Bitching, moaning
Sometimes it feels like I spend all my time here complaining about stupid things people do, but the past couple of weeks have been so rich with stupidity that I can’t really resist.
Item the first: Last November, I bought Chris an Xbox 360 for his birthday. Less than a year later, it has died on us, leading me to spend an hour on the phone with Microsoft customer service. I don’t know if you’ve ever called Microsoft about a problem with your Xbox, but the whole experience seems clumsily targeted at teenage boys and fills me with murderous rage. The automated voice system has that sort of fake-cool tone you get in soda commercials, and the rep I spoke with kept asserting that various things were cool. The Xbox serial number, the color of the power supply light, my zip code: all cool. He also didn’t know what he was talking about. (“It sounds like your AV cables just, uh, died. I guess.”) In the end, we got an empty white box in the mail after about two weeks. It’s been another two weeks since we’ve seen the Xbox.
Item the second: FreshDirect delivery people are allowed to call if they’re in the neighborhood and want to deliver an order early, which is fine. But recently, I heard our doorman call up while I was unavailable to answer the house phone, about an hour before a delivery we’d scheduled. I figured the FreshDirect guy (if it was him) would assume we weren’t home and would just come back at the scheduled time. Instead, I heard our doorbell ring a few minutes later. Then, incredibly, I heard the guy jiggle our doorknob several times. What, was he just going to come in if it was open? It wasn’t, so he soon went away.
About an hour later, Chris happened to open our front door on his way downstairs, and discovered our food melting in a ninety degree hallway. Not only did the guy not care that we didn’t sign for it, he didn’t even bother to call and tell us what he’d done. After I scraped the ice cream off the carpet, I called and got a full refund, but I think we’ll still avoid ordering on Saturdays from now on.
Item the third: I placed an order on the Sears website a couple days ago. Later that night, a Sears rep called my house to ask what the shipping address for the order was. You know, the shipping address I entered during the checkout process. The one it wouldn’t have let me place the order without entering. I am without words.
Well, those AV cables can be notoriously finicky.
If the Meinhotlz fields aren’t perfectly sync’ed with the harmonics of the alloy generators during the manufacturing process, you can get some terribly futzy AV cable reception.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
It’s like there is some huge shame in saying, “I have NO idea why your Xbox (toaster, computer, whatever) isn’t working, but it’s still under warranty, so let’s get it fixed.
Welcome to the dying xbox club. I had mine flashed, pirated, broken, banned from xbox live, and without the warranty adhesives, but they replaced it with a new console.
Yay!!
*Rage at Microsoft Hotlines*
My console just decided to crap out on me as well. The best part is before it died it completely ruined my copies of F.E.A.R. and Bioshock. I’ve been on hold for about twenty minutes. Good times.
I don’t have an xbox, but it’s cool–I fully acknowledge your awareness of the apparent public rise in stupidity.
I just had the same experience with Time Warner’s Cable service. The person handling my call repeatedly said things were cool and I should just “chill” when it came to asking questions regarding billing for new channels. Not sure if this casual tone is a trend in their industry.
Sounds EXACTLY like my own experience. I had an Xbox 360 sent in for repair. I got a replacement unit and played it for approx. 30 minutes when I got a RROD! I almost threw that piece of shit through a window. When I called in, the guy had a very thick indian (or whatever the PC term is) accent. He kept saying “You sound like a cool dude.” I said “I DON’T CARE IF I’M COOL, FIX MY SHIT!”
I still don’t have an Xbox 360 back
> Instead, I heard our doorbell ring a few minutes later.
So why didn’t you answer the door? Door bell rings the usuall respones is “who is it?!” Or is that the “doorman’s” jorb?
As I said, I wasn’t able to answer the door. Consider the fact that there are a lot of reasons someone might be home and yet not available to come to the door - in the shower, not dressed yet, having sex, in the bathroom.
Yea, check out my blog for a very similar chronicle of Microsoft X-Box 360 woes, spanning several months:
http://direnerd.com/?page=news
in the shower, not dressed yet, having sex, in the bathroom.
