More confessions of a Tech Support rep

It has been awhile since i have written anything about my lovely part time gig. I can not complain. It is easy money. It will pay for the tile going in my house and to have my house painted. The issue with the Doctor who basically wanted me to be fired was a blessing in disguise. It raised my profitability. My Team Lead basically told me I was on cruise control. He still wants to go days. There is a young guy named Dustin that I hope gets the position. He is a good guy and has been with the company over 2 years.
I have been opting to leave early pretty much every time I work. This is going to cause me to work at this place longer that I would want because my paychecks from this place are smaller than they normally are.

What drives me nuts about this part time gig?

1) This place is full of kids that work there while going to school. There is drama galore.
2) The lady that monitor's our calls from Centurytel is not a real tech at all. She reads from a script to see if we hit all the points. What is interesting is that when she first started, we were all getting "Good Calls" on pretty much every monitor she did. Now, she takes off for stuff which is totally untrue. I now look at these monitors as comedic relief.
3) They have promised we could work from home every since I started in January. The new phone system is in place but still we are at the "hurry and wait point".
4) The people calling in whine and complain about the silliest things. All they need to do is get on the phone, let me know what the problem is and let me fix the problem. They do not need to keep calling in about the same issue if we have trouble tickets in for no DSL sync or slow speeds.
5) Dial up customers and DSL customers who are signed up for 256K/128K and cry because their connection is too slow. Dial up customers need to go with DSL and those DSL customers need to upgrade their speed package.
6) Customers who call in who want me to go outside my scope of support because they have screwed up their system. I love when folks call up and tell me they have viruses and want me to fix it, or they have installed some program that screwed up their machine and they are like, "Well, you are my internet provider." I will admit I have gone out of scope of support to fix an issue for a few customers, just because they were nice and cordial with me and I figured if I punted the call back to the manufacturer they would get the run around.
7) They need to seriously pay their techs better. My Team Lead told me about this company who hires their techs who work from home from day one and pay them about $5 more than hour than what they start out at.
8) There is a web filter at this place. It is not too hard to get around it. There was talk about allowing higher level reps outside of the filter, provided you were not on probation for points. That has yet to happen.
9) This company is on a "points" system. They need to do away with points. If a person calls in all the time, or is constantly late, it needs to be at the discretion of Team Lead to put that person on probation or terminating the employee.

I ran into one of the recruiters when picking up my kid from daycare. I had to be careful what I said to her about the job. I did not want to bite me in the butt later on. She asked me if I had met the Network Admin before. I had not met him in person but knew who he was. What is funny is my first week at the job, I was able to get behind the firewall. This guy pretty much does things backwards. I am not sure if it because he does not know what he is doing or perhaps maybe that is the way he learned how to do it.

Overall, I know my days at this place are numbered. There is going to be a time where I get fed up and just walk out, never to return. I would hope that I would be done with my projects before that happens.

This is why Google must have taken the short bus.

I am a Database developer/Data Miner at my job. I am constantly on the look out for fraud patterns diligently work at ways to stop it immediately. I am fairly good at my job. One year, I saved my company over 4 million dollars and helped them to recoup that over 4 million just on one product alone.

When I emailed Google about a website they were hosting on Blogger that was basically selling gift cards bought with stolen credit cards, this is the "canned" response I got.

Thank you for your note. Please note that Blogger is a provider of content
creation tools, not a mediator of that content. We allow our users to
create blogs, but we don't make any claims about the content of these
pages. We realize this may be frustrating and we regret any inconvenience
this may cause you. In cases where contact information for the author is
listed on the page, we recommend you working directly with this person to
have the content in question removed or changed.

In cases where the author is anonymous, please note that in accordance
with US state and federal law, it is Blogger's policy to only provide a
user's contact information pursuant to a valid third party subpoena or
other appropriate legal process.

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team


In cases like these, all I have to do is identify myself and contact their support team as well as their legal department. I usually do not have to pull out the big guns and get our former cop who works in Corporate Security to contact them directly. I am amazed that Google would allow fraud to take place on their website. What if it was something threatening to nationality security? Is Google going to allow fraud to take place on their website and try to wipe their hands clean with it? I am all about the First Amendment right to free speech. I can talk about my thoughts on here and rant and rave about whatever. You do have to be careful what you say on Blogs and on the internet because it could come back to haunt you. Companies are becoming more savvy and googling potential applicants to get a glimpse inside their lives.


Thank God I have friends in high places. I am sure whoever wrote me the "canned" response was some person sitting in a cubicle in India. What is even funnier, they did not even sign it with a name.

Google needs to wise up, they are starting to act like Microsoft.

More confessions of a Tech Support rep

The other night I get a phone call from a guy who was telling me he was a Neuro Surgeon and had been in surgery for the last 3 days. He had just gotten home and noticed his DSL was down. "No problem. What lights do you have on the modem?", I politely asked. The light status will usually tell me what is going on with the DSL connection. The doctor then tells me he is in a black out and the only thing on is his generator. He also states that his whole neighborhood is without power. I then asked him, "Do you think perhaps because your neighborhood does not have power, that might be cause of your internet problems?" He agrees with me and tells me he just wants me to notate his account, which I do notate his account. He hangs up with me and I go on to the next call.

I later find out that he has called back two more times to get a ticket put in because he does not have service. A ticket should never be put in if you have an outage area. The ticket would be immediately rejected back. He decides after his 3rd call that I was very rude to him and decides he wants to complain to my team lead that if he does not fire me on the spot, he is going to talk to his attorney. My team lead who is very laid back comes and tells me, "I do not care about this moron. He needs to get a clue." He then proceeds to tell me he is going to document it in my file in case the attorney does call in and tells me he is going to take me off that call group. I am fine with that all because that particular call group is a nightmare to work anyway. He kinda blew off this guy as another caller calling in to whine and complain.

