The Great Tech Schedule Fiasco

Here is a little backstory for you.  Recently the company rolled out a program called COT which stands for Certified On-Site Technician.  Basically each store will have their own COT which works in the store but will also travel to customer's locations to perform tech work.  Originally the company had a program called Mobile Tech which was a designated Tech who would do the on-sites for each district which is about 12 stores.  In favor of lauching the COT program the company fired all of the Mobile Techs just to save a few bucks.  The Mobile Techs were actually making livable salary while the COTs make only slightly more than an in-store associate.  Of course the corporate office told the Mobile Techs that they weren't training their replacements (COTs) but of course they were.  This company is stupid.

Anyway, now that you have the backstory lets move forward to now.  I am "lucky" enough to be one of the COTs for my store.  In order to generate revenue our DM Lord Farquaad asks that we sell at least 2 on-sites a week.  That sounds reasonable when it is laid out on the table like that but when you work for this company you are only shooting yourself in the foot.  Let me explain, Lord Farquaad ALWAYS comes in our store and complains about how much of a mess our store is.  He even asked the techs why our sales goals were so low.  I have immediately answered this inquiry with, "Well having one tech working the floor doing signs, pull-lists, truck, helping customers while SIMULTANEOUSLY working on tech work (fixing computers) makes it impossible to get anything done".  Of course his response to this was, "No, that isn't the problem".  I wanted to punch him at the face when he spoke.

So being one of the COTs for my store I was told by the GM that I should sell on-sites for the times that I am working.  Which obviously makes sense you aren't going to schedule an on-site for when I'm not freakin working.  So recently an on-site was scheduled by the SM to be shortly after my shift started.  I entered the abyss of the store and kept my jacket on since I was only staying for 5 minutes before I had to head back out.  I told the OM that I had an on-site scheduled and he started freaking out.  The reason he was freaking out because there is no other tech working while I am out doing the on-site.  And even though the GM told me to schedule on-sites whenever I am working, everytime I mention I have an on-site she rolls her eyes.  I, of course, want to sell more on-sites because I get to leave the store.  The more time I spend in that place I am pretty sure I am going to go mentally insane.

Randompalooza

This post will consist of all the weird/random stuff that has happened over the past week.

STORY 1
There was a customer who brought in his laptop because it was freezing last week.  We ran a diagnostic on it and found one of the memory chips wasn't working correctly.  We called the customer and offered a replacement chip.  It came in, we installed it, everything was running good computer didn't freeze the whole time we left it running in the store.

Customer picks up the computer, brings it home, within 3 hours calls and complains that the computer is freezing again.  I wasn't in the store at the time but the tech currently working knew about it and told him to bring the computer back.

Customer brings the computer back to the store of course on the days when I have a couple days off so I didn't get a chance to look at it until the beginning of this week.  Checked all the programs that were running, changed some BIOS settings for processor sleep states and left the computer running for 2 hours, didn't freeze.  Ran our stress test for another 2 hours to see if it freezes, and it didn't.  Customer picked up the computer yesterday of course when I am dealing with this other crazy customer (look forward to that in Story 2).  He ended up calling me again shortly after he left saying it froze.  WTF?!  The only difference was that in the store he didn't bring his power adapter so we used our universal one.  At home he is using the power adapter he had.  That is the only thing it can be at this point... If anyone knows what else it could be leave a comment!

STORY 2
So this lady comes in, she is really nice, but seems a little crazy.  She goes on to tell me how she had brain surgery not too long ago and she is trying to cope.  This is besides the point, she is coming in to find a printer that she saw the night before on our website, she claims it was an EPSON ARTISAN 7700.  I have never heard of that printer before but sometimes we carry other printers on our site that we don't carry in the store.  So I'm trying to link into this for the lady. I check on our website of course no such printer exists.  She goes on to tell me that her neighbor bought the exact same printer she is looking for from our sister store. 

