[Scotty]

Got a job at Target on Tuesday.  Since then, I've been trained in how to cashier, unload trucks, stock shelves, serve food at the integral Pizza Hut and Starbucks, organize the back room, zone portions of the store (make them look pretty, essentially), and conduct the sales floor.

Since getting the job, I've put in 31 hours (at this point, those 31 hours are on a total of six days, five of those I actually worked.  I had Wednesday off) at what was initially supposed to be a 20 hour a week part-time job.  Six of those hours were today, and at time and a half for holiday pay, bringing my hourly wage to a handy $13.50 an hour.  By the time tomorrow rolls around, I'll have put in 39 hours (at two different stores) working six different jobs within the store.  Since I know how to do goddamn near everything already, the store leader for the store I work at primarily (31 out of 39 hours) is considering upping me to full-time employee, with near guaranteed 40 hours a week, in damn near any field of the store I want, subject to what the store needs on a given day.

All of this is also a full dollar an hour above the normal store entry pay rate, all because I initially volunteered to work early mornings unloading the truck.  As a result, everything I do on the clock is at that increased rate, even if it's sales floor or cashiering from afternoon to close.  Add on to all this I have my reserve drill this weekend for a chill $200, and I'm still working afternoons at the local commissary to the tune of ~$13 an hour in all tips (not reportable income, and therefore untaxed) for 15 hours a week, and I am almost literally rolling in money and jobs.

And I could get laid tonight, because a good friend is visiting from out of town for Labor Day, and needed a place to stay.

It's been a very good week.

[redsniper]

Cloud Atlas was phenomenal and you are all a bunch of noobs.

[Klaustrophobia]

Just discovered via facebook post by guy not realizing the old, long haired british people sitting across from him at the bar were Iron Maiden that they are playing in Raleigh tomorrow.  i really needed to know about this before now.

[Scotty]

Did not get laid.  Am not disappointed, as night was still fun.  Job is still good.

That is all.

[Hobbie]

I'm not normally the type to just randomly vent, but the tether connecting me to some form of calmness is getting perilously loose.

Every so often a time comes along where a client gains the impression that you're their own little Personal Support Representative (also known as a PSR). The duties involved of a PSR normally include:
-- Instructing the client on how to do his or her own job
-- Dropping everything you're doing to assist this client, no matter how important it is
-- Setting back urgent work to complete vague tasks
-- Having no compunctions against being on the phone for hours at a time
-- Taking incredible initiative and going far above and beyond their regular standard of work

A certain client has made me their PSR, very much against my will. My company does not provide PSRs. My company is not responsible for this client's inability to do their job. My company is not the one being paid to fix problems with the client's work processes.

My job, contrary to popular opinion, is to assist in use of my company's software system. Not to teach the client operational processes that are essential to the industry that they are in. That is not my area of expertise. My E-mail signature clearly says "Technical Support" not "X-Industry Process Analysis Specialist". I am not an X-Industry Process Analysis Specialist. I do not have the pay grade that every other X-Industry Process Analysis Specialist is presumably entitled to.

My time is valuable. I do not have ten hours a week to dedicate to this insanity, as I have for the past fortnight. Those ten hours are better spent solving critical issues in my company's software and ensuring that work that other clients that have, surprise surprise, actually paid for, is done.

I do not have time to have hour-long training sessions to teach people things that A) Take three minutes to do, and B) That they have already been taught. I do not have time to repeat these training sessions three-to-five times a week. I do not have the time to explain to said clients how they should be writing things down. I do not have the time to get promptly ignored. I do not have the time to listen to said clients as they complain about not having any idea what they are doing. I do not have the time to repeatedly explain why I cannot document their processes as they deviate from set industry standards. I do not have the time to write up documentation anyway, free of charge, for the sole use of said client. And I do not have the time to listen to the sob story that is the life and times of Captain Blindeaf McIgnorant and how no one wants to give them an easy way out.

Ladies and gentlemen, I work with some of the best people in the biz. You couldn't ask for a better environment. It's friendly, funny, and I actually enjoy work sometimes. But when I am used and abused in the manner that I have been, and when it is by an unrepentant, arrogant idiot who thinks work is something that happens to other people, my pleasant mood has a habit of rapidly evaporating.

It's my job to help everyone, and the world will be a happier place when the self-entitled and the arrogant realise that.