I find out later on that the documentation that he put in made it seemed like I dropped the ball and basically he made me out to be the bad guy. I was in total disbelief. Instead of backing me up, my team lead basically said that I should have put in a ticket and I could have handled the call better. I will agree I probably could have handled the call better and not been so short with this guy. If you are going to call in and the first words out of your mouth is a bunch of complaining, things are going to go downhill real fast. Needless to say, I was still talking calls from the call group a week later.

On Monday night, I rolled in and the first call I got was from that call group. I go to sign in and amazingly enough they had pulled my access to their portal. I was set to take the calls still but had no tool to track the calls. I had to put calls back in the que. When callers have been waiting on hold for more than 10 minutes, they are not very nice about having to go back into the que. Secondly, I would like to know how I am supposed to track these calls now that I do not have a tool to do so. I alerted the Floor Manager who basically told me he did not have "Provisioning" access. What is ironic is, I can take test to take these calls and it will automatically provision those calls to me ; but, they can not take me off that call group. I ended up signing out of my phone, emailing my Team Lead and walking out before my shift was up. The only word I got from the Floor Manager was "I will back you up." What does that mean? If I can not do my job, I am going to bail. It is not like I need this gig. The pay sucks for DSL tech support reps anyway. The only reason I took this job was to make extra money to pay off some debt and to help make some money to install new flooring in my house. They have also been promising to allow us to work from home since January of this year. I have yet to see that happen.

I have decided to start looking for a replacement part time gig that I can work 5 days a week that does not cut into my sleep schedule where I am sleeping in shifts like I do now, where I can make just enough money so I can knock out the floors and other projects that I need to put my house on the market. I have a Masters degree in Computer Science. I am not sure why I am sitting at a tech support job where they hire college kids because its cheaper for them. I have decided I am going to be a part time professor at an Online University. I figure if I can get my foot in the door at University of Phoenix, I can take Doctoral classes as well and get my Ph D.

I work tonight at 11pm. We will see how it goes. If they still have things screwed up. I am walking out again and will not come back unless they fix my provisioning or I might just not come back period.

Hotwire.com trying to pass a less than 1 star hotel for a 3 star hotel.

I took my boys to Houston to get out of town for a few days. I decided to book a Hotel via Hotwire.com since I had good luck with it previously. The downside of Hotwire is sometimes you get a less than desirable room. In Dallas, I got a room at the Wyndham which is a nice hotel but the rooms are usually near the elevators and all you hear all night is the roar of the elevator. I had figured for a quick trip to Houston. I had planned to got Galveston but could not find anything for under $149 a night and that included these "Mom and Pop" dive hotels that usually cost around $50 a night. I have family in Houston I could have stayed with, but did not want to impose on them. I checked Hotwire and they had a 3 star hotel for $65 a night. I figured this was a pretty good deal and I almost did not book it since the Radisson was offering their hotel deal for a few dollars more but had free hot breakfast. When you are traveling with 2 boys, a hot breakfast at a hotel can save you money. I decided to book the Hotwire hotel for 2 nights and wound up with a Econo Lodge. I would like to know when Econo Lodges started offering 3 star accommodations? I do have a travel agent license and I am quite familiar with Hotel ratings. At best, Econo Lodge is a 1 star. I had a birthday party for my Cousin's daughter in New Braunfels where I was going to get to see all my cousins and my aunt and uncle. I went to the birthday party and left for Houston about 2:30PM. I get to this hotel which is near Nasa and it had changed Hotel names a few times. My GPS had it listed as a Quality Inn and Suites. I go to check in and the two ladies working behind the counter did not seem to know what was going on. They give me my room and they proceed to tell me it is a Smoking room and it is the only room they have available. I explain I have 2 kids and my kids have allergies. The smoking room would not be acceptable. They told me I would need to call Hotwire to dispute the charges since they already charged my account. I immediately hand them back their hotel key. I did make a point to go see just how bad of a "smoking" room it was. It was on the back side of the hotel in the "ghetto" section. There were a few shady looking folks also staying in the same area. I grabbed my MacBook, used their internet and booked the Radisson near the airport. I check in at the Radisson and it much nicer than the Econo Lodge. The room is much bigger, plus the amenities were a lot nicer. I proceeded to call Hotwire and waited on hold for 20 minutes. I finally get a rep who is very rude and inconsiderate. She berates me and explains when I clicked on the accept button on their site, I was agreeing to their terms. I politely explain that I was offered a 3 star hotel for $65 and Econo Lodge is not even a 1 star hotel. She told me they had reps who had visited the hotel physically and it warranted at least a 2 1/2 rating. That is still not the 3 star that they offered me. Secondly, this hotel was not even a 2 1/2 star because 2 1/2 star hotels usually have a restaurant attached to it and this one did not and they usually offer hot breakfast and this hotel only offered a Continental breakfast. I had explained that I was a licensed travel agent and would put my license on the line that this hotel was not even a 2 1/2 star hotel. The rep basically told me I was screwed and hung up on me.