At this point I'm pretty sure she was hallucinating this whole thing, even her husband was getting a little angry at her.  I tried to call our sister store, but because of the holidays they were busy and didn't answer the phone.  I even looked on Epson's website to find this particular model and the only one it finds is a $2,500 dollar professional machine, not the one she said she saw for $179.99 that also qualified for $50 off when you recycle an old printer.  We went over to the printer aisle to see if any of the ones we had was the one she saw.  She kept going back and forth between an Epson and a Canon she just bought asking me to tell her the differences between the two.  This whole ordeal wasted 30-40 minutes of my life...

STORY 3
This is a continuation from the story Umm, You Can't Back That Up. The customer brought back his computer after he backed up everything and wanted us to do the system recovery I told him about.  Of course before he left to do the backup himself I told him that we would need the recovery discs to do so.  He brings in the computer on one of the days I was off and spoke to the SM about fixing it.  Customer just kept saying, "JMan know fix!" Needless to say he didn't bring those recovery discs that were needed to actually do the recovery.  So I called him as soon as I could and explained we needed the discs that I spoke to him about.  He said he would come in the next day to talk to me about it. Ok...

The next day he comes in and I explain everything that in order to do the recovery he needs the discs.  Well he couldn't find them, so the only thing he can do is order the discs directly from the manufacturer because we are unable to get them.  I give him the model of the unit, the serial number, the discs he needs, and the phone number to get a hold of them.  Of course he seems completely perplexed by this situation and I had to explain the same thing about 6 times...

STORY 4
This next one happened during one of the days I was off and found out about in the day I came back.  The SM was dealing with an Asian customer who came in with his computer to have it looked at because it wasn't acting right in Windows.  Of course the version of Windows installed on this computer was completely in a different language with no way to switch to English (at least that is what the SM tells me).  The SM politely explains that no one in our store is bilingual in this Asian language that we couldn't look at the computer because we would not know what we are reading.  Apparently the customer flipped out saying we were discriminating against him because we couldn't read his language.  I'm sorry but if you live in the U.S. you should at least know that the majority of people here speak English and/or Spanish.  Most Americans are not going to be able to read an Asian language because it is completely different from our own.  If your language settings could be adjusted to English so we could at least read what was going on we would gladly take it in. Otherwise we may as well be reading Klingon it would make more sense.

Umm, You Can't Back That Up

Customer came in yesterday to talk about his computer that he dropped off a couple days ago.  He was having problems with wireless, everytime he turned on the wireless switch the computer would just blue screen, restart, then just boot loop and never get back into windows, until you turned the wireless switch back off.  We ran a thorough diagnostic where the only thing failing was the video registers which constitutes the reason some of the on screen images looked a little strange.  We ruled out something was wrong with Windows because we tested the wireless switch in Linux and it was working fine.  We tried numerous other things to see if we can get the wireless working again in Windows to no avail.  The only solution is to do a full system recovery, wipe everything, and start fresh.

I called the customer to explain to him that wiping it was the only way to fix it.  But if we went that route any data on the computer would be erased unless we backed it up.  He said he understood and that he would be in the store in about 40 minutes.  So he comes in and I start explaining everything we did and the solution to fix it.  I explained if he didn't have a lot of data I wouldn't charge for the data that we would just do a system recovery.  After checking how much data he had it came to 22 GB of personal data.  That was quite a bit of information so I explained that the diagnostic he paid for already would cover the backup but it would be extra to recover the system.  Plus I always make it a point that if a recovery is needed the programs on the computer would need to be reinstalled, there is really no way to back it up.  While I'm explaining all this and he's showing what he would want backed up on the computer he keeps asking if we fixed it.  No we didn't fix it, I'm telling you how much it would cost to fix it.  Then I show him all the programs he has and that he would need to reinstall them when he gets the computer back.  Then he asks me the weirdest question, "DID YOU BACK UP THE INTERNET!?"  Haha first off it's nearly impossible for an End User to backup the entire freakin' Internet.  Secondly, I have explained about 6 times that we didn't backup anything yet nor did we fix the problem...

