Job Update #2

...cuz myspace is borked and i need a whinge.....

and this is all going to be written lowercase, cuz frankly....it's nearly 2am and i don't give a flying fuck about punctuation.

i love my job... on the whole....really, i do. it gets me out of the house, keeps me out of trouble, and helps me pay my bills and keep a roof over my head.

there are times, though...that i find my job a bit difficult... essentially it's a simple job and i wouldn't say it's the kind of job a trained monkey could do, but so long as you're polite to people on the phone, and good with a keyboard, you'll do ok. the tough part comes in the people we deal with... some are rude, some are clueless, and some are just plain off the planet....

tonight was a typical case... i was on the outbound desk, doing callouts (in short, we call people who haven't called to confirm msgs that need confirming) for one company in particular down in melbourne which is once again having shitty weather and bushfires. anyway...dude calls in regarding some building somewhere in melbourne city that has no power. we log the call... and i call it out to the guy who says... no worries will get to the guy asap.

now on the outbound desk we also pick up calls transferred from the floor when agents are having difficulty...so i pick up a transfer from one of the agents.. telling me it's the guy who called in the call about the building with no power and he wants to know when the guy will call him. i take the call and explain that the call has been made and the on call dude will get in contact with him ASAP...meanwhile he's already logged another 2 jobs with the agent who put him through to me.

meanwhile, i've called out the other 2 jobs he's logged, one to the same guy i called before (which is not uncommon) and one to another guy who i woke up (tough shit, that's what you get for being on call) ....so they take the respective details and i think...ok my job is done, can get on with the (slow) night.

about half an hour later i get another call transferred from the floor which i pick up (which was mistransferred to the wrong extension AND not introduced.....ggrrr) and it's the no power guy again. he's pissed and wants to know why he got a call from X company about the problem when he contacted X company to begin with. i try and explain to the best of my abilities what our process is (e.g. we take details then call out this guy and he calls you) and that i was simply following the process we have, etc, etc.

went around in circles with this guy 3 times and he's just not getting the fucking point that my instructions were to contact that particular person for that particular building....he ends up deciding to contact someone else and see what the problem is (or whatever)

less than 5 minutes later i get one of the techs i called the job out to calling in on the confirmations line.... wanting to know if the contact number i gave him was correct.....because the phone has been ENGAGED for the last hour. i explain to him that i've just had the guy on the phone and he's not happy that he hasn't been attended to yet, and he should keep trying to get through to him.

so obviously this guy has been on the phone the whole time either to us or whoever else... while the tech has been trying to get through to him. smart, huh?

thankfully he never rang back though, so he must have got fed up or hopefully the tech got a hold of him somehow.

likewise when people ask when they will get a return call....AS SOON AS POSSIBLE IS THE BEST ADVISEMENT WE HAVE.

here's a hint...if this is the SIXTH call you have made and still had no response..either their really busy, or the business you called is FUCKING DODGY and you should seek help elsewhere.

kinda reminds me of all the rigmarole with X financial services we had LAST year. they weren't returning calls....so we were getting the phone calls from pissed customers about their tax returns (right near tax deadline...cuz...y'know....no one does their tax EARLY) wanting to know why they hadn't called back....i took 3 calls 3 nights in a row from some dude in china who wanted to do his tax return, and each night i had to give him the same line and take his details.

yes, i'm a messaging service....or answering service. no, i don't have that information...but i can take your details and ask them to return your call. whether they do that is not up to me, once i pass on your name and phone number, MY JOB IS DONE and whether they return your call is NMP = NOT MY PROBLEM. i've got the information i have on my screen. that is it. if i say i don't have contact details (which is 95% of the time.....people seem to want ppl to answer their phones but not to pay extra to have info for callers on the screen...) DON'T PUMP ME FOR INFO I DON'T HAVE IT! no, i can't transfer you. if you ask to speak to my supervisor, i'll gladly put you onto my supervisor... but don't be surprised when they give you the same info i just gave you.

likewise: if i say one moment please... don't you fucking DARE tell me "i don't have to wait" .....yes you do. whoever transferred you through to me didn't let me know, so i have to find the right screen in which to process your 3 messages in one which you always stupidly leave.... i know the guy can't help it, but jeeeeeeez......

eh....ok....done whinging for now. sleep then do it all again....fuck i must be insane.....