First of all if you are going to shaft customers like that, why even have have a customer service department? She could have given me the benefit of the doubt and offered me some sort of credit. She could have said, "I am sorry to hear that sir. I can offer you a credit on your next stay using Hotwire." She could have even offered me a gift card for a free meal somewhere and I would have probably given them the benefit of the doubt. What is interesting is that I noticed that Hotwire was recently sued because they were doing the same thing, offering 3 star hotels and "bait and switching" with 1 and 2 star hotels. Here is the link:

http://consumerist.com/5011873/hotwire-facing-possible-class-action-lawsuit-for-selling-2+star-rooms-as-3+star

and here is another unhappy Hotwire customer

http://www.cruisemates.com/ forum/viewtopic.php?t=591775

I am going to dispute the charges with my bank and will never use Hotwire ever again. I will also make it a point to tell folks not to use Hotwire either because it is only going to save them headaches later. I can only imagine what would have happened if I was traveling overseas or perhaps out of state? I might have not been so lucky finding another place to stay for the night. It is like the old adage says, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

My car got broken into

My car got broken into the other night but a few young punk kids. They stole my portable XM radio out of my car. They did not take anything else. They were stupid and cut the wires to the antenna and iPod plug that was not plugged into anything as well as a microphone for my Bluetooth Stereo that runs through my radio. What is funny is that the back fell off the of the unit. If they try to sell it, I will know it is mine because it is missing a back. I called XM and they disabled the radio and marked it as stolen so it could not be used. The also snagged my work badge but then tossed it in the grass when they realized they were not going to be able to do anything with it.

You would think with the satellite technologies, they would be able to pin point these thieves and led the cops to their door. I did end up getting a newer XM unit from XM which came with a car kit I happen to have my old XM radio that I was going to go back to. I always tend to look at things on the bright side like my mother does. The good thing that came out of all this is that it brought my neighbors behind me closer together.

More confessions of a Tech Support rep

It has been 5 months since I have started this silly part time job. I have seen this place fire probably most of the people their hire. It makes me wonder how they keep anyone employed here. You would be better of getting a part time job at HEB where you could make $10 an hour, than the $8 an hour that they start you off here. The only reason why I took this part time gig was because they were flexible with my hours and the fact that I was going to be working from home. I was told my boss that we were 30 days out from them getting the new phone systems and the whole nightshift would be working from home. That will not be bad because I will not have to worry about commuting in to this place. Since being here, my stats are great, I am a profitable employee and my fix ratio is over 90%. You still get some customer who will call in because something does not go right because they screwed around with something. They need to give these people 3 times they can call for technical support. If they go outside of that 3 calls, they need to play for tech support. Keep in mind, this DSL company gives routers/modems to complete and total idiots who can not even turn a computer on. What is interesting about working nights here is that there is a night shift glitch where the system is supposed to count you tardy if you are late. Since my shift starts at 11 p.m., I have rolled in 30 minutes late. The system said I was tardy but points were never given to me for being tardy. Secondly, the main client we have here monitors probably 40% of our calls for them. I am amazed that I will get straight 100% on quality and then might get an 85% because I "did not update the master record" when that issue is a known issue with this tool that some guy threw together and is buggy as hell. This company is too cheap to go out and buy a new tool that might work much better for all of us. I have also been dinged for being "sarcastic" to customers. These folks are not very computer literate. When I have to listen to them tell me they are not very computer savvy every 3rd sentence and then put up with them not being able to follow simple instructions, of course I am going to sound a little sarcastic. I love it when a customer will ask, "It says next, should I click next?", or "Should I click Enter?" I usually answer the question with a question because they know the answer. "What do you think?", I will reply. To be honest, I could care less about my tone with customers. This is a disposable job for me. I am thankful for the opportunity to make some extra money to pay off debt; but, they need to pay me a few more dollars an hour before it might be worth sitting here putting up with customer's whining and crying that their internet is down.

I was at the grocery store the other day...

I was at the grocery store the other day and noticed there was a young boy in a cart who looked about 4 years old with a pacifier in his mouth. I was in shock. My youngest son was 12 months when he gave up the pacifier. I had asked a few of my friends who are parents about when is a good time to ween a child off a pacifier. Everyone I asked answered that a child over 3 years old is way too old to be having a pacifier and it was a sign of laziness on the parent. What I want to know is, what the heck of these "chuppy" parents thinking? You know their kid should not be on a pacifier and it makes the parent look retarded for giving a pacifier to an older child like that. My youngest who will be 2 in August points to them and says to me, "Baby, Daddy" I chuckle to myself and replay, "Yes Matt, Baby".s

More rants fror the life of a DSL tech support rep.

I just signed in the other day to my part time tech job and looked at the recent observations. The main company where we work tend to monitor our calls quite often, which is a tad bit overkill. I have gotten anywhere from perfect calls at 100% to "Needs Improvement". There is one woman who I swear is on the war path with me. On one of her comments she says, "Borderline sarcastic with customer". I was "borderline sarcastic with the customer because the clueless guy was like, "Oh? You want me to look for my start button?" He apparently thought I could magically get into his computer, fix his problem and get off. We do use a tool called Log Me In Rescue that allows us to sign in people's computers and fix things. I have used this tool a few times. The last time I tried to use it, the user was not smart enough to run the little applet that allows me access and it was taking over 10 minutes just to get to that point. I admit was borderline sarcastic with the customer, telling the guy, "Sir, you have to look for the start button on your screen."