Epic Bonus Payout!

Today, shortly after my shift started my SM comes up to me and tells me all the "great" things going on within the company. 

A little backstory for you, our store has been lacking meeting our metrics and quite frankly I am sick of hearing about it everyday.  We aren't selling enough service plans and we aren't selling enough tech services.  Of course the company is making these goals hard to achieve by making laptop service plans about 50% of the cost of the computer, no one is going to buy that. And that is just the regular protection, if you throw in accidental which is the highest reason for a laptop breaking it's sometimes can be 60% or 70% of the cost. You would have to be a complete moron to buy that.  And for our tech services they keep slashing prices for "break fix" systems coming in so we don't make a lot of money from that and charging outrageous prices for depot repair services.  There is hardly any motivation for me to sell these things to people who don't want them.  The only motivation that techs get is we get bonus money if we are selling over a certain goal.  A goal that has been harder to achieve  during the recession where people don't have the extra money to get a service plan.  In order to see bonus we have to achieve over 7% in service plan attachments and over $1,050 in tech services.  Of course whatever we make over that we (tech associates) only make 10% of what we over by, which is then divided among associates depending on the hours they worked.  Long story short we haven't been making anything with our service plan dollars and even when we get over $1,050 it seems like we don't get shit.

Anyway back to the the SM talking to me about the "great" things going on in the company.  He told me right now we are getting double payout in bonus money for all tech associates.  Of course I then replied, "Well getting double of Zero is still Zero, so yeah great motivational tool."  At this point he was completely quiet and was reading the rest of the memo to himself.  I understand that it is his job to make the store perform better in all our metrics but our DM Lord Farquaad is the most dismotivational manager in existence.  He bitches and moans when we aren't performing well but doesn't really give us any means to improve.  The one time he came to our store and asked us what the problem was and we explained that having one tech work both the floor and computers is really not helping his exact response was, "No, that is not the problem."

Phone Call: What are we going to do about this?

Today was going pretty well, that is until I got a tech call sometime in the afternoon.  It went something like this...

Me: Hi this is JMan, how can I help you?

Lady: Hi JMan, my name is [Name], I was in there the other day and I bought a Uniden phone.  The gentlemen who helped me was very helpful he answered a lot of my questions.  However he told me that this phone came with a wall mount and it doesn't.  I called Uniden and they said the wall mount is $5.00

*Long Pause*

Me: Ok...

Lady: Well... What are we going to do about this?

Me: Unfortunately I can't order the wall mount we don't carry it.  We may be able to compensate you for the wall mount since we misinformed you saying it had a wall mount. Hold on let me talk to the manager.

(I put the lady on hold, talk to my manager mentioning what was going on.  The manager Ok'd giving the lady a $5.00 coupon or returning and reringing the phone deducting $5.00)

Me: Ma'am? I spoke to the manager we can give you a $5.00 coupon or return and rering the phone and deduct $5.00.  Or we can always exchange the phone and switch it out with one that has a wall mount.

(Of course when we try to help the customer this is when stuff gets out of hand)

Lady: Ugh. This is ridiculous. I have to drive all the way there to get $5.00.  That's a waste of gas.

Me: Well as I said we can switch out the phone, or you can pick up the coupon or do the return at your convenience whenever you are down this way.

Lady: This is ridiculous!! We can't switch out the phone because there are no other phones that have the features of this phone!! I can't use the phone without the wall mount!!! Give me corporate's number!!

(About this time another customer was coming in to pickup a computer.  I told the manager that the lady on the phone needed corporates number.  So I helped the lady picking up a computer while the managers spoke to the lady on the phone.  About 10 minutes later goes by when the tech phone rings)

Me: Hi this is JMan, how can I help you?

Lady: JMan! This is [Name] again. I am very upset... The number I was given for the corporate office was for corporate contracts!! I need to speak to a manager right now!!!