That sounds like one reason…
That is so hilarious. Do they think that teenagers don’t understand adult language? Or that they don’t appreciate professionalism? Or that they will seem cool if they use the latest 60-year-old slang?
Clue train: teenagers don’t act the way they do because they are stupid, they do it to individuate from the stodgy establishment they’ve been exposed to their whole life. Adult attempts to imitate make a person look a sad, shameful reject without an ounce of self-esteem.
So, this is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but when the last ass-clown in the bottom-feeding service industry shirks the basic responsibility and competence needed to do the job. It’s no wonder: the benefits are horrible.
Yours in entropy…
in the shower, not dressed yet, having sex, in the bathroom.
Now you know why the delivery person jiggled the doorknob…
For more unbelievably painful ersatz cool, try calling Virgin Mobile’s support line, just to listen to the recordings. 1-888-322-1122. The subtext of the whole experience is “our demographic is young, hip, and thinks being condescended to is wicked cool. Do you people still say wicked cool?”.
You shouldn’t ever be obligated to open your door even if you’re home. I completely agree. And there’s no way the delivery guy should just leave perisible stuff without any notification.
The sad thing is, you could make yourself very depressed listing all the times that customer ’service’ falls way short of reasonable expectation. My personal bugbear is the automated phone answering systems that use voice recognition. Just when everyone finally got touch tone phones. Do they really think they’re fooling anyone with their overly-friendly recorded messages; “Just say what it is you’re calling about and I’ll put you through to the right person”, “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that” etc, etc. Just let me press 1, 2 or 3 - I’ll even believe that your menu has recently been updated..!
It’s now like a breath of fresh air when you call a customer service line and get a real, competent human without having to battle one of those systems, and yet what you’re relieved about is just someone doing their job to a normal standard.
I will not shop at Sears any more for a similar reason. I placed an online order with them (that alone was quite a task), because it was an appliance, they were supposed to call within 48 hours to arrange for a delivery time. Never got the call, and when I called 72 hours after placing the order I was told the order had been canceled and that I “should have gotten an email about it” (I did check my spam mail, but there was no supposed email). I’ve heard many stories about how horrible Sears is in regard to customer service.
@John - you’re an ass
> So why didn’t you answer the door? Door bell rings the usuall respones is “who is it?!†Or is that the “doorman’s†jorb?
What is it that makes people become douchebags and try and poke holes in people’s stories?
She was under no obligation to answer the door if she was otherwise occupied or just didn’t feel like it.
As for the doorman - she probably lives in NYC and it is common to have one doorman for the entire building.
I am in the customer service tech support industry, and I work at a company where scripts aren’t used and we don’t have a “corporate” image to maintain, so I am just “me” on the phone and I use words like “cool” and “chill” and others like them, not because it’s a corporate mandate, it’s because I can solve your problem better being “me” than trying to act like some “professional” tech support weasel whose only goal in life is to make it to the next break.
I am knowledgeable and when I am working with you I actually care enough about your issue to “take ownership” of it; not blow you off and hand you to someone else. Conversely, if you present me with an issue I know nothing about or have never heard of before, I will admit that too. If you need a refund or cancellation, that will happen with no questions asked. The bottom line is I want to go away from our company with a good experience, even if that means a net loss to my company.
I am trying to build up the business; that means I have to respond positively to customer requests. Unfortunately, a lot of companies still treat the customer as an enemy to be reviled. That eventually comes back to bite those companies.
Sorry, I should have said, “I want YOU to go from our company with a good experience…”
As a professional designer of voice response systems, I echo your frustration, but that much more amplified. There are so many fuckwits out there who build those things like they’re some sort of goofy flash animation.
IVRs can be extremely helpful and convenient, and are typically quite expensive to build and maintain; why go through the money and trouble to build something that pisses of your customers?
(Besides, why make it so teen friendly? Moms are going to be the ones making the calls, anyway.)