I also get points counted off for not using the customer's name and not validating the customer's information. How ironic is that? I normally get that right when the customer gives me their billing telephone number. I am not sure if these folks who are monitoring our calls actually listen to the whole call or do they just deduct the points they think they need to and call it a day? I have told my Team Lead and I ready to come up during the day to have a little meeting with these monitoring folks to find out what their problem is. Of course, I am liable to tell them off and end up getting fired from the part time job. My Team Lead has re-monitored a few of the reps calls and they have been way off in terms of counting points off. When he finds things like this, he sends them over to the Admins so they can have the Admins contact the company who we are taking calls from. I am also amazed that I get counted off for my "tone". Excuse me, I put on the fake "Radio DJ" voice when I take calls. My father who used to work as a Journalist in the Army for over 20 years calls it the "Peter Puker" voice. I am not sure how an upbeat voice would get points off for "tone"? Maybe I should answer my calls in an Indian accent, "Thank you for calling...this is Sandeep, How can I help you with phenomenal service?"

This company sends out surveys in which customers can send those back into the company to show how good or bad a rep does. Usually, these are sent to the main account and users never check them. Every once in awhile, I will go into one of those surveys for the customer and give myself all high scores and in the comment section, fill in how polite and courteous I was. I try not to do too many of these for fear they might catch on. Besides, a little pat on the back never hurt dealing with clueless people.

Trying to join the gym here at work.

I decided since I do not have time to go hit my local Gold's Gym during lunch, I would join the gym at work so I can at least start doing more cardio. We had a Healthy Heart screening and everything was fine other than my Cholesterol level. I fill out the papers and roll into our Fitness center office which is run by this bubbly trainer who looks like she lives in the gym. She checks my blood pressure and everything is fine there. She asks about my Cholesterol and I tell her thats they reason why I want to start working out at work since I need to work out more as well as change up my diet more. I am already scheduled for a onsite physical with a doctor who is coming to my work 2 weeks later. She then proceeds to tell me that she wants me to get the doctor first before they allow me to work out at their facility.

First of all, we have a gym at work and they push the whole, "Let's be healthy" here at work. It is part of the work/life balance. If you have healthy employees, they are sick less and are more productive. She basically wanted me to jump through hoops so I can torture myself by going to the gym. I find it ironic that it is easiest not to bother with the doctor's approval and no goto the gym. I already have a gym membership. I do not need to pay for a 2nd gym membership. Secondly, we have major health problems with people being overweight in this world, as well as heart disease. There is a huge increase in the costs of health care. I know that if I do not do something about my Cholesterol levels, I am headed for the same health problems my father has. The good thing is that I do have health insurance and can afford to go see a doctor about my health. What about the folks who can not afford it? I understand that my work gym is only trying cover themselves from liabilities if something happens if I have a heart attack in the gym. My Glucose is good, my Blood Pressure is good. If the only thing that is causing me grief is my Cholesterol, why not give me the green light to work out? I am headed to a physical next week anyway. It is kinda a Catch 22. I am damned if I try to work out because I need a doctor to give me doctor's approval to work out at the work gym. I am also damned if I not do anything and then eventually start having health problems because I did not do anything.

I ended up trashing the paperwork the lady at the work gym gave me. I have a gym. I just need to make time to go, even if it cuts into my schedule. My small group at church did the Biggest Loser and I lost like 35 pounds just watching my diet and running 3 times a week. I will start running again and pull out my mountain bike. The pool in my neighborhood just opened too. I will start bringing my boys to the pool to get in a pool workout. I am just totally amazed that with all the medical problems in the world and you get a chance to do something better in your life, you basically have to go above and beyond to prove you have the ability to make those better changes.

My middle brother needs to get a clue.

My middle brother goes over with my parents to my youngest brother's house to deliver his birthday present. My brother had his kids in tow as he was going with my parents to some Catholic school job fair. He is still trying to get a teaching job even though he has yet to pass his certification test. He has been told by schools that he needs that first before they will even consider him; but, he has not passed the test as of yet.

As soon as my middle brother walks in my younger brother's house, he immediately turns on the HDTV and fires up the XBOX 360. He then allows his son to play, Saints Row which is a "M" for Mature game. My youngest brother sits there in disbelief that our brother would even allow his son to play a game as violent as that. It makes me wonder just what kind of common sense he has allowing this. His wife was at work; but, she has been over to my youngest brother's house as well and allows their son to play violent games like that. When I ask my middle brother about it, he laughs and tells me, "He likes playing games like that."

My brother needs to get a clue and start allowing his son to play more age appropriate video games and not "M" for mature ones.

Shopping to trip to Big Lots.

I took a trip up to Big Lots because I needed some "canned" air to clean out a keyboard for work and the Walmart was too far for me to drive to. I ran into Big Lots closet to my work where I normally buy snacks, batteries, cleaner, etc. There is one lady who is working on the first register that doubles as the returns desk. She tells one lady that got in her line that she was doing returns only, which was a total lie. She immediately called up one of the other ladies to come open her register. She then proceeds to give her grief because she was not making announcements over the intercom. I had to laugh to myself because I used to work for HEB and Albertsons and they wanted us to do announcements at least twice an hour. I had jokingly said to the checker about her announcements, "Like you do not have enough hours in the day to include announcements." She laughed and rang me up. The lady being rung up at the first register with her Married with Children Marcy D'arcy hairstyle decides she is going to walk out with her bags in hand. Instead of pushing the cart to the front to move it out of the way, she squeezes by it to walk out. In doing so, she blocks the exit for the rest of the customers. I grab the basket and push it to the front.

I am amazed at how some people do not think about others while shopping. Life is entirely too short for us to be rude and inconsiderate. Why try to rush out of the store, only to block other customers who are also trying to get out of the store by leaving your basket?

Rants of a DSL technical support rep.

