<p>Decided to do a few little monologues, short stories, snippets.. whatever in preparation for NaNoWriMo just to get into the writing mood again. Here’s the first, non-fiction (sadly).</p>
<detailstext="Customers suck, especially when they're employees."><summary>Customers suck, especially when they're employees.</summary>
"LTS, this is Matt, how can I help you?"
It's the standard line that all folks get when they call our department, Library Technical Services. It's one of those lines that is so rote, such a patterned behaviour, that I've answered my own cell-phone with it once or twice. I've only worked at the campus library for a year and a half at this point, and a good percentage of the problems we take care of are reported through a form on the library's intranet. Even so, I've got that line down pat. I lower my voice half an octave or so, speak quietly, soothingly. The people who call rather than using the request form are usually doing so for a reason - they want service now, their problem is urgent, and usually affects more than just themselves. Most emergencies with the public computers, desktops or laptops, are reported through a phone call.
"I... I can't find Photoshop, and I can't find Page Maker, and I can't find Outlook, and... and gosh darnit, you guys promised all of this would be on my new computer!" the frustrated voice whines from the receiver.
"Alright, ma'am, slow up a sec, everything's going to be alright, now--"
"No, everything is not going to be alright! I was told I'd have all the software that was on my old machine back again, and it's not, otherwise why would you guys ask for it?"
"Ma'am, please slow down, I think there's been a misunderstanding," I plead. "When we upgraded your computer, you were upgraded to Office 2007, so your desktop shortcut to Outlook is probably broken. I can fix that and install the other software items you need here in just a sec... Can you compile a list of all the old software you had on your computer?"
She's near tears by now. "I don't understand why you guys even asked me what software I wanted on the new computer if you're not going to install any of it!"
"That's where the misunderstanding was," I reply hastily. "We were asking for a list of software to be installed on everyone's computer in Liaisons, not just your station. We install the same operating system image on everyone's computer in that area."
"Well, this is absurd. I need Outlook back, and I need Photoshop, and PageMaker!" She sounds so much like a petulant child, I drop the phone. No, actually, that's a lie. I throw the phone. The portable handset skitters across the carpet and knocks against the wall, the battery cover snapping open and the battery pack tumbling free, smoking. No lie, there - I rush to pick up the battery pack and hold the shorting wires apart so that I can tape them separately.
I really shouldn't have thrown the phone, to be honest. It was just as childish and petulant as the employee I was talking to, but today is not a good day for me. It feels like school and work are conspiring against me to make my life as hard as possible. The last thing I need is an employee throwing a temper tantrum and blaming me for her non-issues blown way out of proportion. We know it's a non-issue: her software was indeed included on the list we were given with her name beside it, so we checked her drive over the network and found that the last access times for Photoshop and PageMaker were only a few hours after their creation dates, more than a year ago. Always on his quest to trim down the size of images, boss had gone on a bit of a spree, or the opposite of a spree, rather, pointedly not including software that people didn't use on the Liaisons image.
A minute and a half later finds me sitting in my chair trying to fix the portable handset I'd just thrown across the lab with little success, when the employee comes peeking in through the door to LTS. I hold up the phone toward her and mumble something about having a little bit of trouble with the handset, simple mechanical repair, sorry for the dropped call. My boss steps out of the office between us, just now getting up to see what the noise was.
"Bob," she whines. "When you gave me the new computer, I was told that I would have all of my old programs on it and there not there!" She still sounds a hairsbreadth away from tears, and my boss's eyes go wide at the sound, his muscles tensing as he backs away from this new threat.
"I think there was a misunderstanding," he utters. "Everything will be alright, if you just give us a second, we'll--"
I'm already wincing away at the sound of his very familiar words by the time she stamps her foot. I don't stay to hear the same thing over again, and quietly duck out around her to sneak out of the library and walk around the building once. I'm not relaxed enough by the time I reach the front doors and so I walk around the building a second time, thinking. Most of the employees in the library are sheep. I don't mind that, because, as technical support, it makes my job a whole lot easier. I tell them to do this, not to do that, and they obey with a look of fear or reverential awe in their eyes. We have a few that are bad for thinking they know rather more about computers than they really do, but this one is the worst type: the customer. The customer is always right, even when they're wrong, to the detriment of the those around them.
When I get back into the lab, my boss hands me an Adobe CS2 Premium case, an Adobe PageMaker disk, a DreamWeaver disk, and a list of downloadable software with an apologetic look. "She was awful... I think I'm scarred for life," he mumbles. "I'm gonna need you to install those for her. She went home for the day, though, so feel free to do it remotely."
"What's her computer again?" I ask resignedly.
"nwaite"
"Nora? Nancy? I forgot her name. Guess I blocked it from my mind."