(I glance over and notice both the managers are dealing with customers at this moment, not knowing how long they will take)

Me: Ma'am, sorry the managers are currently helping people. I can get the corporate number for you since I don't know how long they will be.

Lady: NO! I have to speak to a manager!!

Me: Ok. But they are currently busy I can either put you on hold but I do not know how long they will be. Or I can have one of them call you when they are free.

Lady: Don't put me on hold! I don't have time for this! I have been on the phone for over 20 minutes I don't want to have to wait for a call I need this resolved now!

Me: Ok I am putting you on hold.

Long story short, the manager talked to her while she was screaming on the phone.  In order to take care of this customer the SM used his own credit card to order the wall mount for this phone, and had it delivered to the customer.  The store is going to have to reimburse him in some way.

Turns out this lady is also disabled and this was another reason she didn't want to come into the store.  She of course did not mentioned this once the whole time she was flipping out on me on the phone.  People are crazy... I also like when we give solutions to people and they still don't think it's enough...

Mispronunciation & Stupid Remarks

This post will consist entirely of mispronunciations and stupid remarks that hear throughout a typical day at the work place.  I'm going to post what the customer said and if needed I will comment with the correction or a funny remark. Enjoy!

"I am looking for a Linkskiis box"
Skiis... We don't sell them here. It is Linksys... I don't understand why it is so hard to say.

"Linksee box"
Same comment as before...

"I need a UBS cord"
USB... anything that comes out will have one. Say it right.

"I need a USB Wireless Ethernet"
WHAT? I was baffled when I heard this. I had to ask what the fuck was the person trying to do.

"I just put ink into my computer so I know that isn't the problem!"
Actually I think that might be the problem...

"I need McAafree Antivirus"
It is really McAfee.  I think they say it this way because it has Free in the name.

"I need a 1 trigabit Stargate Drive"
I kid you not that has been asked...

"I need a USB port for my car so I can charge my laptop in the car"
Wow... Just wow...

"What do you mean I have to plug in the laptop?! It's WIRELESS!!!"
Just like a cellphone it can be used wirelessly but it still needs to charge...

"I got this virus on my computer when I started to watch porn while at Panera Bread"
WTF?

"I need ink toner for my printer!"
It is either ink or toner...Not both...

"Why is the ink over there now! You always change everything around"
Actually it has been this way for over a year now...

"It's only an 8 year old computer. I don't understand why it doesn't run anymore"
Because it's an 8 year old computer...

"This computer is racist because it's black!"
Actually you are racist because you think because it's black it's racist...

"I need a USB cable with the computer end on both sides"
That is the rarest USB cable ever.  The reason they want this is because they think it is how they hook up their printer to their computer. They see the USB port in front of the printer and think that is how it outputs.  Actually it's in the back of the printer or sometimes inside and is a completely different end.

"I was told if I bought the 3-user version of this antivirus that I could install it on the same computer after the first year expired"
No you weren't...

"I need a VGA monitor cable with a male and female end to hook up to my TV"
No, you need male to male, your TV will have a female end on it.  This person ended up coming back for the right cable an hour later and apologized because I was right.

"Since I'm buying so much today can I get a discount?"
You bought the cheapest computer with nothing else. No you can't get a fucking discount!

Lady on Phone: "My computer isn't connecting to the wireless anymore! What is wrong with it? It was working yesterday"
Me: Well there can be a number of things wrong with it. I suggest bringing it in so we can check it out.
Lady: "But what is wrong with it?!"
Me: Could be a virus, could be a setting got changed, could be something wrong with the router, could be the wireless card is dead...
Lady: "But what is wrong with it?!?!?"

"I need Office PX and I know you have it here!"
Turns out it was Windows XP and no we didn't have it, Windows XP stopped being sold since Vista came out in 2007...

"Ok you don't have it here... If you had it where would it be?"
Why ask this? Seriously?