Confessions of a DSL technical support rep

It has been 3 months since I started this part time tech support job. My team lead finally got me bumped up to Level 1 tech because I had more technical experience than most of the team on the night shift combined, not to mention i have a Masters degree in Computer Science and looking at Ph D. programs. I have yet to see a raise yet because I have to give it about 2 weeks for it all to catch up. I figure I will start blogging about this part time job on a regular basis. This will be my "confessions of a tech support rep" to give folks an inside look at what exactly we have to put up with on a daily basis. I am not going to mention any company names. What I can say is I work for a company that services quite a few DSL service providers who also provided dial up service.

1. First of all, do not tell me you are not very computer literate. I really do not care. My only concern is if you can follow directions or not. If you keep repeating the fact you are not very computer literate to make up for the fact that you can not follow instructions to save your life, only makes the call that much more lengthy.

2. We have call times we have to follow. I do not have all day long to work on your technical issue. I have to have you on and off the phone in less than 12 minutes. The good thing is that one call might roll on for almost an hour but the next call will come in and I am on and off the call in less than 2 minutes. That helps my call average.

3. If I put you on hold to "check on a few things", I am usually going to the bathroom or complaining to my co-worker about how clueless you really are. This place frowns on us using DND (Do Not Distrub). We have to have a DND of less than 10%. DND is used for breaks, lunches and bathroom breaks. In order to get under the 10%, I use the hold button because I am not here long enough in an evening to take a break or a lunch.

4. Please do not call me because your Microsoft Office does not work and you happen to know that I am available. If you whine because the previous tech helped you, I will probably tell you it is out of my scope of support and ask if there is anything else I can help you with.

5. If you still have dial up and are paying for you, you need to look into getting DSL. If you have the lowest DSL package it is like $15 a month. Dial up customers whine and cry because their connection is slow or when their friend send them a large file that they can not download because their connection times out. These folks usually call up and have to have us delete the large file so they can get the rest of their mail.

6. If you have email problems and I have to sign into your email, you need to make sure there is not anything in your inbox that you do not want me to read. I will probably laugh at you and blog about it later, especially if you have emails from multiple dating sites.

7. When you call in, please be sure you are ready to answer the questions I ask you. If I ask you for your billing telephone number, please provide it. Do not tell me, "It is DSL.", or start to go off on your issue. If you do this, it only makes the call longer.

8. When I am asking you questions and I realize that you are not sure what to answer, I am usually going to ask you a YES or NO questions. The answer will either be YES or NO. If you sit there and wonder to answer, the call is going to be that much longer and frustrating. Please do not be clueless if you do not know how to answer a YES or NO question. You have a 50% chance of getting it right.

9. Do not call up with a bad attitude. I understand things are frustrating. I understand it does not work. When you call up in a bad mood, the call is going to take that much longer. You need to be happy you are talking to someone from the US and not someone in India if you called Dell tech support.

10. If you are running a Windows machine with Windows 98, you need to realize that Windows 98 is barely supported. Do not get upset if I tell you that you might want to upgrade your system. You are behind in the times. I realize that "if is not broke do not fix it". You would not still be driving a big car from the 70s, especially with gas prices as high as they are.

11. If you call me at night to compare that you DSL is slow at night, you need to GET A LIFE. Turn off the computer and take a walk, read a book, watch a movie. Life does not revolve around your porn addiction or your online poker habit.

12. If your account is suspended, it can take 24 to 48 hours to get your account back active. At night, we are technical support. Do not call up crying that your phone works but your DSL does not because you are too lazy to pay your bill.

13. We are contractors of this DSL provider. In fact, the company I work for has multiple DSL providers they do support for. The main company whose building we are housed in has their reps monitor our calls. I swear they monitor our calls at least every 2 days. The 3 people that do the monitoring are just as clueless as our DSL customer. I will get perfect calls on like 5 calls in a row from one person monitoring and they will give me a "needs improvement" because of something silly like I did not use the customer's name or offer the phone number of a manufacturer that I refer a customer to. These folks should be happy we take calls from their customers. Some of these folks should not own computers. It takes every ounce of patience for me not to reach through the phone and choke these customers. When I worked tech support before, we maybe got monitored once a month at the most. I am seriously tempted to come up to this office and have a few choice words with these folks that monitor. My team lead goes back and re-monitors some of the calls they give "needs improvement". He always finds that the calls were incorrectly monitored.

14. The average age of the folks working here is about 20. They hire college students primarily. My team lead is only 28. It is amazing at all the drama that goes on at this place. One of the Level 2 techs that I made friends with bragged to me that he went up to the 3rd floor women's bathroom and had sex with her while he was on lunch. I am amazed because there are cameras all over this place. The 2nd and 3rd floors are the offices by the DSL service provided we are contractors of. This place is one big soap opera. The Level 2 that I made friends with starts pointing out all the women he has had sex with. The girl he had sex with on the 3rd floor apparently gave him oral sex in the parking lot when the parking lot lights were out. I can only laugh at the drama that goes on around here, especially since the Level 2 tech that was bragging has a kid and lived with the family of his baby's mother and got kicked out of his house.

15. I am amazed at what they start folks out here. It is a wonder that they keep anyone for a extended period of time. I only agreed to it because they told me I could work from home once they got their new phone systems and they were flexible with my hours. The starting pay here is $8 and hour. If you work nights, you get a $1 shift diff. I have never made $9 an hour since the early 90s. The starting pay for tech support reps in Austin is anywhere from $12 to $15 an hour. They can get away with paying so low here because they hire college kids to work here. I could make more money else where, but where else can I get paid to sit on my butt?

16. The turn over rate is way high here. I was told by the team lead that one month they hired 150 people and fired 150 people. I think the big thing is the "point" system. People tend to get fired for having too many points.

