I Should NOT Have Called

A message was waiting for me today at work.  It said that a customer was having “Internet problems”.  Vague I know and not really my area as we don’t install DSL, but I called anyway.  Big mistake.  The “problem” was “improvements” made by the daughter to make it “easier” for mom to use the computer.  What resulted was a pissed of mom and a daughter who had returned to her home and not able to complete phone tech support.  You know that there is a problem when the person on the other end of the phone isn’t sure how the turn the computer on.  Basically it took 30 minutes to set the home page back to what she wanted.  This time frame was due to right clicking instead of left clicking, so on and so on.  My brain was about to hemorrhage by the time I got off the phone.  Next time I will just set up an appointment to go to the house.

Facebook

I have a Facebook account that I like to use to keep up with family and friends.  Well I added a person as a friend that I have not seen in 17 years.  Holy Shit!  The next thing I know there was an onslaught of crazy ass notifications.  Join this.  Take this test.  Become a vampire.  Do these types of people have names?  Well I will call them “Spam Friends” until I here otherwise or come up with a better name.

New Store Notification

I came up with a sign the I would like to post in our store. Of course, it was vetoed for reasons which will become clear in a moment. Here it what it says:

For all those people that bring back the fully functional wireless routers and tell us that they don’t work. The reason is that 90% of the time you are a DUMB-ASS! There will also be a dumb-ass assessment fee the amount of which will be proportional to our evaluation of how much of a dumb-ass you are.  Thank you, the Management.

There, I feel better already.

Talking Too Much

This is a bit of advice for those customers who like to talk more than listen.  SHUT-UP!  When you are talking, you can not here what the person trying to help you is saying.  For example, a lady came in with a question about one of the major satellite TV providers.  She has an account with them and wanted to get an additional receiver to use in a different location.  Several attempts were made by our installer/sales person to ask various questions about her particular situation.  This was not going anywhere.  The installer told her that in order to have service in two physically different locations, she would have to open a separate account for the second location.  This, of course, resulted in another outburst about why should she have to pay for two separate accounts when she was the one using the service in both locations.  It is the rule.  Nothing we can do about that.  Well after further comment she was about to leave when she mentioned, finally, that the receiver was to be used in an RV.  Well shit, that changes everything.  You can add a receiver to an existing account for use in an RV.  You just have to call and send in a copy of the RV registration.  Over 45 minutes of BS could have been avoided if she had answered the questions earlier and not tried to talk so much. I doubt, however, that she learned anything from this.

Pissed about Late Fees

A couple of days ago a man came into the store to rent videos.  He was really nice until the clerk stated that he had some late fees on his account.  The bomb went off!  The guy started using some really nice language towards us.  Turns out his “daughter rented the movies without permission”.  Of course she did, that is why her name is on the account.  I took the name off, put a note on the account about the daughter not renting anymore and told him that I was leaving the fees on the account.  I said that I would be happy to remove the fees when they were paid and that he could take it up with his daughter.

Next day.  A woman comes in and she is also very nice, at first, but blows a gasket when she finds out about some late fees.  Turns out that these late fees were “racked up by here EX-husband”.  I look at the account and what name do I find, the guy from the day before.  Wow, no wonder these two people are not married anymore.  I bet they could piss-off the Pope.

Snow Storm

A snow storm here caused the ISP to go down.  Evidently the server was overloaded by all the people who were stuck at home.  The person who knew how to fix the problem was stuck somewhere else.  Needless to say it took a while to get the thing back up and running.

My personal experience with this weather was getting back home from work last night in near “white out” conditions.  For those that don’t know, “white out” means that it is snowing so bad that you can’t see anything.  Thirty (30) miles of that can be a little taxing on the mind and body.  At times I was wondering where I was.  Definitely not the best time to be on the roads.

Smash Lab

The new show on the Discovery Channel called Smash Lab is pretty cool.  On the first episode they worked on stopping cars from crossing a divided highway and crashing into oncoming cars.  There was a ton of car crashing.  Everything is done in a semi-scientific manner and there are numerous slow motion shots.  Very entertaining for those who like to see things explode.

Rough Day

Ever have one of those days when it seems nothing goes right?  That would have been today.  It started out ok, but thing got bad quick.  The first person through the door was an absolute prick.  It wasn’t even time to open the store and he is pounding on the door looking at his watch.  Evidently the atomic clock in Boulder is off by 5 minutes.   Then there were the scheduling problems.  Seems the powers that be decided that it wasn’t good enough to do the things when they were scheduled we had to get them done right the f— now.  That left one to do the job of at least 2 sometimes 3 different persons.  Not to mention answering the phone.  Fortunately, some people are understanding enough to allow you to do something else before you get to them.  Oh well, lets hope tomorrow is a better day.

Neuropathy in the Morning

I have been experiencing some wonderful effects of neuropathy.  When I wake up in the morning it is as if long spikes have been driven through the bottoms of my feet all the way to my calves.  If slowly fades through the morning and there isn’t that much pain late in the morning.  In the evening, it does start to come back.  Sometimes just thinking about going to sleep and having to get up in the morning makes me cringe.  Oh well,  I will be off to complain to the doctor soon.  Of course, I don’t know that he will be able to do anything about it either.

Stupid Question of the Day 01/10/2008

We are currently in the process of switching our cellular providers.  Not because we want to, but because we have too.  So of course we are still listed in the phone book as being with the former carrier.  A customer comes into the store asking about changing his phone.  He is with the former carrier.  One of the employees explains to him that unfortunatly the carrier decided to go with a company from out of town and we would not be able to provide any services for them.  The employee stated that we couldn’t do new activations, upgrades, ESN changes, check accounts or anything involving this carrier.  So the guy asks, “So can you change this phone out for me”?  WTF?  Did he not listen to anything that was said.