[Mongoose]

So I suppose politely telling said client to go **** themself isn't an option?

[Nuke]

id start mailing him detatched puppy heads on a regular basis.

Cloud Atlas was phenomenal and you are all a bunch of noobs.

thank you for not being the reason for all the mind numbing crap that comes out of the entertainment industry these days.

[Hobbie]

So I suppose politely telling said client to go **** themself isn't an option?

We have three options.
1) Make them pay for every fifteen minutes of my/our time they waste.
2) Refuse to support them if they don't want to pay.
3) Force them to attend a mandatory paid training session to fix their goddamn problems.

I'm partial towards number two, myself.

id start mailing him detatched puppy heads on a regular basis.

Tempting. Except I like puppies. Maybe horse heads in his bed.

[Nuke]

well its less trouble to just go dumpster diving at the nearest animal shelter, so you dont have to feel guilty about killing cute little fuzzy animals.

im going to the woods for an undetermined period of time. also my mom is threatening to kill herself. id rather not be here when that happens. most pack.

[Colonol Dekker]

not the worst.


Bit better...

Bit better still...

[Nuke]

not bad

[deathfun]

Coming this Fall. Join us in an epic twenty minute battle between an unwanted guest and he who sleeps in the room. A quest of glory, wit and unconventional weaponry coming together with powerful frustration as the two gladiators duke it out in the carpeted room. Starring Bruce Willis as a man who just wanted to sit at his desk enjoying a sandwich, with guest star William Shatner as the large ****ing spider. Watch as the fight between life and death unravels during this suspenseful thriller coming to a theatre near you.

[Lorric]

I'm not normally the type to just randomly vent, but the tether connecting me to some form of calmness is getting perilously loose.

Venting in this way is helpful for a release, and harmless.

Now if you can jettison this person and it be the right thing to do for your company (or sanity) I guess it's a good thing.

But maybe you could view it in another mindset: as a challenge to be conquered.

I've had to deal with difficult, patience-testing people in my life before, and it's improved my patience tremendously.

Something that stuck in my mind also is this, it's two extracts from a much bigger post. It stuck with me because while I haven't worked in tech support, in addition to the above, while I've never required anger management, in my younger days I had both a short temper and little patience. Now, I'm one of the calmest, most patient people I know, while I've still been able to keep my passion undiminished.

Now the extract:

I've worked Technical Support in addition to having to work through my own anger management issues as both a child and young adult. Fortunately, rather than taking the "lets medicate it out of you" route (which can still be viable, just wasn't in my case), I got to work through it by developing an understanding of what causes for it and developing the mechanics to help me step aside from it until I can look at it later. Working in technical support really helped with that, as when you pick up a phone and immediately have somebody absolutely SCREAMING at you, it is REALLY easy to default to the fact that they are screaming at YOU and therefor, YOU need to do something about it.

*snip*

In Technical Support terms, this means: You say "sorry" to the angry caller for their issue, even when they are screaming at you, because god damn it, somebody had better be! You need to let go of the personal matter of not actually being at fault in this situation and still manage to deliver a sincere apology (and for ****s sake, one that you actually MEAN and can uphold) for them being angry before you can start working on the technical problem they are having. If you continue to insist on not being at fault, if you continue to assert that you don't deserve them screaming at you (and yes, we already know you don't, they'll eventually realize that too) you will NEVER get the actual fundamental technical problem resolved.

So maybe you can try and think of how much of a better person this will be making you.

[Hobbie]

Lorric, there's anger at someone, then there's treating them with zero respect. This falls into the latter category and is not so easily conquered. I cannot and will not apologize to someone because they are unable to do their job. It is not my job to do their job. This has been ongoing for months now and we have been lavishing this client with tech support. They have utilized at least double the support hours they signed on for (which are done in six month periods) in three months. EG: 50 hours used in three months when they paid for 25 hours for six months.

