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I have job in Customer Service. Technically I am the technology manager for my campus, but my job entails a lot more than that. Some days I am staffing a computer lab, other days going to people's apartments to provide in room tech support, other days staffing the information center desk, answering phones or emails in our main office, or sorting out files in the department records room. I am on call 24-7.
The customer service part basically means-- anything someone living here wants, they get. If someone comes down to the information center desk at 4 am and wants a blanket, we get them one. If someone wants toilet paper we run to the store to get it. We carry luggage to rooms, give meal advice, help people find parking, basically ANYTHING.
We also tolerate a lot of bullshit because these programs pay a lot of money. I tolerate loud and obnoxious kids screaming as they run down my hall at 3 am when I'm trying to sleep, for example. There is this one woman however, who fucking drives me crazy, and I need to rant about it.
This woman is someone labeled 'high-touch' by many of my co-workers. Basically she constantly 'needs' things from our staff to make her feel important. She wants to know that someone is paying attention to her all the time, and she wants it to be as high up the ladder as she can go.
Over a month ago she came into the computer lab and complained to my staff that the wireless in her room was not working correctly. (She had already been living here for a few weeks, and it had not been working correctly the whole time.) She is very upset this hasn't been fixed, even though she never reported it.
She bullies my staff member into giving her my personal cell number. She then proceeds to call me multiple times and spam me with text messages demanding help immediately. She also demands the personal numbers of basically all of our technical staff, which I refuse to give her. I stop picking up the phone and respond to her via her email, which she ignores.
I send staff to her room on three different occasions to help her and test the connection over two days. I then escalate the issue and send one of the professional staff to fix the access point in her room. The professional staff tells me the issue is resolved and I do not hear a word from her again.
Then on Tuesday I get an email from my boss's boss. Some woman has been calling and harassing the desk staff saying the the technical staff is incompetent and refuses to help her fix her wireless... She has not been into the computer lab once to ask for assistance in the past month.
I immediately apologize to the bigger boss and explain the situation. I then go to her room on multiple occasions to try to assist her, but no luck reaching her. I also call her, and email her, but she does not answer.
I send her another email on Thursday asking if her problem is resolved, since she is not responding. If it is not, please let me know when I can come and work on the issue.
Tonight, at 4:02 am I receive a text from her. "No you haven't fixed anything. Tell me when you can come fix it."
I am really incredibly peeved with this woman. >.> She is not leaving until mid-August, and I imagine no matter how 'fixed' her wireless is, she will continue to have problems, and continue to refuse to contact the appropriate people to help her. (Technical staff is available EVERY DAY ALL DAY on the first floor of the building where she lives.... but this is not good enough for her, so of course she chooses to pester other people and then whine about it when they don't help her >.>).
ARGHHHHHHHH
(Also grumpy cause I was trying to take a nap before work-- which is 12 a.m. - 8 a.m. at the desk, and then 8 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. moving people in outside in the heat, and then 5 p.m. - 7 p.m. connecting 100 kids to the internet in one of our labs-- and the kids on my floor were playing tag so... had no sleeps at all. Also hungry and can't leave the desk.)
/endrant
Anyone else have those nightmare customers? XD
 
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your job kinda sucks.....i think you should find a new one ;3
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Had one guy come in and start litterally yelling at me for trying to fix his computer. It was overdue with one day and he wanted to work. I could understand him being frustrated, but man that was a kinda nightmarish. Co-worker who had been there a lot longer than me, basically told him to calm the fuck down and told him that we were actually helping him. Got quite a lot of respect for that guy now lol.
I was like "what the fuck just happend".
Yours sound kinda crazy though. cant you just give her a mobile broadband and be done with it?
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Damn, that sucks. Some people...
Don't give this woman what she wants. If she is constantly nagging for her wireless to be fixed, just brush her off and say, 'I'm afraid you'll have to wait a while.' If she then kicks up a stink, mention that it was already fixed before. If she is really insistent that she gets attention, just be as brief and to the point as possible, and if nothing is amiss, you have an excuse to ignore her requests because she keeps talking BS. In general don't give her the attention she is constantly battling for.
Edit: In hindsight this is bad advice. This seems to be a trend for me.
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On July 30 2011 17:35 RedJustice wrote:
She bullies my staff member into giving her my personal cell number.
Aren't there laws against that kind of thing? I remember my last employer making it very clear that we couldn't give customers any personal information about coworkers.. In any case, wtf at that.
Also, if her wireless isn't working, isn't that a valid reason for her to be not replying to e-mails? haha
On July 30 2011 18:14 HavokTheorem wrote:
Damn, that sucks. Some people...
Don't give this woman what she wants. If she is constantly nagging for her wireless to be fixed, just brush her off and say, 'I'm afraid you'll have to wait a while.' If she then kicks up a stink, mention that it was already fixed before. If she is really insistent that she gets attention, just be as brief and to the point as possible, and if nothing is amiss, you have an excuse to ignore her requests because she keeps talking BS. In general don't give her the attention she is constantly battling for.
Disagree. It might suck, but it's still his job. You don't "punish" customers.
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She answers her email throughout the day, lol. I know this because my boss receives an email update from her about her program each morning. She claims she only has wireless issues in her room, and is able to access it everywhere else on our campus.
EDIT: And... idk if there are really laws about giving out someone's number. At any rate my staff is very young and inexperienced (good kids, but don't always use their heads when they encounter something new) so it was not a deliberate poor choice.
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This kind of person is really just sad and lonely. If you want to make it as easy for yourself as possible I'd reccomend doing whatever she asks you to but always only do what she requires, work in complete silence aside from what you have to tell her/answering her questions and never show any emotion or acknowledge her personal grievances. You're not a therapist you're a "technology manager".
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Your employees gave out your PERSONAL PHONE NUMBER to a customer? They're incompetent. Fire them ASAP.
That said, maybe you should fix the issue she has? If it's been this long and you still haven't actually fixed it, maybe she has a point?
If it's already been fixed several times, you can go talk to your boss with your employees and tell them what's been done already and why the woman is a nutjob.
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My employees are supposed to have a customer they can't handle talk to me (they are supposed to call me on their phone and let the customer talk to me there, or call me to come over in person). I give out my personal number to certain program leaders, but that's at my discretion (all nice people who only call me when the internet is down for an ENTIRE BUILDING, lol). And... I can't fire them because we are at the absolute minimum staff possible, and it took me well past the projected deadline to find anyone as competent as them.
That's the thing. It has been 'fixed' multiple times by someone showing up to her room and it magically having no problems, and while it may be having issues again, she didn't come and ask for help in the place where it's clearly and easily available-- instead she was calling the front desk staff of another building, and then complained no one would help her... and then ignored my calls and emails for a week before sending a text at 4 am to tell me to come fix it.
And... she's a nutjob and my boss knows it. But we have to humor her because it's a multi-million dollar program. >.>
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Multi-million dollar program? What the heck are we talking about here? ^^ People who pay a lot of money oftentimes want attention and feeling taken care of, so you better compliment her at all times and give her a fuzzy warm feeling. 
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EPT
