People Make Me Laugh…And Cry
I love this cartoon. It’s an excellent representation of the temptation I often face at my job.
I don’t work in tech support. I don’t work at a technology or IT or computer-related company whatsoever. Our products have nothing to do with computers. Why they think I have the slightest idea of how to help their frozen computer play a CD or open a PDF document is beyond me.
But I get these kinds of questions anyway. How do they find me??? And why does everybody else at my job keep directing them to me? I try to be as helpful as I can, but I draw the line when they ask if they need two websites because they have two computers. It’s then when I tell them to back away from the computer and never touch it again.
We just introduced a new product. For the sake of anonymity, I’m going to be vague about the exact nature of the product, but suffice it to say that it comes fully assembled, has no packaging that needs to be removed, no moving parts, and the only thing you have to do to use it is unscrew the top and fill it with water. Imagine a glorified sippy cup, for the sake of this analogy. A glorified sippy cup that doesn’t even come blister packed.
It even comes with instructions, which are about as neccessary as the instructions on the back of a PopTarts box. Seriously, my daughter could use this product. She would make a mess with it, but she could use it without any trouble.
We received a call today from a distributor who can’t figure out how to make it work. By the time he called us, he had practically dismantled the entire thing and was playing tiddly-winks with the pieces.
Sigh.
October 5th, 2006 at 10:16 pm
Two websites for two computers? How did you keep a straight face? I would have wanted to say, “Here’s your sign!!”
October 6th, 2006 at 7:23 am
Yeah, I’ve had some real winners. I was also asked to use a different email address because he was on his office computer and the email I had was for his home computer.
My alltime favorite though, was “There’s a sticker on my box that says ‘Distributor ID Number: 42475.’ Is that my distributor ID number?”
October 6th, 2006 at 10:28 am
I worked in tech support for a while. It was, uh, interesting. Anyway, I know how you feel.
October 7th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
“I was also asked to use a different email address because he was on his office computer and the email I had was for his home computer”
October 7th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
“I was also asked to use a different email address because he was on his office computer and the email I had was for his home computer” That is absolutely hillarious, and the comic illustrates your point perfectly!
I often have to be the middle-man (actually woman) between our clients and tech support at my job and some of our clients call with incredibly dumb, strange, and nonsensical issues. After tech support and I have a great laugh at them, we have to try to figure out a nice, roundabout way of telling the client they’re stupid.