I had a similar, yet less depressing call to X360 support. I was having issues because a rep in the system told me that Microsoft Points could be transferred between accounts. I was new to xbox live and silly me, believed her. When teh transfer didn’t go through, I called back to support. The guy on the phone was very friendly but unable to help me. I escalated the call up to a supervisor and requested the transfer be processed. He said it was an impossible action. He couldn’t do it. I politely told him that because he was unable to help me that I would like to speak with HIS supervisor. He said he didn’t have one. I again, politely replied that I work in a call center, everyone has a supervisor, find one. He said that I requested to speak with a supervisor and I got one. I asked him, “Who is your supervisor? I want a name.” He replied, with what I can only assume was a poo-smeared grin and said, “Bill Gates.” Too flabbergasted to respond, I simply hung up the phone and ate the $10 that it cost me to change my Xbox Live Gamertag.
Having worked at a call center myself for years (thankfully, I’m free of that now), I don’t understand why, james, you would act like an asshole over $10. You spoke to a rep who couldn’t help you. Inexplicably, you escalated, knowing full well a friendly rep will help you out in any way possible, even if that means grabbing a sup themselves. Then you got stonewalled. Big shock there. The lesson: hang on to friendly reps and don’t insult them by asking for their bosses. Most sups are assholes and the further you go up the chain, the less accountable they are for their customer service.
For more unbelievably painful ersatz cool, try calling Virgin Mobile’s support line, just to listen to the recordings. 1-888-322-1122.
Thank you, Nat, you took the words right out of my mouth more eloquently than I ever could…and if life (or at least this thread) was a sitcom, the same clueless, cool-less VM execs who came up with those “wicked cool” recordings probably would pay big bucks to use your quote in their next ad campaign.
My husband and I have an eBay Store (among other eBay-centric life/work involvements) so we are all about Positive Feedback. I try to make a point of letting a Supervisor know whenever an employee has been especially helpful/patient/just plain nice. But when an eBay Live Help[less] rep insisted on starting off each and every IM with “I hope you’re having a great time @ eBay”, I finally had to tell him — very firmly — : “Dude. CHiLL. If I was having any kind of GooD time, I wouldn’t be calling y’all @ Live Help[less]. But if and when it DoeS get better, hopefully you’ll be the 1st to know!”
Steve, re: “…we don’t have a “corporate†image to maintain, so I am just “me†on the phone and I use words like “cool†and “chill not because it’s a corporate mandate, it’s because I can solve your problem better being “me†than trying to act like some “professional†tech support weasel whose only goal in life is to make it to the next break.…
Your next paragraph makes it clear that you are indeed an articulate and credible young entrepreneur, so maybe you’re right about Emma’s everything’s-cool dude being some “professional” tech-support weasel — and if there’s ever a Pro-Am Tech Support Tournament, I want to be there so I can ROTFLMAO — but my business involves customer service and content management, so maybe the poor guy just needed a good scriptwriter plus a little coaching/training?!?
LBNL, apropose of [being] in the shower, not dressed yet, having sex, in the bathroom: Tony C., you nailed it re: that’s why the delivery guy jiggled the doorknob *LOL* Bearing in mind our latest American political scandals, however, perhaps Emma and Chris should count themselves lucky that it wasn’t an airport bathroom (i.e., no fear of home invasion by wide-stance tap-dancers) — although on the other hand, at least then the delivery guy could have slid the groceries under the door (so to speak)~{{;>}~!!!*
oops, I see that I seem to have ommitted a tag…but at least my caps lock key never sticks *LOL* (You would think that Some People would take a hint from the fact that even their caps lock key doesn’t say CAPS LOCK; at least ours don’t…)
And since I seem to have overlooked an inappropriate “e”, let me say again (because I wanted to share this joke anyway):
LBNL, apropos of being in the shower, not dressed yet, having sex, in the bathroom…
The traditional ending verbally supplied when reading aloud a Chinese Fortune Cookie is “in bed”. But thanks to the silliness induced by rice wine (or whatever it was) during a particularly lengthy and raucous take-out feast, we discovered that “on drugs” or “with gas” work just as well.
Needless to say, the ne plus ultra around here is now summed up as “in bed, on drugs, with gas” — but the best part is that it is at least equally funny no matter what order you say it in~{{;>}~!!!
p.s.\Don’t worry about that dangling preposition, I’ll come back for it some other time…