Who is being served? Dreamed 27 days ago | Comment | 417 words

Today, during the role playing we were doing in our call center training, we took turns troubleshooting different issues the trainer through at us. I hate role playing. I have been taking calls with the help of my mentor for two days now. I don’t need to be babied through the process. But I do understand it helps others who have not worked in a help desk environment before.

Normally, when people call in to the center, they have entered their user ID into the phone system which gets sent to the technician and their name/address/phone number/etc is pulled up on the technician’s screen. So when you call me, if you’ve entered your ID correctly, I know who you are, where you are and the system opens a ticket so I am ready to help you.

In the course of taking calls the past two days, I have hit on a couple people who either skipped that prompt, or did not enter their number correctly. As a result, I get no record of a “fake person” record appear so the ticket is still able to open.

To me, logic would dictate you’d ask their name to be polite, then ask for their ID so you can pull up their record to verify their information and assist them.

I was told this is incorrect.

We must ask the user’s name, search for them, and try to pull the record up that way. The idea being people are not numbers and we emphasize that.

OK.

I have no problem with making people feel special and individual and important. Great!

However, instead of having an ID I can look up and get the correct record (one person to one ID), I have to ask their name and search.

Possible failure points here include:

Possible point of failure for look up via ID?

By the time the user has gotten to me, they’ve been waiting. Be it a long or short wait, there’s no difference to the frustrated user. They had to wait, and in this industry, they’re losing money. In addition, I want to make the transition from phone to human as smooth as possible and get them up and running quickly and correctly.

Now, I don’t possess any degrees of certifications in IT, customer service, or finance but it would seem to me the quickest and most accurate way to assist the user would be best.

Once again, the corporation wins over the user’s best interests.

Walkallovahyah Dreamed 35 days ago | Comment | 76 words

It’s amazing how soul sucking a job could be. If it weren’t for fear of losing my unemployment benefit, I would have declined it. But I couldn’t. So I’m there. Wasting my hours, my days, my life.

And when I get home, I feel so drained. I just want to curl up and sleep or lose myself in a game. I don’t want to face the world or do things to better myself.

I just want to escape.

History made Dreamed 63 days ago | Comment | 50 words

I voted for Barack Obama today.

I did not think I could help Virginia turn blue.

I hoped to, but was not sure I could.

But I did.

I don’t have the words tonight.

I am watching Barack Obama speak to the nation with tears in my eyes.

Can we, Virginia? Can we, America?

Yes, We Can.

Moving into a PC Dreamed 84 days ago | Comment | 328 words

While discussing old software with a friend who has foreseen the Retro PC Movement of 2010.

Chris : I wonder when people will start the retro OS movement.

Chris : it happened with 8-bit video games, I’m just waiting for t-shirts that say Win3.1 or the happy Mac icon

Chris : MINESWEEPER, BRAH

Chris : that will be in hot topic stores on stickers and shirts by 2010, mark my words.

I got to thinking about my solitary reason for moving from Windows 2000 Pro to XP Pro.
It was 100% shallow and totally not function related.
It was themes.
I could make my Windows install look (and function) like a Mac far easier and with less hacking than I could under Windows 2000.
That’s the only reason.

This got me thinking about how I move into a PC. In my last couple jobs I have moved the taskbar to the top of the screen. I install little apps like Multimon Taskbar (gives my second monitor a taskbar) and a little app to convert image formats in the contextual menu when the image is clicked. These little things help my work flow and aid my productivity.

For the first time, I was looking at my PC at work today… My dual monitor setup with it’s stock gray XP theme. Taskbars at the bottom. Short of a NIN wallpaper, I’ve left it untouched.

I never really moved in. Never made it mine. This was always a borrowed PC. Not something for the long haul. And now, as my 7 month reign of support ends, I see it. I never moved in. I never got comfortable enough to kick my feet off.

The most I did was install Google Chrome. (A joy to use.)

I should have known this was going to end soon. I never made it my own. Never took off my shoes and kicked the tires. Much like a college dorm, I was a nomad, just passing through.

How To Cheer Yourself Up Dreamed 85 days ago | Comment | 33 words

Open Photobooth.
Open this link
Try to copy the frown the man is making.
Take photo.

You will end up laughing at yourself.

I would post one but I have not been successful yet.

Certifications Dreamed 126 days ago | Comment | 78 words

I work in desktop support / help desk. I love helping people with technology and solving problems.

My co-worker has talked our boss’ ear off about certifications. So today I got an email from our staffing firm about a list of e-learning classes we could take.

I’ve never put much stock in certifications. I’m 100% self-taught. That being said, am I hampering myself by not being certified in this or that?

My question to the blogosphere is, is it worth it?

