http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/article/0,12543,484153-1,00.html
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
more hate
So most of what I do here is answer the phone. People who can barely drive a mouse, let alone double-click, call from all over the nation (and America Junior!) to lie. Big-time favorite claims: it worked before, I already tried that, it was broken when I got it.
One of the great advantages I have as a customer service worker is that I have zero loyalty to my company and no visibility within it. Since people don't know I exist, no one asks me for regular reports on customer satisfaction or how much of my valuable time I spend chatting with George in Florida about hurricane whoever. Basically, if you call me, I am as desperate as you are for human contact, and will happily spend 35 minutes walking you through instructions I could have emailed you in two seconds flat. Also, since I'm completely unaccountable, I totally send out replacement software to people who have used their original CD to prop up wobbly end tables. No charge! It shows how much I don't care!
Most people are pretty nice when they call. The profile for a jackass caller is midwest or western, male, who totally knows that every marketing scheme we've cooked up, or feature we've added to the software, is a huge business mistake and totally stupid. Take credit cards, for example. There is a set of people, wannabe consumers, who refuse to use credit cards. They call up and they demand that we accept, over the phone, their preferred form of currency, bat teeth or seashells or whatever the hell it is. I tell them sorry, we can only accept credit cards, and then they proceed to act like they represent a huge chunk of the consumer base for this software, and we're so insane for cutting them out, and they're going to post this on their favorite message board, and then the WHOLE INTERNET will know how STUPID we are and will SHUN US.
Right, like hippies living off the grid in teepees with their solar powered computers are really our target market, dude. Go shear a sheep.
One of the great advantages I have as a customer service worker is that I have zero loyalty to my company and no visibility within it. Since people don't know I exist, no one asks me for regular reports on customer satisfaction or how much of my valuable time I spend chatting with George in Florida about hurricane whoever. Basically, if you call me, I am as desperate as you are for human contact, and will happily spend 35 minutes walking you through instructions I could have emailed you in two seconds flat. Also, since I'm completely unaccountable, I totally send out replacement software to people who have used their original CD to prop up wobbly end tables. No charge! It shows how much I don't care!
Most people are pretty nice when they call. The profile for a jackass caller is midwest or western, male, who totally knows that every marketing scheme we've cooked up, or feature we've added to the software, is a huge business mistake and totally stupid. Take credit cards, for example. There is a set of people, wannabe consumers, who refuse to use credit cards. They call up and they demand that we accept, over the phone, their preferred form of currency, bat teeth or seashells or whatever the hell it is. I tell them sorry, we can only accept credit cards, and then they proceed to act like they represent a huge chunk of the consumer base for this software, and we're so insane for cutting them out, and they're going to post this on their favorite message board, and then the WHOLE INTERNET will know how STUPID we are and will SHUN US.
Right, like hippies living off the grid in teepees with their solar powered computers are really our target market, dude. Go shear a sheep.
hating
Here's why I hate my job. My boss sends email messages like this:
I forget what the parenthesized red figures mean?
Seriously. He does. More than once. And for several years. So I hate my job more than any job I've ever hated, including third-shift stuff and hot-sun stuff. Sunday nights send me into crying fits, and I hate meeting new people because they ask me what I do, and then laugh when I blanch.
Most days at work I don't do much. There's plenty to do, but I have to save my energy for the three flights of stairs that lead to the vending machine. Three flights! That's like, a mile and a half on the moon, right?
I used to play scrabble online, but constantly hovering over alt+tab and twitchily positioning my chair in front of the computer got tiring. Plus, I'm really bad at Scrabble.
For a while I had a little web route. Kind of like the Family Circus where one of the insufferable children wander around unsupervised, tipping over garbage cans and breaking windows. I'd hop from blog to blog looking for crumbs of entertainment and links to further work-avoidance possibilities. But after a while I got sick of the blogs or they all quit updating. The Onion only comes around once a week, so I was bored. Bored enough to resolve to be a better worker! Finish reports on time! Stop exaggerating to my boss about how long it takes to get product samples shipped from the warehouse! Clean up my desk! Get Organized once and For All.
So that lasted about 2 hours. One of those was lunch.
When you're this bored at work, when you hate a job this much, when you loathe your boss and detest your office, and dream of a city-wide blaze destroying the entire tainted block your building sits on, there's only one thing to do: start your OWN blog.
I forget what the parenthesized red figures mean?
Seriously. He does. More than once. And for several years. So I hate my job more than any job I've ever hated, including third-shift stuff and hot-sun stuff. Sunday nights send me into crying fits, and I hate meeting new people because they ask me what I do, and then laugh when I blanch.
Most days at work I don't do much. There's plenty to do, but I have to save my energy for the three flights of stairs that lead to the vending machine. Three flights! That's like, a mile and a half on the moon, right?
I used to play scrabble online, but constantly hovering over alt+tab and twitchily positioning my chair in front of the computer got tiring. Plus, I'm really bad at Scrabble.
For a while I had a little web route. Kind of like the Family Circus where one of the insufferable children wander around unsupervised, tipping over garbage cans and breaking windows. I'd hop from blog to blog looking for crumbs of entertainment and links to further work-avoidance possibilities. But after a while I got sick of the blogs or they all quit updating. The Onion only comes around once a week, so I was bored. Bored enough to resolve to be a better worker! Finish reports on time! Stop exaggerating to my boss about how long it takes to get product samples shipped from the warehouse! Clean up my desk! Get Organized once and For All.
So that lasted about 2 hours. One of those was lunch.
When you're this bored at work, when you hate a job this much, when you loathe your boss and detest your office, and dream of a city-wide blaze destroying the entire tainted block your building sits on, there's only one thing to do: start your OWN blog.
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