Vilewoman's off-topic random retardation thread.

:lol: I do the same job, not for AT&T, but still phone customer service. I've found that I have to create a different persona in order to do it well. I hate it, but it does pay the concert bills. I call it playing a game of "who's the better sociopath". Unfortunately, I'm getting good at it.
 
Just been offered £10 for a short translation. Won't take much to do, but I am torn whether to do it or not because £10 is ridiculous considering the going rate... (around 5 times that) but then £10 is better than nothing... :(

Thing is, if I say no just to make a point, someone else will be desperate enough to take it, so i will have no money for that job and I will not have made any valid point since it will get done anyway. :(
 
:lol: I do the same job, not for AT&T, but still phone customer service. I've found that I have to create a different persona in order to do it well. I hate it, but it does pay the concert bills. I call it playing a game of "who's the better sociopath". Unfortunately, I'm getting good at it.

Between uni courses I did multilingual customer service to pay for the fees.

One of the companies I worked for made us have aliases- So on day one they asked "let us know who you want to be" :yow: They explained that since we had two tiers of service on behalf of two companies, we had to use different names to hide that fact from the end customer (the companies who hired us were OK with it) So for 50% of the calls you needed a different name, and one that could be pronounced easily in 3 different languages.

I often went back home and answered the phone with my work name. :err: But I think my least favourite was answering calls from Canada at 8 am- all prank calls from drunken college students who had nothing to do in the middle of the night. I don't mind stupid questions, but don't expect any service from ME before my first coffee of the day.
 
:lol: I do the same job, not for AT&T, but still phone customer service. I've found that I have to create a different persona in order to do it well. I hate it, but it does pay the concert bills. I call it playing a game of "who's the better sociopath". Unfortunately, I'm getting good at it.

Oh please give me tips..I know how to deal with asses...hell i worked in retail for the last 8 years just have this feeling I am gonna fail epically when they make me do my first solo call
 
You just have to keep smiling and stay calm and patient. This morning I swear I got stuck on the idiot line. I've spent my first hour of the morning explaining simple addition to irate adults. I just have to keep repeating until their anger wears off and they finally realize we aren't stealing anything from them. I've found a few sayings really help between calls:

Addition ~ It's a wonderful skill, maybe they should start teaching it in the schools.

Also, when I get "my son is a lawyer", I'm just dying to say "that's nice, my son is a sniper".

A friend of mine got me a beer coozie that reads "Have a nice day.....After you go fuck yourself." It sits squarely on my desk and does help with the stress.
 
As far as names go, no one gets mine right. We laugh about it in our chat room. My first name is Glory. For some reason people hear ~ Lori, Dori, Flori, Florene, Gloria or anything else that is not my name. I sit back and think that my name is in almost 50% of metal songs, it can't be that hard to get right. :lol:
 
Kristina, you have to bear in mind... some people ARE jerks. But they are the ones that by complaining about your service will overshadow the great work you manage to do for the other 99.9% of customers, so sometimes it's better just to let them nag while you think of sex, beer, metal or whatever happens to flow your boat. Preferably all three things at once.

The French have a wonderful expression- "Le client est roi" Literally, "the customer is king".... But then remember what they did to their last batch of royals. ;)

So in my experience, short of installing the modern day version of a guillotine to deal with annoying customers, the "thank you for your feedback, we appreciate the comments from our valued customers and I will be sure to pass it on" is by the same level non-commital, cooperative from the point of view of your supervisors, and for the wankstain that is ruining your day, so much more annoying than a simple "fuck off"
 
Oh please give me tips..I know how to deal with asses...hell i worked in retail for the last 8 years just have this feeling I am gonna fail epically when they make me do my first solo call

Don't worry, the person at the other end of the line will probably be none the wiser, with it being the first time they call themselves- and if in doubt about what the answer to something is just put them on hold and check with any old excuse such as saying... let me get your data onscreen...

Unless of course it's one of those idiots who have nothing better to do than call helplines on a daily basis. In which case, you are fucked. But so will be an experienced customer service agent. :p
 
That's the upside of being field technical support. People are far less likely to talk shit to your face. :)

A certain breed of customer DEMANDS as their God given right that you provide a field technician on the spot... And most tend to get disappointed... although you wish you could meet them in person, such as a certain Sikh gentleman from London who called a helpline because his turban got stuck in the printer.

My friend took the call and to this day swears it's not the most bonkers call she's ever answered.
 
A nice story told by my son: he was once working as a helpdesk person for VISA. They had this offer: take our card and have it for free for the first 3 months.
A guy called and said: they charged me for 2.500 euros, wtf? They told me it was for free!!!
 
Don't worry, the person at the other end of the line will probably be none the wiser, with it being the first time they call themselves- and if in doubt about what the answer to something is just put them on hold and check with any old excuse such as saying... let me get your data onscreen...

Unless of course it's one of those idiots who have nothing better to do than call helplines on a daily basis. In which case, you are fucked. But so will be an experienced customer service agent. :p

LOL...yeah well they put us in a simulated billing field today...and somehow i ended up making the test dummies bill -$99.00....guess i will least be a customer friendly agent lmao
 
For those that might care, I've removed my Facebook profile for various reasons, but I can be contacted via this page or my email.

Might be a good thing. I've tried to stay away from this site. However, I find it amusing to read people's eagerness to share every little moment of their day with their 'friends'.

At least we still have RB to talk. Btw, will you be going to Alvinne Craft beer fest in March 2011? I'll be back in Belgium by then, could host you if interested.