customers_suck

I work in tech support troubleshooting corporate data networks. Essentially we manage all their traffic to and from locations and when customers start losing their date because of thunderstorms, viruses, customer caused network congestion and whatever else could happen they volume goes up and yet some ridiculous straggler gets though and want's something completely off the wall done and won't rest until he gets it. Here is a sample of such a conversation that happened this week. Let me set the story...the Dallas Fort Worth, TX area had a major storm that included tornados and lightning causing havoc to our networks. In addition smaller storms in the northeast and a major international cable cut affecting scores of customers was going at the same time. That was when this little Gem came ringing into my center:

Cast of Characters:

Me: Me
FW: Fuckwad: Grand Fool of a customer
CW1: Co-worker 1
CW2: Co-worker 2
CW3: Co-worker 3

The Story

Huge batch of tickets and troubles overflowing myself and other associates. We agree to only work tickets that are service affecting or HARD DOWN meaning the location is completely down and unable to transmit or receive data.

Phone Rings

Me: Hello?
FW: Hello *my name* this is *fuckwad* with *household name brand corporation* I need you to take a look at something for me.
Me: (being nice and professinal) Is this a hard down situation? I don't see a ticket or anything on your network right now that would indicate that.
FW: No no no I just you to check out *some ridiculously stupid thing* on this router because I'm not sure I like the way it was set up and would rather change it back now.
Me: (still being nice and professional) Well *fuckwad* I'm in the middle of some major outages and since that really isn't a priority right now I need to ask you to call back in say about 2 hours and if we are calmed down by then I'll be more than happy to work on this with you.
FW: Okay I think that will be fine. I'll call you back in two hours.

Two minutes later...

Phone Rings

Me: Hello?
CW1: I've got *fuckwad* on the line and he said you told him to call back when you weren't as busy.
Me: I told that *expletives* guy to call back in two hours because we're going nuts here!!
CW1: Well he's asking for you specifically.
Me: (pissed off) send him over.
FW: Hello *me* are you guys still busy? I thought I would call again and see if you could help me.
Me: Listen *fuckwad* I have 150...One Five-zero outages in front of me that I have to work that are hard down and need attention immediately or I can be fired. These are taking precedence. With the help of my co-workers we will get through this in about 2 hours.
FW: Yes but I assure you this will on take 10 or 15 minutes tops...let me bring you into this conference call with my CIO and my firewall people and while I've got you we can get this done right now. Hold on.

I hang up the phone.

Less than a minute later...

Phone Rings

Me: Hello?
CW2: *fuckwad* on the phone for you.

This co-worker doesn't even ask me if I want the call and transfers the call to me.

FW: Hey *me* I guess I dropped. Well I've got everyone here online. Are you logged into our router? We've already started making the config changes on our end and need you to make some changes on your end now because we are now completely down and need this fixed.

Me: (in disbelief) You mean to tell me you called me off out of the blue to make some changes that you KNOW are billable, bypassing our billing group, then trick me into a conference call with your higher ups, cause a network outage at your company on equipment my team doesn't manage and you expect me to work with you to resolve it?

FW: Well you said you were working hard down issues so we are hard down on our end.

Me: So you're saying you've caused a network outage behind our equipment, yet it's not affecting anything we mange?
(pause for effect)

FW: Yes...look we need you to make those changes in your equipment because we are now losing tons of money since we've made our changes.

Me: You're saying, by your own admission (note: we have call monitoring devices that record EVERYPHONE call in our center to tape for playback and also for legal reasons) that you have caused a network outage on your own network and you now want us to change OUR equipment which is, I might add, not hard down, configured to the specifics of your contract with my company and is at the moment up and running.

FW: Well that's one way to look at it. Look let's stop bullshitting around. Either you need to fix this right now or I'm getting your manager on the line and I'm goign to have your job.

Me: Let me ask that again. You want my company, more specifically ME, to fix a problem that you've created on YOUR network. By YOUR network I mean problems on equipment that I am NOT obligated to work on because YOU own it?

FW: YES AND WE ARE LOSING MILLIONS OF DOLLARS AS WE SPEAK BECAUSE OF IT!!

Me: *Fuckwad* I have 150 outages that are network affecting for customers right now. When you have an outage that is the fault of OUR equipment call me back. Otherwise I will not troubleshoot YOUR problem. Reset your equipment to it's original settings because at this moment in time I'm not obligated to do a damn thing for you.

I hang up the phone.

2 minutes later. *fuckwads router* goes down and my system generates a ticket.

Phone rings

CW3: *fuckwad* is on the line and he's PISSED OFF!!
Me: (almost glad to be having this fight now) send *fuckwad* over.

FW: Well now you have a fucking outage. I unplugged your fucking router from the ckt and now it's hard down. You need to deal with me now because at the moment my CIO is calling your manager and this is going to be fixed whether you like it or not.

Me: So again, by your own admission you've caused OUR router to go down.

FW: Of Course!!

Me: You do realize that YOU caused that outage and since YOU unplugged that router it's billable to YOu to either plug it back in yourself OR wait UP to 4 hours to have me send someone to plug it back in, at an overtime rate and billable to you, oh and by the way you'll still be losing millions of dollars in the process each hour because of your own stupidity. By the way you do realize we do record these calls, log these events and do consider sabotage of our equipment a criminal offence and in addition to charges and fees related to this outage you maybe be prosecuted for your actions as well as cause your company to be party to similar actionable pursuits by our legal team? I'll give you 5 minutes to restore our equipment.

I hang up.

Five minutes later the router comes back up. Fuckwad has yet to be heard from again.

The End.