"I know the hard drive isn't failing! I am going to sue you! I am telling all the papers!"
This guy brought his computer in for a diagnostic a few years ago to find out what was wrong with his computer. I still haven't read the news article about this.

Satisfied?

This happened to my co-worker C-Dogg the other day.  He was helping out a customer who needed a replacement battery for their laptop.  So in the process of looking up and ordering the battery the customer went over to the candy section and grabbed about 8 Snickers bars and walked over and placed them on the counter.  After processing the order of the battery C-Dogg asked the customer if wanted to pay for everything together (the battery and the candy bars).  The customer's reply was, "No, I'm not buying these..." as he points to the snickers bars.  He pays for the battery and leaves the candy just sitting on the counter.  C-Dogg tells me he has never been so confused with the weirdos that come through our doors.  I think if I was there I would have picked up one of the bars and yelled to him, "Satisfied?!"

Indecision Maker

This guy came in yesterday because he couldn't get his computer to boot right.  I had him turn it on and he had the laptop facing him so I couldn't see the screen. I told him to let me know when it gets to the part he was having problems with while I was working on some other computers.  After a couple minutes he finally says "This is what it does..." I look and it's just at a yellow looking screen and nothing is going on.  I notice the CD drive is spinning so I clicked it and noticed he had a Norton 360 disc in the tray.  The computer was booting to the disc rather than loading Windows from the hard drive.  Took it out and restarted the computer.  He made sure everything was good, turned it off and left.

Today when all this stuff had to get done, in comes this guy he puts the laptop on the counter.  I was currently working on something so I told him I would be with him in a minute.  Now his computer isn't powering on.  Ok... I take out the battery and try again... Nothing... I tried our universal power adapter to see if was that and perhaps the battery died... Nope...  In the 24 hours he managed to get a power surge and fry the computer. I was actually surprised he didn't blame us since I touched his computer yesterday to take the CD out of the tray.  He then proceeds to tell me that he needs a computer right away.

I should have known what I was getting into... I hate selling computers to people who don't listen to anything that I tell them when they ask.  I try to assess what people need based on their requirements but I am starting to care less and less because as I said they just make the bad decision anyway.  Then come back when the computer is too slow for their uses. 

Ok anyway, this guy was just using it for internet use and research.  This doesn't require anything too powerful.  I proceed to show him some of the basic laptops that would suit his need.  He stares at them for a few seconds then states that maybe he wants a desktop.  Ok... We turn around and I proceed to show him the basic desktops.  He's looking at them for a few seconds and I explain that these models don't include a monitor and that would need to be purchased as well.  So he thinks about it for a few minutes and decides he wants the desktop for 379.99 and the monitor on sale for 89.99.  I check to make sure we have them in stock and we do. I let him know we have it so I'll go get it.  I go to the stock room and grab the tower and monitor and bring them out and place them on the counter.  I go back over to the customer and tell him I brought it to the front.  "I think I want a laptop instead..." Are you fucking kidding me? He shows me two of the laptops he is looking at, I explain the differences between the two and make my recommendations.  He asks to double check the stock on them. I check on the computer and both are in stock.  I come over to tell him that yes we have both of them so it's his choice to which one to get.  Should have known it wouldn't be that easy.  "Now I am looking at these two." Mind you these are on the other side of the table and would be overkill for his needs.  I explain this to him that two laptops he was looking at before would be fine.  He decides to get the first laptop he had me check and I go to the stock room again to replace the original desktop and monitor choice.  After replacing those items in the back I get the laptop he chose.  Hoping this is the last time...  I come out with the laptop and tell him that if he's all set I can ring him out.  "Maybe I should go with the desktop." OMFG!!!  I was about to kill this guy right there.  I was like no this laptop is more powerful than the desktop you were looking at and it's not much more money.  He ended up leaving with that laptop because I swear if I had to get the original desktop again I would not only have been fired on the spot but also in jail for murdering someone.