are reel to reel and punch cards. Very seldom you'd get a retired unix admin. These people were a mixed bag. Some were the best customers ever, others wouldn't listen because they knew better then us.
Areas such as Boca Raton earned nicknames of humorous nature. We used to say that Boca Raton was old Indian for "Death's Waiting Room" and such. yes we ARE horrible people, but I'm ok with this and my penthouse in hell I will surely receive.
Here is one of my favorite calls from Florida, many will follow but this should be a good opener. It's not as long as the others but its still will paint a pretty good idea of the intelligence involved here
me = Thank you for calling HSI support my name is jacapo, how may I help you today?
cx = Yeah I cant get online.
me = I'll be happy to help you with that. May I please have the phone number on your account area code first
cx = *rattles off the phone number*
me = Thank you, just a moment. *pulls it up and sees the customer is in Florida, and a hurricane just came through that area knocking out power for almost all of southern Florida* Well sir, it looks like your area was hit by the hurricane there, that would be why you can't get online.
cx = Yeah, but the hurricane is gone now.
me = I understand that the storm is over sir, but the vast majority of Southern Florida is still without power and the power company is still working to resolve this issue. Many of these areas are still flooded as well making it much harder to restore power sir.
cx = Yeah but I have power.
me = Alright I understand you may have pow...
cx = *cuts me off* Yeah I got my generator, my modem and my laptop all hooked up, so why can't I get online? *an edge of anger in his voice*
me = *pulls up a map of the area and sees this guy is in one of the flood zones* Well first of all sir I see you are in a flood zone an....
cx = *cuts me off again* yeah, but you ain't listening, I got power . *slightly more agressive tone*
me = I am aware that you have power sir, that does not however change the fact that you are in a flood zone.
cx = Yeah but I'm on my roof, so I'm not in the water.
me = *Stunned by the thought process of this person on my line* Sir, While you may be on your roof with a generator, your modem and laptop, that does not mean that our server for your area either 1. have power or 2. aren't slightly flooded like the surrounding area.
cx = Well then what the hell do I pay you for? *I can visualize the fire and smoke from this guy's ears*
me = *I decide this call is worth pushing a button or two* To provide you with Internet whenever our servers aren't swimming sir.
cx = Well shit, what am I supposed to do now?
me = Hang up, dial 911 and tell them where you are and that you are on the roof. hopefully they will take you to one of the hotels with Internet.
cx = Thanks for nothing *hangs up*
Yes this really happened. He was smart enough to bring a generator, his modem and his laptop to the roof, but not smart enough to realize that the majority of southern Florida being out of power would include our servers. Add to this he gets angry at the fact a NATURAL DISASTER has taken out Internet, a luxury service, and that hes not concerned with say, getting to dry land further inland, and it boggles my mind that this person hasn't been killed in a horrible accident at the grocery store resulting from an argument about how his pork chops should be cut. *sigh* I guess Darwin's theory has been slacking slightly.
Also a fun little extra for this area. Florida is also the place where we had a fiber cut caused by some locals shooting off their shotguns in the air near one of our lines. Now, splicing fiber cable back together is hard enough on it's own and takes several, several hours, add to this the next point. The cable end landed in an alligator's nest, complete with it's eggs while it was nesting. We had to wait almost 27 hours for animal control to bring the right equipment to move said gator and eggs safely without causing themselves harm before we could begin splicing the line together again. This made for some very funny calls
cx = Why can't I get online?
me = Because the main fiber line for your area is cut and we are waiting for animal control to arrive on the scene to remove a gator and its eggs.
cx = Oh... You serious?
me = *dead pan voice* Dead serious, however if you know anyone in the business of gator wrestling let us know, could come in handy while we are waiting for animal control.
cx = *hangs up*
me = *Smiles. Thank you evolution for inventing alligators*
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment