Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

Listening to some sick beats.

I never understood this either. I think that very few people pay attention to it TBH. It's more for fun than anything else.

@ThanosReXXX: I always try to be patient and understanding in situations like that. I know that fielding calls or emails from an irate customer can be irritating and draining. It's one of the reasons why I'm glad I no longer have to worry about phone calls at my current job. We have support guys for that. Most of our clients are pretty good thankfully.

I do know a guy who tries to automatically be assertive/kinda angry in such situations because he believes it gets results faster vs. doing the polite runaround. While that may be true in some cases, I also don't believe it's to your best advantage to give the person on the other end of the line absolute heck. They're people too, and I don't feel that it's fair that some people siphon off their anger onto them as it's very rarely their fault.

About 80% of holidays are just for fun. Like 📦 Day.

@JackEatsSparrows

This was me at the main office, especially after one old lady in accounting came up behind me, put her hand on my back, and started singing the birthday song.

Considering that I had to work the day after Christmas this year, I can kinda see why some places have this day off too. It probably isn't so bad for those whose Christmas Day is leisurely, but when yours is a driving, gift, and food marathon.... 😴

That’s what that is? No joke, thought it just celebrated boxes. 😂

Most of us have become a Squidward at work, or even on the dance floor, however, hopefully it's true that "Squidward" will introduce the halftime show during the bubble bowl tomorrow.

One year my family decided to wake me up on my birthday with las mañanitas (a popular birthday song here) blasting on a speaker.

I got up and went directly to turn it off, ignoring them.

Then I went back to bed.

In other news, today in Mexico we all eat tamales. So go eat a tamal and participate.

nope. and
late response is late.

@Blitzenexx Of course, people who work on help desks try to be patient and understanding, but depending on the day, personal circumstances and so on, that can be pretty difficult sometimes. And of course, during the day, you may get multiple complaints slapped in your face, or the umpteenth angry customer, and that certainly isn't doing anything to improve the mood. We're all just humans after all.

And although the anger is sometimes understandable, it still creates resistance and/or more unwillingness to go the extra mile for the customer. Which is why I always stay polite, and don't blame the person on the phone for what the company that he or she works for, did wrong. And that creates a positive environment, in which people are far more willing to help you.

Before I was a sales guy, I actually did a year of customer support desk myself, and even in sales, you get the odd angry call every now and then, so I've had my fair share of them, which is why I can relate and why I know what works better, in order to get the desired outcome.

@ogo79 No worries, man, it's just the chit-chat thread. We're not on a time table here.

^^This whole thing, dittos everywhere. I’ve never had a problem on a phone that couldn’t be resolved in an amicable manner, simply because I refuse to make a problem a person’s singular fault. I’ve also got some super mean letters back from overdue patient statements, but I’ve drafted pleasant letters with clear answers and mailed them back, payment starts coming in with happy thank you notes. My site clerks on their worst days even know I’m not going to come down on them because we’re all humans doing tons of things at once.
We all just need a big picture moment once in awhile 😁

This is pretty much my approach, though I try to handle things more by text or email these days (if the option is there) vs. the phone when I can. XD

I've also seen a desk/phone lady get an earful for something that wasn't personally her fault. I was at a dealership for routine car maintenance and an irate middle-aged guy came in complaining about a sensor still being on in his car (allegedly the reason why he'd brought it in to begin with). I can understand being displeased about that, but when you leave someone in tears, I don't really call that "taking care of the problem". Dang did I feel bad for her.

Each time we get a new spammer, my theory is proving to be more and more plausible. There must be some kind of loophole related to tagging a thread with Wii U.

@JackEatsSparrows Indeed we do. And if I do still feel too angry, I just wait a bit, count to ten, go take a walk, or whatever it is that I need to do, to get any semblance of reason back into my brains, so that I'll be able to act in the manner that I would also want others to do towards me. Actually an ancient wisdom, that still holds true, to this very day.

@Blitzenexx Never made anyone cry on the phone, but at one of the call centers that I used to work for, they always hired students and other temp forces in the summer periods, when things got busier than usual, and a lot of them weren't really used to some of the stress that comes with the job, so I did have to help quite a few of them out, by calming them down, listening in/monitoring their conversations and then helping them to resolve things.

I remember a specific case, where there was this female student, and although she wasn't exactly crying, she was pretty close to tears, and was completely lost, so I slipped her a note saying "tell them your manager will come to the phone", took over the conversation, resolved the issue with the angry guy she had on the phone, and even managed to make a new appointment with him, for the client that we were calling for (some IT company, don't remember which one), an appointment that he actually wanted to cancel, due to the conversation going the wrong way with the student...

It's been 10 years since this masterpiece came out.

@Vinny #10yearchallenge

@GyroZeppeli Wonder what the Girugamesh guy is doing these days.

Ate some crab today. It had been a really long time since I last had it.

It kinda tastes like nothing. Much more tolerable than shrimp and lobster. Better texture too.