4. The Cold Facts, Ink What?, a Bag of Viruses and Warranty Hell

The Cold Facts

From: Ken

A number of years ago at my first helpdesk role in Canada I had a call centre manager walk up to me and start complaining in my face regarding her laptop not starting up. She was in quite the panic as she had a meeting in a short time with all the big bosses.

I walked over to see what I could do to assist her and as I went to open the laptop screen it was cold as ice! The whole laptop was frozen solid, the keys were difficult to press the screen was like glass. She then offered me a possible explanation, "I left it in the trunk of my car over the weekend". Mind you it had been a abnormally cold weekend in winter with temps far below -20. Needless to say I told her she'd have to wait till it warmed up to room temperature before trying again.

She offered another solution which was to put it in the microwave, I laughed thinking it was a joke and when I realized she wasn't I gave her a firm No!

Later that morning she called and apologize for her mishap and that 20 minutes after I left it turned itself on. Yikes!

All stories in this section are from Mark Casey. They happened when Mark worked for a "nationwide office supply store".

Ink What?

CUSTOMER: Excuse me sir. Where do you keep the ink cartilages?

ME: The ink cartidges?

CUSTOMER: ... ... ...yea, the ink cartilages.

ME: Right over there ma'am. Here, let me help you find the right one.

A Bag of Viruses

CUSTOMER: Young man, where are your computer viruses?

ME: Excuse me? Our computer viruses?

CUSTOMER: Yes

ME: .... .... right over there on that wall. Let me tell you we've got some good ones! (I guide her to our collection of anti-virus software.)

Warranty Hell

Sometime prior to my employment a customer had purchased a great looking laptop with plenty of power for his daughter. It was Pentium 4M based I believe. They called in to say that the thing was really messed up and that they wanted to exchange it.

When I saw this thing it was difficult to not curl up and cry. There were bright smiley face stickers all over it, deep scratches in the screen, Sharpie marker marks all over the case, keyboard keys missing and the eject button for the pcmcia slot was just flat GONE. It looked like a GI Joe that had been tortured and forced to play Barbie. It was very traumatic for me.

Have a nice day, sucka!

Dad had purchased an extended warranty that unfortunately for me did not cover abuse. He ranted and raved for a bit and told me how Competitor X would give him a loner laptop and fix it in a day. I wanted to tell him that if Competitor X saw this laptop they would think twice before servicing it, but I couldn't. In fact since we were a sales only type store and the company they named wasn't even a direct competitor, I was really quite defenseless.

As politely as possible I referred the man to the company that handled the warranties and let them use our phone. The customer was very impatient with the person on the other end of the phone, even though he hadn't even bothered to register the warranty properly when he purchased it. He gave the warranty associate hell, but I think he knew the whole time he was being unreasonable as he eventually backed off, hung up, and just walked out.

Join our discussion on this topic