17. "Points" are really stupid at this place. If you come into work late, you get points. If you are a no call no show, you get points. You can work off your points by working at least 20 hours on weekends. The points need to be done away with. I think Team Leads should be given the power to put people on probation for being late and calling in. If you call in sick, you have to roll in with a doctor's note. The college kids that work here many times do not even have medical insurance. What makes you think they are going be able to roll into the doctor and get a note?

18. The Network Admin that works here has the web filter set too high. You can use "quota" time to browse on your own time. I realize there are certain sites they do not want you to be browsing while at work. They block message boards, Food, certain tech websites, Entertainment, etc. I can understand they are worried about bandwidth but this guy does not have to be so anal about the Web Filter. He has a network sniffer on at all times. He can see what people are doing. I did find two ways around his Web Filter. He did get smart and block the one way. I have not tried the second after he sent a nastygram to my boss about my web usage. If my boss gets another email from him, I might have to pay him a visit to find out what his problem is.

This place is just a job and is not my real job. I can kick back and not take it too seriously because if I ever get too upset, I know I can walk out here without looking back knowing that I do not really need this job. It is a nice thing to have, especially since I have to put my oldest son in summer camp. (Plus that new Fender Lonestar guitar that I want with a Line 6 Pod XT.) We see how long I last at this place.

My middle brother gets in a car accident.

I call my middle brother the day before yesterday to touch base with him. Every since he got this bright idea to quiet his perm job at Home Depot Supply where he had benefits, vacation time and a regular salary and decided he was going go off and substitute teach to try to get his "foot in the door", I have been trying to check on his at least once or twice a week to make sure he is ok and see if he needs anything. My brother has told me that he does not have health insurance for his kids. He tells me the Dentist that his wife works for writes prescriptions for his kids if they need meds from the Pharmacy. My dad is retired and has this car that is like 14 years old. It is paid off. He has had quite a few problems with it; but, while he was working as a High School teacher before he decided to retire, he had put his car in the shop. My father tells me his car just needs a new radiator. I found one off eBay we can buy and is $80. I figured myself and my 2 brothers can all go in with $30 and buy this radiator so my dad's can drive his car. When I called my middle brother, he immediately tells me, "Ahh, I have to go. I just got in an accident and think I just totaled my car." My brother had a Ford Ranger that was paid off and he gets this bright idea that he is going to go buy this little Suzuki car that is a little more reliable that his truck. He has only had this thing for a few months.

My brother calls me back that same night and tells me he was in IH35 in San Antonio near the Pepsi bottling plant. He was coming over the bridge when traffic had come to a complete stop. He slammed on his brakes and was not able to stop in time. He rear ended a Ford F150 truck with his kids in the car. My brother not knowing where to get his car towed, tells the tow truck driver to take it to the Police Impound lot. I had asked him what kind of insurance cover ages he had. He tells me he does not know. I asked if he had rental car reimbursement and he tells me he does not know. The only thing he knows is that he has Progressive. My brother had called Progressive and the adjuster wanted him to bring the car into one of their adjustment shops. He tells the guy that the car is not drivable. The guy asks if he can tow it there and my brother tells him it is at the Police Impound lot. The adjuster is going to go to the lot to look at the car and contact my brother with regards to his claim. I suggested he contact Progressive to find out what body shops are their preferred shops and have the car towed there. That way if the car can be fixed, they can start work on it immediately.

The good thing is that his kids were shaken up but were ok and no one was hurt. I am amazed that my brother has no clue about his insurance overages, if he has GAP insurance on his car, or if he has rental car reimbursement. From what I understand, Progressive does not do a 100% pay off of his car if they total it. More than likely, my brother financed the whole car. If Progressive does total his car, he will be lucky to get full value. The good thing is that my brother has his old truck he can drive. It has high millage; but, I told him that I would be happy to help him keep that beast on the road. I am surprised that my brother's wife has not put her foot down to make him get health insurance for his kids. I realize that he and his wife do not make very much money; but, there are insurance programs through the State of Texas that would allow him to get insurance for his kids at a reduced price if he needed to.

I am going continue to keep checking on him to make sure he does not need anything and help point him in the right direction. He is currently subbing at East Central High School until the end of the school year and working part time at Walmart to bring in extra money. He is hopeful that East Central will offer him a job next year. The big problem with that is my brother has not passed the Exit test yet and schools are not going to just offer him a job if he is not already certified unless they have some sort of emergency certification.

What is going on in my neighborhood?

I am driving home the other day and see this guy on an ATV driving around on the streets. This is not the first time I have seen the guy driving his ATV in the streets. I laugh and shake my head. I go up to Kerrville for the weekend and go to the Tractor Supply store just to see what the have. I get on an ATV and see a warning label that plainly states, "NEVER USE ON PUBLIC ROADS".

First of all, I live in a neighborhood that has parks, pools, has an HOA that regulates how/when we cut our grass, etc. I am amazed they would even allow someone to own an ATV in our neighborhood, nevertheless drive it around the streets like a crazy person. I have enough problems with the clueless young girl who drives her electric scooter in my alleyway wearing a batters' helmet who ended up rear ending me a few days after she got her scooter. She still drives that thing like a banshee through the alleyway like a bat out of hell. I have seen her almost have to jump off because cars are driving down the alleyway to go park in their driveway.

