Every time we have heavy rain, we have connection problems with a remote facility. Every time I call and they ‘test’ and call back. Every time they tell me ‘oh, it’s a timing issue, it must be your equipment’. Every time I calmly explain that my router is functioning correctly, that it is not my equipment, that in fact it is your shitty, so-patched-its-a-miracle-phone-service-works-let-alone-the-T1, phone line causing the timing errors. Please send a real technician out to fix the problem. Every single time it turns out I was right and they were wrong.
I finally had it and snapped. I didn’t quite say: I am tired of being told it is my equipment, lady. Which one of us has a college degree, and a list of certifications as long as your arm and ten years experience dealing with networks and which one of us barely graduated high school and answered a help wanted add for a $7/hour job answering phones? It isn’t my fucking equipment you stupid, stupid, worthless hippo-rimming, lint-trap. Fix the goddamn line. But I did give her an ear full.
I used to have a similar argument with my ex-girlfriend. She’d claim there was something wrong with my equipment, while I insisted that the problem was with the service she was providing.
If I had a dime for every time I’m told it’s a problem with our line, only to have our field tech call me and tell me how the customer drove a field tech through the wall and over the channel bank, I’d have enough for a cup of coffee…
Seriously - Have you asked for a dispatch, so they can test the line? That, minimally should be in your service contract.
That was what set me off. I was asking for a tech to be dispatched to check out the smart jack and the line that we know has physical problems and she was trying to balk me.
Our telephone and internet was crap for a couple years. They kept switching the 4 wires from the service box to our house service box. You could barely hear the person on the other end over the loud hum. I would have to reset the internet equipment often enough at times that I installed a remote power switch so i could click it off and on. We finally got a guy that called in for a line replacement of our 40+ year old line to the house. Now the phone is good and so is the internet connection. It only took 2 years to get somebody to change the line, that went extremely bad every time the soil got wet.
A much shorter comment, but one that often gets a useful response: "The salesman from <Comcast> agrees that it is NOT my equipment, and says it will work fine when they install their line."*
Substitute any competing local phone or communications company for Comcast here.
Let me make a wild guess - this is a Telco, isn’t it? I’ll bet you saw test signals on the line and then it suddenly started working and they swore TO GOD that they didn’t test anything and didn’t fix anything and it’s all your fault you scum. Fscking telcos.
What else could this have been about except telcos? :smack: I need to spend more time with the mrs.
You had me, but then you lost me with the “I make more money than you so I’m better than you” bullshit.
I’ve been on the receiving end of this, and it’s invariably what the biggest asshole customers pull out when they’ve got nothing left to argue with. Arrogant and condescending. I’da hung up on you.
Been there. I have DSL, and after every rainstorm, the line would drop, and we’d get massive amounts of noise. I’d call SBC on that line, so they could hear the problem. It took two years of hapless techs and insistence that it must be an “internal wiring problem” (the only known good wiring, as I had replaced that with fresh Cat3 when I moved in). We were finally able to get a good tech out there while the line was still wet, he found the problem, fixed it and we’ve been noise free ever since.
I didn’t interpret that as “I make more money so I’m better” so much as “My entire career path directly relates to diagnosing this problem, and you’re a front-line tier 1 phone tech with a script. Can we please cut the bullshit and escalate already?” When the problem involves answering phones correctly and competently, I’ll happily take instruction from the front-line tier 1 helpdesk guys (speaking from the same generalized education and experience as the OP)–and in fact, I have.
In my call center days (at slightly more than $7/hour ;)) I hung up on exactly two customers, both of whom resorted to personal insults when they didn’t get what they wanted. Both times my boss actually had my back and I kept my job.
No matter what level one’s job is, nobody deserves to be verbally abused, and a customer who can’t be civil forfeits his right to be assisted at that point. I was lucky enough to work for an employer with that philosophy.
If you weren’t quite so full of yourself, or if you were half as smart as you think you are, you’d realize that the people you talk to are almost certainly following a script that they are required to follow in order to diagnose problems like this. Deviating from the script, even if they know the problem is probably on their end, will likely get them disciplined or terminated.