A Week in the Life...

It's been an interesting week.  And by interesting I mean miserable as usual.  I'm gonna go through a couple of things that happened this week that I think are news worthy.  I apologize but this post may be a little long.  We'll start with the most annoying customer of the week.  I go into work Monday morning like usual to find that once again I am the only tech scheduled until the night tech comes in at the same time I leave.  Don't forget that Monday was MLK day and people with real jobs didn't have to work except the poor souls that had to work in a crappy retail store...  Of course it was going to be busy, and it was.  I'm trying to get a handle on some of the tech work that was piling up behind the tech counter but its still extremely hard to get anything done when people constantly approach you to ask you stupid questions.  I'm trying to make one or two clicks on a computer I'm looking at before being interupted yet again by another customer.  All while the tech phone was ringing all day. 

This one customer kept calling to check the status of the two computers he brought in, one was a desktop, the other was a laptop.  We had already diagnosed the problem with the laptop and found the hard drive was starting to fail.  His desktop however passed all the hardware diagnostics but something was seriously wrong on the software side.  You logged into the OS and everything starts closing by itself with error messages.  I was in the middle of a virus scan that also was forced to shut down not before showing it had three threats, but not knowing if they were high level trojans or just low level tracking cookies.  Anyway he calls to check on the status, I update him on the laptop but the desktop I'm still looking at and will call him when I know anything further.  I help a crapload of people right after getting off the phone barely have time to get back to desktop and he calls again.  I explain what is happening and we are seeing what we can do. I WILL CALL YOU WHEN I KNOW WHAT IS WRONG.  Low and behold he calls not even an hour later to check again.  At this point I'm annoyed to hell by this guy.  It may have a virus, but whatever is going on it's fucked up bad, the only thing we can do is a reformat on the desktop and replace the hard drive on the laptop.  I explained in both cases data would be lost because both computers would need to be reformatted to fix all the problems he was having.  I had to explain the concept of data backup at least six times before he comprehended.  I estimated two days to fix the desktop, that gave us time to backup everything and do the recovery and be sure all the problems were gone.  The laptop however we had to order a hard drive and I couldn't guarantee when it would be ready because our part ordering system has been delaying like crazy with hard drive orders.

Two days goes by and we fix the desktop and I call him to let him know the desktop is ready but the laptop we are still waiting on the hard drive to install.  We can't do anyting to fix it until the drive is in, besides backing up the data on it.  Yesterday he came into the store before I went in and told one of the techs that he was picking up his laptop.  The tech saw all the information on what was done and explained that the desktop was ready to go but the laptop wasn't.  You know because I didn't explain this in great detail when I talked to guy... He told the tech that he would be in later to check, even though the tech explained it wouldn't be ready because the hard drive wasn't here yet, but he can take the desktop and pay for the desktops services.  He left and called later that night. I of course got the story from the tech who explained what had transpired earlier.  THAT GUY IS A FREAKIN IDIOT! Anyway he did come in that night and pick up the desktop and I explained about another 15 times that the laptop we are still waiting on the damn hard drive, once it comes in we will work on it right away...

                                                                                                                                                                    

This brings me to my next topic of discussion.  There are way too many people that should not have computers or be allowed to use them.  This one lady was playing around the one of the display laptops testing out the word processing program included.  She moved the mouse and when she wanted to click she kept going up and hitting the spacebar as a mouse click button... I explained about four times to her the mouse button is below the trackpad and that she is hitting the spacebar.  And she kept freakin doing it! *FACE PALM* 

Also a customer called the other day and spoke to the cashier explaining she couldn't install the antivirus she just purchased.  When she looked on the box and saw it was for PC she wasn't sure she had one of those... Before I picked up the phone I was contemplating to pick up the phone call the lady an idiot and just hang up.  I picked it up and answered in a polite but sarcastic manner.  Turns out she couldn't put the CD in the drive, not because it was stuck, but because she couldn't push the disc down onto the laptop CD tray...

Another customer recently bought a computer and it was clear he didn't know what the hell he was doing.  So we set up the computer for him and tested his email and everything was fine and dandy.  Of course with these customers they want their XP computer to be EXACTLY THE SAME as their new 7 computer.  We can make it as close as possible but we aren't installing every piece of software under the Sun unless you pay for it.  Even then it's way too freakin time consuming to duplicate everything between the two.  The transfer cable does a pretty good job at this but its still not going to be EXACT!

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The final piece of my venting is going to be about the SM. Last week my SM keeps telling me we have to increase our turn-around time on tech work because we averaged 6 days last week. That's funny, because then he proceeds to tell me that I'm only allowed to work on THREE machines that night... He also explains that we need to sell more Plans.  Ok, so you want me to get all these computers done but not work on them, AND you want me to sell too?  Increase productivity by not being productive, this is like the counterproductive policy all over agian... Not only that but still having one tech working both the floor and behind the counter is not going to accomplish anything. I have voiced my opinion about this many times. We need to have two techs working for a period of time, even if it for only a couple hours!  If one tech is working, computers can hardly get done and sales will be low, YOU CAN'T HAVE BOTH!!!

I want to continue my discussion of my SM and sometimes he is a complete idiot.  He ordered a keyboard for a netbook last week for a customer.  He handed it off to the tech to ring up but he was definitely the one who ordered it.  The keyboard came in a few days later and wasn't even remotely the right keyboard.  The customer called to check the status he told her that the part company sent us the wrong part. When overlooking the information on the order I saw the SMs name on the part order with the wrong part but the tech associate's name on the actual work order. I asked the SM who actually placed the order, he tells me the associate did...Well whatever it's gotta get taken care of either way.

Instead of taking care of it the SM passed it on to the tech who was working to get the situation rectified.  Of course that tech was also experiencing the SINGLE TECH DILEMA and didn't get a chance to take care of it.  Still instead of the SM taking care of his own mistake he passed it on to me.  I had to call the company to be sure I was getting the right part, ship back the wrong one, and order the right one, and called the customer to inform her.  Meanwhile the part is now on back order all because the SM ordered the wrong damn part in the first place.  I know I probably sound like a bitchy little girl right now but I wouldn't be as pissed off if he amounted to his own wrongdoing...

                                                                                                                                                                    

I'm sorry, I lied about that being the last part of the post I forgot to mention a little thing called ASAT. ASAT stands for Associate Satisfaction and its a survey that goes to all the stores and asks you to rate the store and company.  Last year we got a low ASAT (big surprise) and HR sent someone to find out why.  Of course instead of actually interviewing all the employees within the store the HR rep only talked to about 4 associates and left. 

This year we scored a low ASAT again (still a big surprise, NOT) and our GM is going around asking all the employees why.  I don't have a problem with the managers, well except for the SM, but most of the problems I have are with the company as a whole, not listening when I say why we aren't performing like we should.  Of course my concerns are brushed under the rug or considered to be BELOW THE LINE in positive thinking.  One of the questions include, "If you had your way would you still be working here in twelve months?" Rate on a scale 1 to 5, 1 being not likely, 5 being extremely likely.  If I had my own way I would be on an island somewhere with bitches in both my arms drinking a pina colada.  What kind of stupid ass question is that?

And I'm done! I hate my job! Until next time!