cl0ckw0rkf0x

There's this guy at work, he's a new hire, just got on the phone last week, and one of the SMEs (Subject Matter Expert - basically floor support) got him and I to do some grunt work gathering information from the ticketing system. And since I knew the system better than him, I took charge and told him what to do and how to do it. I also may have pointed out that how the SME had suggested we do it was less efficient and there was a quicker way (because another SME had got me to do the same thing earlier and told me to do it that way.)

And now, every day since, this guy has been IMing me to let me know if I need any help with anything, he'd be more than happy to help out. LOL! He's under the impression that I'm like, in charge of something and someone he should kiss up to!

He wouldn't do a timmy's run for me though. I tried; he offered to get me coffee while he went for his on his break, but the coffee at work is vile stuff.

So apparently the president of best buy mexico called the other day, and wanted the size of his email inbox increased. Mailbox size increases are not a big deal; they sure as hell don't get priority; and I'm sitting in IPM and the analyst taking the call messages me to check if he should put a priority on it since this guy's the president of best buy mexico. I'm like, ok, this is obviously not a multiple user issue, and it's not times sensitive or having a financial impact on the business; does he have any other business case for escalation? And the analyst messages back "He's the president of best buy mexico"

Now, I had been watching The Tudors for the last several nights seriously, all I could see in my mind was this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7md0kT1rUB0

And of course I had to crack a joke about how size shouldn't matter, and that he needs to be making the most of what he has.

Josh Davies, from problem management, who looks over all the tickets we make for our calls, apparently talked to Antoine, the Operations Manager, and let him know that they have very few issues with my tickets and I'm doing a a really good job.

I'm like, huh? *bewildered, deer-in-the-headlights look* Wait, you guys care enough to let me know?

Whoa. It makes me want to, like...work harder or something crazy like that.

And this means when promotions come up, my resume will totally go to the top of the pile.

Most significant was the not being treated like I'm in high school. They have a strict business-casual dress code, and expect us to clean up our own messes in the lunch room.

There's complimentary tea and coffee.

The job will be easy. I have every confidence in my ability to do it; even with the shortened version of the training, I'm not feeling as overwhelmed as with the comcast training.

Only two of the class got in with no IT experience, and that was because they spoke french. It's kind of cool to know I've got a job that some random person on the street couldn't have got. The other weird thing is having a job that pays better than some, possibly even most, of my friends. I'm so used to being the one who's taking what I can get because I'm taking classes at the same time as work.

And not because Convergys is screwing me over, either. Rather the opposite. I got a new job. And I start on Monday. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse, and Convergys doesn't inspire loyalty. They will pay me about $3.50 more and hour than Convergys, and it's salaried, not hourly.

I'm very excited. It will be a job that I can take seriously. I've had an awsome week; finished typing a new story out last night, now a new job. I won't have as much time for writing, but it will be worth it. And with Nathan sick and off work, we could use the extra money for the wedding. I think the gods are looking after us.

This guy had his static ip assigned to his router... and all four of his computers. The same ip. *headdesk* He had figured out something wasn't working, and followed proper troubleshooting procedures, connecting a computer directly to the modem. Which didn't work, because the router was still connected to the modem, with the same static ip. That was when he called us. So broken....

I got three. It was kind of different when my focus in the call is not finding out what the problem is but finding what I need to tell the customer he can't have. And I have an agent who's done all the legwork for me already and can paraphrase in ten seconds what it would take five minutes for me to squeeze out of the customer.

This analysis may change, but this is what I've found so far; usually one of two conditions occur in an escalation. Either the customer is relieved to be talking to someone they perceive as more knowledgeable and all that crap and will take my answers more readily than they will the tier one agent or in a related situation, the fact that I'm the second person to tell them that helps solidify the facts in their heads, or they're really pissed, have gotten frustrated enough with the tier one, and most of the work in breaking them has been done for me, so it only takes a couple minutes to make them hang up. Either way, things that are difficult in a tier one call are made easier for me.

Also, being prepared for a customer to become irate helps. In a normal call, I end up too busy trying to fix things to pay attention to the mood of the customer and make sure my emotional walls are up. Taking escalations, the mood of the customer is more the focus, and I can have my walls up beforehand.

It's all good. I see no reason why I can't continue this long term. :)

Pissy customer with static ip issue that we haven't been able to work on for four days because his modem's offline due to an outage. We tried. Really hard. I could understand his pissyness. Eventually we decided to roll a truck to replace his modem because it had to be bunk. Curtis scheduled a must do - too early - scheduled it later - too late if tech could be possibly running late. Scheduled it for the right time for the customer, advised customer tech may still be running late, since it's a must do. Bastard still yelled at me. Ha, he don't know me too well.

"You're telling me I'm at the mercy of, not you, you're entire freakin' company..."yada yada yada.

In the brightest, cheeriest voice I have: "Ok, is there anything else I can help you with?"

click.

works every time.