I am wondering what the heck is going on with my neighborhood? Are people so clueless they do not have the common sense to not drive their ATVs around my neighborhood like a bunch of rednecks living in a trailer park? To the moron who has no clue driving around the neighborhood like a redneck who lives in a trailer park, we live in a nice community. Please stop being a moron, and get a clue. It might not be a good idea for you to ride your ATV on the streets of the neighborhood. Apparently you did not take the time to read the warning lable on your ATV, nor pay attention to the traffic laws of the city and the state and realize you can not drive that thing on city streets either.

Water softener install

I went to Lowes and finally broke down to buy a water softener since we have hard water here in Kyle. I had also figured in the long run, it would be an asset to the house when I go to sell it. Last Friday I went to the Lowes in south Austin. I had originally went to the Lowes in San Marcos but the guy John who helped me made me feel like I was wasting his time. The south Austin Lowes had a New Jersey John who was very friendly, helpful and set up everything for me.

I get a call Sunday afternoon from the installer who says next week is wide open. I call him back first thing Monday morning and we set it up for Tuesday. They were at my house around 11am and in 2 1/2 hours later, they had me up and running.

I am overall pleased with the unit. It is very quiet and lives in the garage. They did have to dig up my yard to tap into the water line. I was amazed that they did not bury the lines deeper than they did. I was not impressed with the fact that the installer wanted to charge me $33 for 1 "hose bibs" which would allow me to use my water hose to water my grass with hard water rather than soft water. He tells me that the first one would be $33 and the second one would be over $100 because they had to trench more. Ironically, they failed to mention after he installed the hose bibs that there is a bypass valve on the water softener itself. I did not need to have a hose bib installed. I also thought the install price of $950 for labor was a tad bit much. I had gotten 3 estimates and labor would run me $500 maximum. For $950, the installers should have given me hose bibs for free. The water softener itself was only $549. It is amazing how an install fee would cost you twice as much as the actual unit itself. Lowes basically tells me their water softener install program is in a "test" market. The cool thing is you can run this water softener on either salt pellets or Potassium pellets. The different is the salt is $2.50 a bag and the potassium is like $11 a bag. There are 3 bags of salt in the unit now and I might have to buy 1 bag after having the unit in my house almost 3 weeks.

I had asked the installers how many water softener installs they do a week and he tells me 3. I realize what a racket this guy has doing 3 installs. The normal price is $1000 for the install. This guy is making at least $3000 a week in installs alone. I realize he has labor because there was 2 other guys with him. Both guys did not speak a word of English. He probably used day laborers. He also used a bunch of PVC pipe. It is not an install I would do myself since they did have to get permits from the city of Kyle and had to tap into my water supply line. I think Lowes needs to regular these guys a little more, especially if they are going to overcharge on the install almost $500 off the regular price.

Would I call Lowes again to get them to install something else? I would probably pass on the install and hire my own contractor to do the labor and just buy the materials from Lowes.

Working the 2nd job

I got this wild hair and decided to work this part time job figuring I could pay off some debt and pay to get a water softener installed in my house. I figured it could not be too bad being that they would allow me to work from home because they were getting their new phone systems. I was also told their hours were flexible. I figured I would put in 15 to 25 hours a week. I got hired the first week of January. I had to go through training, which was a total joke. I asked the trainer to just send me to the floor right then and there. What was even funnier is when we went around the room and introduced ourselves, I was the only one with a real job and 2 degrees. This place hires tons of college kids, which is not totally a bad thing. When people found out what I did for my real job and how I had two degrees, they were all like, "What the heck are you doing here?" To be honest with you, I am not exactly sure. A week of training and a week in this phone room with no windows called the "dungeon" that was run by a young, thin, fake blonde girl who touted she had been smoking since she was 8. I guess you would be able to tell that being she had that gravely "smokers voice".

I get to the floor two weeks later to work nights. The original plan was to work 10pm till 2am, figuring that I could come home, crash and have plenty of time to wake up to get to my real job. Of course, I get put on this 11pm till 4am shift 5 days a week. I work my 8 to 5pm job, get my youngest son from daycare, come home, cook dinner, feed the boys, make sure Josh has done hs homework and then put the boys in bed. I crash around 7pm, only to wake up around 9:45pm, to get up and go into the part time job. It does slow down after 2am most nights. Since I am way over qualified for this job and my team lead tells me I have more experience and skillsets that all of the L2's put together who work nights, I am optimistic they will just make me an L2 and give me a few more bucks. There is another guy who also works nights with me named Ryan who has a real IT job like myself. He is also way over qualified. He and I joke about the day we both get fed up, and walk out of that place never to return. Ryan is a good guy and is very tech savy. Ironically, I have mentioned that what I make in one week at the Telenetwork is what I normally make in a few hours of work at my real job, I start to wonder why I am even there. My team lead is named Bob and is realted to Adrian Belew the musician. He is the most underated guitar player out there. Bob used to be in the Army and install phone equiptment. I like his "take no crap" attitude. He is a fun guy to listen to. He is dating another girl who works nights. She makes me laugh because she comes off sounding like she is mean; but, she is a real sweetheart. The L2 who works nights is name Ben. He makes me laugh. He tries to act like a player but I am sure he is a good family man. He tells me he has 4 kids. He can not be more than 25 years old. He brags about getting with a few of the girls there at work. I laugh and shake my head because I have a feeling he is more talk than anything. He reminds me alot of myself when I was his age. I was fearless and loved to party.

