I spent over an hour on a support call trying to walk an asshole lady through fixing her Adobe Illustrator, for her to stop mid-instructions to say she couldn’t tell me what the status was because her power was out due to a fucking hurricane in her area! 🤦‍♂️
Side note: that was one of the two times my bosses didn’t get upset at me for telling off a customer.
I'm the family tech support person so I know your pain
It's a pain in the ass when you have a parent who won't even try to learn to do something after trying to teach them and they call you everytime they need to do something
i actually went to school for computers for a bit, got my A+ and net+, but realized i get fucking outraged at my own computer when it has problems, i couldn't imagine the murderfest rampage that might ensue if i had to deal with morons and their bullshit computer problems--glad i didn't pursue it
One of our call metrics was that we were meant to solve one problem per call, because the customer paid for one problem to be solved. But of course we also had to balance customer satisfaction, while also limiting our time spent on calls. Joy.
This one guy had a couple of no-brainer issues that I opted to help him fix, but the laundry list kept growing and growing, as well as the length of the call. After about an hour, and repeated attempts to explain to him that he’s over-extended his stay (so to speak), I finally had to firmly (and as politely as I could muster) tell him he’d have to call back and pay for any further support.
He was livid of course, but I held my ground. Eventually I had to hang up on him. It just so happened that one of the VP’s from HQ was in town and in an adjacent office listening to me on my call. He came racing out of his office and shook my hand, saying that’s how support is done and how I was a rock star. It was wild.
I once helped my parents with a few minor things on one of their computers. Two weeks later I get a call... They have no internet on any of their devices. Obviously since I was the last one to work on their stuff I was the cause of the internet issue. While on the phone I hear my dad's weather radio go off and my phone dings with a severe weather warning for their area.
I ask if they are currently experiencing any bad weather... And they confirm that they have a very nasty thunderstorm and a confirmed tornado on the ground a few miles outside of the town... And they have no power.