Sales Adventures

This week I started my new position as a sales and ram installer and RMA person at the store. So far it's not going too bad. 

Monday was my first day over there. I was take over an existing hourly person's desk as it would be the best location for me to set up the anti static mats. Even though he was told 3 days prior, he made no effort to move any of his stuff. So come Monday, I had to relocate his items. He wasn't too happy about that but was glad I at least did it neatly. 

Day started out well, a bit slow, only a few customers coming in. Then I was handed a fax from a father wanting to order a custom speced out laptop. "Here, spec this laptop out thru our site, create the order and then fax it back to the guy". Before I can even inquire how to go about that, the person walks off. Ooo fun! I figured it out eventually but the lack of training is irksome. 

The same sort of thing happens with RMA (returning stuff to vendors). I will get handed an item and told to RMA it. I then have to figure out which vendor we got the item from, what our account number is with them, what the order number was that the item was purchased under, and what that vendor's RMA rules are. While answering the phone or helping walk-in customers. I just hope I'm doing it right... lol

The rest of the week was more of the same. About mid week they changed my hours, start half an hour later and stay half an hour later. No problem, I like to sleep in!

Friday rolled around and the managers were getting into a bit of a fight. My "old" boss was insisting I return to the shop. New one was insisting I remain in the store. It's was actually kind of amusing and a nice ego boost to see them argue.

"No, we need her back in the shop. We're down one person on Friday's"  

"You have other techs! We need her here!!"  

"You get her the rest of the week"  

"We're paying her salary now, we get to keep her"

In the end I did return to the shop but with the stipulation that if the store got super busy, I would go back and help out. I had a blast back in the shop! It was nice to be back with the guys, cracking jokes and throwing vinyl tools at each other. 

Oh and the retard tech there screwed up, again. This time it rather got on my nerves. Customer had been in earlier with what was very clearly a hardware video problem on his laptop. Rtard was trying to convince him it was a driver problem and sent him away. Of course he returned after reinstalling his system and still having the same problem. After listening to rtard still trying to say it was a driver problem, I stepped in. Proved it was in fact video. Rtard then tried to tell the kid his computer wasn't under warranty anymore.... without even looking it up! It was, until 2010. sigh. I even looked up the original system specs and noted that it did not have integrated video card, so rtard would need to order a new video card, not system board. What does he do? Orders motherboard. Of course that doesn't fix the problem. So he orders another motherboard. Surprise, still doesn't fix it. Orders new LCD screen kit. Oh wow, still doesn't work. Orders processor. wtf?! Then he decides to order video card. At that point the company rejects his parts request due to ordering too many parts for the same issue. More or less telling him "you're an idiot! no more parts for you!" So another tech had to order the part and omg! look! it now works! 

I'm rather irked by it because I very clearly stated verbally and in the work ticket what exactly was wrong and what should be ordered. To which he ignored. *glare* So yea, he's officially on my don't trust and don't respect list. 

Semi End to Tech Work

So I just got the news the other day that the sort of end has come to my tech work. Not because I do bad work, oddly enough because I'm too good at dealing with customers.
Where I work, we are teamed up with a small retail store (not big box store, though I have worked for that squad before). Due to budget cuts all around, I am getting shuffled over to there.

I will retain my title but will be doing more sales. Which is a good thing. Because the monkeys they have working there at the moment have really given the place a bad reputation. They are a bunch of Apple Zealots. Now I personally use an Apple at home and grew up using them. Love them. But I know they are not for everyone. Some people prefer Windows and that's great. But those monkey's don't see it that way. I have seen a customer walk in, say they would like to get a Window's based machine and they all walk away and ignore them. Or try to force...I mean "talk" them into getting an Apple. Sigh You sell what your customer wants and needs. Not what you want them to buy.

I'm rather sad to be leaving the shop. It's a lot of fun here and a great team environment. Couldn't have asked for a better boss. He leaves you alone, unless you screw up. If you want or need time off, was never a hassle to take off. I'll miss the random screw driver or vinyl tools being hurled into my cube. Or the cabinet being shoved in front of the door way, forcing me to crawl out under the raised flooring, or just take the chance to cat nap.

Hopefully I can do some good over there, for both the store and shop. I just hope this isn't some form of punishment or demotion. That would suck.

Bad customer service = piss me off

There are really very few things in life that will really get me upset. The seeing red kind of upset.
One of which is when someone treats someone else bad for no reason. Just such a thing happened today.

A little bit of background first:
A computer's warranty only covers the hardware of the system. Software is a whole other monster. Hard drive fails under warranty, you will get a new one installed, no charge have a nice day. But if you actually want your operating system and files (if any could be recovered) our boss makes us charge you for that. Sucks but we have to pay our bills too.