If this were fixing issues with the software they are using, fine, great, whatever, no issues. But it isn't. For example, let's say I worked at Microsoft. I had an irate customer call up because they don't know how to write a word document. MS Word isn't broken. It's working fine. They don't want to know how to use any special features. They just want to write a certain document but, and this is the kicker, they don't know what words to use. So I spend three hours on the phone firstly explaining that we don't do that because it's entirely up to them, secondly, listening to their life story about how no one wants to sacrifice their time for them, and thirdly, teaching them something I really shouldn't be. Then they call up the next day, even more irate, and they've forgotten the words they needed to use to tell their Aunt Sadie that the dog is sick and need to be taught again. They didn't write anything down on how to do it. They blame it on not having any documentation. How can you have documentation for typing a letter to your aunt into an MS Word document? It's literally "Open MS Word, start typing". But the client doesn't understand that. If they were nice and understanding about it, I wouldn't have an issue (in fact, I have other clients who just don't get things as well. Difference is, they're lovely people and extremely appreciative). So you see my frustration.

Anger has never been an issue for me. I have short, sharp bursts of extreme anger that I keep to myself and I'm usually over it within half an hour. Probably because I have bigger problems to deal with, but yesterday, it involved chatting with a girl who gets a 9.5/10 on the hawt scale and NOT being friendzoned.

This isn't making me a better person. It's just trying my patience.

[deathfun]

Harvest his body for organs
Then sell them on the Black Market as payment for all the trouble he has caused you

[Lorric]

Lorric, there's anger at someone, then there's treating them with zero respect. This falls into the latter category and is not so easily conquered. I cannot and will not apologize to someone because they are unable to do their job. It is not my job to do their job. This has been ongoing for months now and we have been lavishing this client with tech support. They have utilized at least double the support hours they signed on for (which are done in six month periods) in three months. EG: 50 hours used in three months when they paid for 25 hours for six months.

Yes this is more difficult. The patience extending people were people who didn't mean any harm but were difficult to deal with. People who did mean harm, or were simply inconsiderate like this person seems to be, I don't think they really gave me any benefits in that way.

It sounds like this person has stepped over the line and has been allowed to somehow, and then they've just kept right on walking. Is this client important and that's why they've been allowed to take such liberties? If not, then maybe they should be pushed back behind the line, perhaps enough is enough and it's time for a change. If this person is destroying your mood and the mood of your colleagues, then maybe you should even just jettison the client altogether, if you can, because it could be having a knock on effect to the service you provide all round.

If this were fixing issues with the software they are using, fine, great, whatever, no issues. But it isn't. For example, let's say I worked at Microsoft. I had an irate customer call up because they don't know how to write a word document. MS Word isn't broken. It's working fine. They don't want to know how to use any special features. They just want to write a certain document but, and this is the kicker, they don't know what words to use. So I spend three hours on the phone firstly explaining that we don't do that because it's entirely up to them, secondly, listening to their life story about how no one wants to sacrifice their time for them, and thirdly, teaching them something I really shouldn't be. Then they call up the next day, even more irate, and they've forgotten the words they needed to use to tell their Aunt Sadie that the dog is sick and need to be taught again. They didn't write anything down on how to do it. They blame it on not having any documentation. How can you have documentation for typing a letter to your aunt into an MS Word document? It's literally "Open MS Word, start typing". But the client doesn't understand that. If they were nice and understanding about it, I wouldn't have an issue (in fact, I have other clients who just don't get things as well. Difference is, they're lovely people and extremely appreciative). So you see my frustration.

Urgh. Well you have my sympathies. If nothing else, I hope getting this stuff off your chest has helped, it helps me.

This isn't making me a better person. It's just trying my patience.

While I would only notice the improvement to my patience level some time after dealing with the people, unfortunately from what you describe, I don't think dealing with a person like this would improve me that way. I hope you can resolve the situation.

[Hobbie]

It sounds like this person has stepped over the line and has been allowed to somehow, and then they've just kept right on walking. Is this client important and that's why they've been allowed to take such liberties? If not, then maybe they should be pushed back behind the line, perhaps enough is enough and it's time for a change. If this person is destroying your mood and the mood of your colleagues, then maybe you should even just jettison the client altogether, if you can, because it could be having a knock on effect to the service you provide all round.

A) Completely unimportant.
B) Management seems to think it's not that big a deal. Management is a big fan of the head-in-sand approach.

[Lorric]

A) Completely unimportant.
B) Management seems to think it's not that big a deal. Management is a big fan of the head-in-sand approach.

Oh man. Even more sympathy for you...

[Klaustrophobia]

would they take that same approach with you should you decide to just hang up on the dude?

[Hobbie]

would they take that same approach with you should you decide to just hang up on the dude?

No. I'd get yelled at for not giving him proper support. Plus I hold myself to some form of standard.