Ticket to Ride Dreamed 152 days ago | Comment | 311 words

Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride is a game where you try to connect different cities using colored railroad cars. The board game, also has an online version (free trial, $18/year) or an Xbox Live Arcade version (800 points) and is addictively fun!

Annie introduced it to me not too long ago since her college roommate had the board game and since it was a game that worked on our MacBooks we started playing. A lot.

I saw there was downloadable content available for the Xbox360 so the game must be there. So immediately we bought it, went through the tutorial (5 points!) and began playing.

First, I recommend reading the rules to get the hang of it. It’s not a complex game but there are some nuances you’ll enjoy knowing. Such as the game ends when you run out of cars. You can only play a set number of train cars and the first player to use all their cars triggers the final turn.

The game is additively fun and friendly for everyone and has become a current addiction! We plowed through most of the achievements last night but still enjoy playing even on the Mac.

I love this game because it helps me wind down after a long day, or in the case of last night, 2 solid hours of undefeated Call of Duty 4 playing. The biggest added benefit of playing Ticket to Ride online is the private chat feature so we can talk to each other and yell at each other as we wreck each other’s routes.

I recommend this game highly to anyone who enjoys simple puzzle games or has small children since it’s easy to pick up and can be easily grasped after a round or two.

Annie has ordered the board game and I can’t wait to sit down with our little train tiles and claim some routes!

How to screw the customer Dreamed 162 days ago | Comment | 203 words

Monitor your phone support techs with First Call Resolution (FCR). Basically, this is the percentage of calls handled by the technician without having to assign out a ticket.

There’s a lot I can handle, especially with the remote access capabilities I can troubleshoot a lot of issues. However, anything on a telephone, server, network, and hardware issues are completely out of my control.

To maintain a “proper” FCR, tickets get created as work orders instead of problem logs. There is a big difference here. Problem logs must be completed within 3 days. Work orders must be completed in 60 days. See the different here?

When we assign tickets, the person we assign to has sixty days to complete the work detailed in the ticket.

It is a disservice to the customer. Putting the “help” desk’s priorities in direct violation with servicing and helping the customers we are supposedly here to help.

This is the first position I’ve held where my responsibility to the customer is literally put at odds with the metrics used to judge my work performance.

The FCR metric is a sham. Anything that takes away from helping the customer is screwing the customer. And last time I checked, that was not my job.

Normal Dreamed 166 days ago | Comment | 192 words

I’ve made my relationship mistakes in the past. I’ve picked some people to be with who did not respect me. I was theirs all day everyday.

Only, I did not realize it.

Now, being with Annie, I see how a healthy relationship should work. I see how love should be. If I don’t see her for a weekend she doesn’t go to pieces and guilt trip me into feeling like a war criminal. If we don’t talk for a night, or much one night. It’s sad for both of us, but it’s not apocalyptic. It happens. We move past it and talk lots the next night.

In the past I’ve dreaded how much time I have to spend with someone. With her, I want to spend all the time I can because it’s so good.

It’s so good to be with someone (for nearly a year!!!) who makes me feel so good and I don’t have to change a single iota of my personality to please.

She loves me for me.

I love her for her.

I never feel like I can tell her enough how good she makes me feel and how wonderful life has been with her.

Team Fortress 2 Dreamed 173 days ago | Comment | 371 words

Night before last, I was delighted to see my friend Scott playing TF2. I was delighted as I’d been wanting to play it but not alone.

So I logged on, messaged him and soon we were shooting and healing our way through a cap the flag battle. At one point we were both Pyros and we were toasting the opposing team to a nice crispy golden brown.

It was short-lived but extraordinarily fun. After Scott left for the night I played a couple more rounds and a wonderful thing happened.

I came across a group of guys who were playing the game… for fun. They weren’t yelling at their teammates when we messed up. They weren’t cursing and screaming that we had misstepped.

They were laughing. And joking.

It was so refreshing to find that in a random game. At one point I was playing a Heavy with another guy and we just laid waste to a room of foes. We were standing back to back and defending out checkpoint to the death. And laughing hysterically as Scouts and Pyros would run towards us over and over and we’d mow them down.

We were eventually overrun, when we ran out of ammo.

After that match, I stayed with the same group and in the next match we were getting overrun so we decided to play a bit and all be Engineers and construct a vast array of turrents, spawn points, and healers.

Up until then, I never really understood how to play as an Engineer. And I didn’t ask for fear of the commonplace mocking of anyone who doesn’t know something in a game. But these guys were chill and we were helping each other out.

So I learned how to build and upgrade my turret, and good places to build them on the map.

And yes, once I placed a turrent backwards, facing a wall. Who knew they only had a 180 degree range?

TF2 was stupidly fun and as always, improved with a proper group of gamers who were out to have a good time, win or lose. We won some. We lost some. Eventually the hose quit the game and we were all flung back out to our corners of the Xbox Live.

But it was fun while it lasted.