Generally I usually ignore the rants and carry on. But it makes me wonder what I have done to deserve the onslaught.
The phone rings late one morning and I answer.
"IT Support" I say, ready to be helpful.
"Oh yes" a gruff, man's voice on the other end answers. "I am at home and I am trying to log in to my email and my password is not working I tried to change it but it didn't work and I won't be in the office until next week and I need to get some messages sent and..."
I zoned out before they finished this tirade and found myself wondering when they were going to pass out from lack of oxygen. I was out of breath just listening to it.
"Ok..."
I got cut off with yet another bombardment about everything they needed to do today. So I held the phone away from my ears to save them abuse until I finally managed to get a sentence in.
"OK, first of all, what is your name?"
The voice finally stopped for a second (probably to process this question) and finally answered with a woman's name. I was a little taken aback as I had been almost 100% certain that it was a bloke. Obviously I was wrong, unless they were a transvestite. But I am not here to judge (much.)
I look up the woman's name as she started to rabbit on again. When she finally pauses for breath I tell her that I need to confirm who she is, before I can do anything on her account. She didn't have a problem with this until... I asked her, her postcode.
"I'm sorry, that is not the postcode we have on file." I tell her looking at the details on my screen.
"That's probably true, I keep telling HR to change it."
"Well it may be a good idea to have another word with them next time you are..." I wish I hadn't said anything as I was then treated to another two minute rant about her not having any time to do anything other than her job when she comes in.
I pulled the phone away from my ear again and this time I carried on with what I was doing before she rang, waiting for the voice to slow enough to ask the next question.
"Well let's try something else. What is your employee number?"
Off she went again.
"I don't know what that is I am hourly paid I can't get in and need to send some emails..."
I was getting quite a bit done while she talked, with her on the phone; no one else could ring and I almost finished my task as her voice faded again.
"It's on your payslip" I tell her.
"Oh, right, I just got paid." (Oh good!)
She then proceeded to read out every useless piece of information on there, without touching on the part we actually needed.
"I just need your employee number." I explain.
"I don't know what that is..."
I then told her that I couldn't do anything with her account until I could verify who she was. The only other way was to see her ID card.
"Ah, well, that's in my car outside."
"So you are in the office?"
"No, I am at home my husband is here and he's just fallen asleep in his chair and I can't get in and I need to get into me email and send messages..."
I tried again. "I understand that. But I need to verify who you are and you have not given me the correct information, the only other way is to see your ID card."
"I can't come in and when I'm there I am hourly paid and don't have time to do anything..."
By now I was out of odd jobs to do, was very frustrated to say the least, and on the verge of hanging up on the woman. She just kept cutting me off midsentence and wouldn't listen to what I was trying to explain to her.
In the end I finally convinced her to contact our finance department to get them to confirm her employee number.
I hung up, relieved to have gotten rid of her... for ten minutes.
She calls back and she finally has some information for me. It's one digit out, but no matter, it was close enough.
Again, it wasn't enough just to answer my question, I then got yet another round of her woes, trials and tribulations about how she needed to send some emails.
I reset her password as quickly as I could and told her what it was; I also explained that she needed to change it next time she was in, to make it more personal and more secure.
Cue rant. She then repeated herself for the umpteenth time and I was just sitting, phone held away from my ear, gritting my teeth and about ready to bang the receiver hard on the table.
I had to explain three times that she could do this from any computer within our company.
"But I need to log on now I have emails to send I am hourly paid..."
"You can..."
"I don't come in very often..."
"You can log..."
"if I don't get these sent..."
I eventually completed the sentence. "You can log on now with that password I have just given you, you just need to change it when you come back in. You can do that on whatever computer you log on to."
"So I can access my emails with that password right now?"
"YES!"
"Oh good, thanks. Bye bye."
I hung up. Actually I slammed the phone down, cursing the day that computers were ever invented and praying to god of helpdesks that that woman never phones back. EVER!
Oh my poor ears, it just goes to show that no good deed goes unpunished!
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