I have been there almost 2 months and the calls are not too bad. I do get tired of talking to elderly folks who have nothing better to do than to call up the tech support line and ask for help. Once they get you on the line, they want to ask where you are at and talk about life; but, you have to keep them on target. If I hear, "I am not very technically literate" when I am asking someone to click on "Start", I am going to scream. One lady was complaining about how she had so many computer problems. I told her, "Well Ma'am, some people should own computers, other should own etch-sketchs." I did not think that was as bad as when I told a lady I could not "send magical elves to come down and magically fix her computer. Ironically, my team lead monitored that call. We both got a big laugh out of it. I am constantly amazed at these computer illiterate people who have modems and routers. Most of these people can not even run their modem. Meanwhile, there are those people who are still on dial up. I ask every one of them, "Is there not DSL in your area?" Most people are happy with the slowness of dial up. I guess I am spoiled. If it is not at least DSL speeds, I am whining or complaining. I always wonder why these people decide to call tech support at 3am just for assistance.

The big pull at this place is first time fixes and talk time. Basically, you can not have a low talk time if you want a high first time fix rate. People are going to call back just because they started screwing up stuff and you have to refer them to their manufacturer. I do like telling those people who are still running Windows 98 that we can try it once and if it does not work, they might want to consider upgrading their machine since there is limited support for Windows 98. The best people to talk to are the folks who own Macs running OS X 10.5 and the Linux people. These people understand what is going on. They have an issue and you are on and off that call in record time.

I am not sure who wrote the "tracker" tool but this guy needs to be fired. It is buggy, outdated, and is in dire need of a complete overhaul. This place has over 800 reps, you would think the owner would invest in a support tool of some sort. You have to log into your phone and then log into the tracker. I have had the tracker gone down, only for it to tell me I was "tardy" because I had to sign back into it. They had a $50 bonus every pay day just for showing up on time. I NEVER saw that on my check. The network is locked down by Websense. There are tons of sites you can not get to. Some of the tech sites have message boards attached and those are blocked. There are ways around the Websense but they have put a network sniffer on their network. If my team lead gets any more emails from the network admin, I am going to have to have a few words with him. From what I understand, the network guys all have degrees. I am not sure where those degrees are from because it seems like they are running the network by the seat of their pants.

For a part time job, this place is not too bad. The pay is not very high to start out with. What they gave me to start and even with my "night shift" differential, it is still like almost $5 an hour under the industry standard. What they are hoping for are these college kids who are going to come in and work for them. They hire at least 50 to 100 reps a month. Ironically, they end up firing most of them. I guess there are worst part time jobs out there. I could be working at the local HEB again. I would be on my feet all the night and would probably be even more tired that I am now. I am going to see about getting my hours cut back. This working till 4am business is driving me nuts. I start to look forward to the 2 days off I have from the part time job where I can go to bed at a descent time and can catch up on my rest. I will probably stay long enough to see what working from home is like. If it works out, I might work there long enough to pay off my debt and my water softner and call it a day.

The next time I get a wild hair and decide I am going to go off and get this flexible part time job to help pay off debt, I will get a job teaching college and put my Masters degree to work.

Working a part time gig

I decided to get this wild hair and start working a part time job doing technical support 20 hours a week because the company told me I could work from home and had flexible hours. This place is staffed by a large amount of college kids. For many of them, it is their first job while going to college. This company I work for takes phone calls from multiple DSL service providers. After working there for about a month, I realized exactly while I got out of the tech support industry. I understand in this day and age, computers are starting to show up in more households. People buying these computers are not real computer savvy and thats to be expected. If I hear, "You have to bear with me because I not very computer literate," 3 or 4 times during a call I am going to scream. Secondly, if I ask a yes or no question and "dumb" it down for the customer, it drives me nuts when they hesitate and give you an answer other than yes or not and you have to back track to get them to where they need to be. Third, the callers that I like the most are the ones that call every evening just to talk to someone because they are lonely. One guy calls every evening and when he gets me he says, "Oh Bill! I am so glad I got you. You were so nice to me the other day I wanted to ask you a question." Of course, the guy's question is outside the scope of support of the DSL provider I am answering calls for. Fourth, DSL providers should not give customer's the latest technology if they do not know how to use it. I spoke to a lady the other night that had a wireless router/modem combo and she screwed it up because she started messing with the settings. She ends up calling us at least 3 times a week because she did something and wants to blame it on the service. I think DSL providers should give a little 5 question test. If you can not pass the test, you get a Fisher Price modem. If you pass the test, then we give you the latest and greatest hardware. Fifth, I am so amazed about how many people still use dial up and they complain , "This is SOO SLOW!!!!" The guy last night had a Windows Vista computer and dial up. I usually ask the customer, "How come you are not running DSL? It about the same price as Dial Up.

We will see how long this job lasts. I am hoping to get some of my sanity by working from home. Once I do that, I can answer calls in my underwear.

I took my youngest to the doctor

I took my youngest to the doctor for his 18 month check up. I noticed in the parking lot when I drove up there was a parking spot labeled "COMPACT". Ironically, this lady driving an SUV thought to herself that her big monster SUV was compact enough to fit in the space and decides to take 2 spots. Little did I know she was the same lady who tried to cut in front of me at the doctor's office while waiting in line. I hear the lady comment, "Man, you guys are busy for a Tuesday. There was not any parking downstairs." I chimed in, "Yeah, someone decided they would park their SUV in a compact parking spot. I guess they did not realize there was an open spot 5 slots down that was for regular vehicles." She responded, "Guess you could take 2 spots then!" I then realize it was the woman that was smart enough to take 2 compact spots to park her big boat of an SUV in space. I almost responded, "Yeah but then when the person parked next to you pulls out and side swipes the big SUV, I guess the driver will not care because she is parked in the wrong spot?" I got my kid's paperwork and went to go sit down without commenting and kinda chuckled to myself and wonder how clueless people like that even get a driver's license.