On to the story!
So a few days ago a guy comes in, laptop hard drive is on it's way to hard drive heaven. While he was here, one of our awesome techs who is no longer here (darn budget cuts) managed to save his most important files. Hurray!
He arrives today to pick up his laptop. As I was the only one here able to cashier, I had to ring him out. I let him know the price and get a "huh? I was told everything would be covered". Sigh
So I give him the usual speech run down of why it's costing him, blah blah blah. But then it dawns on me. Whom ever worked on it should have gotten approval to do the reinstall. Every once in a while the customer will have the know how to do it themselves.
I look up the call ticket and sigh. Of course. It's "HD connect to power supply" diptard tech that worked on it.
I go talk to him, inquire if he got approval first. He just stammers around. I roll my eyes and leave, attempting to think of a way to explain the situation to the customer.
Oh fluffy crackers, diptard is following me.
He insists on talking to the guy and proceeds to very poorly explain why the guy needs to fork over the money. His tone and word choices only serve to upset the guy.
Again he explains "but I was told everything would be covered."
Diptard: "okay. fine. I go erase everything then."
*blink blink*
No fluffy way did you just say that to a customer. Yes, that would be one way to solve the situation but for the love of tulips, don't tell a customer to his face you are going to delete all of his data!!
Until that moment the guy had been very calm and was just simply wanting to solve the miscommunication. Now, he was pissed.
Diptard continues to "explain" things but only serves to more piss off the guy. Hmmm yea I think telling someone "no no, you listen to me." is really going to make them not get upset.
A number of times I advised diptard to go get our manager. He would shake his head and refuse.
Oooo bad move there.
For a few brief moments he walks away to go check his notes. In that time I managed to calm the guy down and was just approaching a solution to the issue when DT had to come back and loudly exclaim that in fact the customer was a lier and had in fact approved the reinstall.
Round 2! Now the guy is really pissed. Explains to DT that he does not appreciate being spoken to the way he is (I couldn't agree more) and is getting rather upset.
At this point one of the older techs jumps in and lays it out that only the manager can solve this problem. Guy isn't too pleased but agrees to come back tomorrow as magically manager is no where to be found.
After he leaves, DT attempts to come up and "explain" his side to me. Not going to happen. I read the notes, no where did you state you got approval to do reinstall. Plus, you just treated a customer in probably the worst manner I have ever seen.
"You want to stop talking and walk away. Now" was my only response to him when he opened his mouth. I knew if he pushed it, some rather nasty words were going to escape my mouth. Amazingly he didn't seem to comprend what that meant and continued to speak. I repeated myself and same older tech stood between us and advised him to walk away as well. The words seemed to finally make their way through his thick skull and he left.

Pointless Meetings

There seems to be really only two types of meetings I am made to go to. Either the glorified sales pitch meeting or the "training" meetings. The sad thing is I usually learn more in the sale pitches than trainings.
Take today for example. A mandatory meeting was set up a few weeks ago for today. All we were really told was that it would be about Apple stuff and how to better serve people on campus. Being an Apple tech (as well as Windows), myself and the other Apple tech were singled out as especially having to attend. Cool, I'm always up for learning new stuff.
About the only thing I learned in the "training" was that Apple campus rep doesn't know the first thing about how computers work. They started out showing us how to register people's Apple computers on the wireless network here. Ummm yea. I do that everyday. Have been doing that every day for oooohhh years? I realize and accept the fact that the printed out, step by step instruction sheet on how to register, which are handed out and placed about campus are a wee bit too complex for today's college students (picture books seem to be a bit too complex for kids these days), I would have hoped they would know that a tech would know how to do this. So for the next hour and a half, they "trained" us on the very very very basic computer usage.
The highlight was when they were explaining that software updates are important. The campus rep piped up, trying to sound all smart, "Yes! So if someone comes in and like, their computer just won't power on or is acting funny, ask them if they have been keeping up to date on software updates. If not or they are unsure, have them update. It should fix everything."
Saaayyy whaaaa?! First off, if the computer will not power on... how in flying baby Jesus are they supposed to update?! And secondly, good going moron. Now the other people who don't know any better are going to start telling other people who don't know any better to go do that. And guess what? When it fails horribly, they're going to come to me all pissed off. "Well they told me to do this and it would fix it and it didn't!! I demand you fix it. NOW. For FREE!"
But then again, they want to pay me to sit in a meeting and "learn", by george I'll go sit in a meeting. Just have to remember to bring some coffee along

How did this guy get hired?!?!

About 7 months ago this unique tech was hired in.
It soon became clear to any of us with half a brain that he knows literally nothing about computer repair work. We let it slide because we were told he was more hired for server admin work.
Apparently that wasn't true as he has no experience doing that sort of thing. Awesome.
Myself and another tech took him under our wing a bit and tried to show him the ropes and where everything is located. I am not sure if it is just his way of learning or he's just an ass but he never seems to believe anything he's told. He demands on researching it, not just googling, he has to go to the source (manufacturer's website). And print out the instructions. I could understand this if he was wanting it in writting so he could go down a list and make sure he got all the steps. But that's not what happens. It gets printed out and filed away, never to be looked at again. Way to waste paper and time!
Moving along, this certain "tech" has a habit of stealing ide to usb adapters, while they are in use. When we scan a hard drive, we take it out of the computer, hook it up to these nifty usb hard drive connector thingys and then plug them into our test bed machines. Now the general rule is if a connector is in use, you don't touch it. You may however inquire as to the status of it, see if it is completed or will be soon and call dibs on it. This fellow however will just unplug it and walk off. Doesn't even check to see if scans or file transfers are running. I have lost hours of transfer time due to this guy. Not to mention it usually leaves me without a connector and thus having to wait. Grrr!!
So today I spotted him doing something that is beyond moronic. I saw him wandering around with a laptop hard drive in his hand, eyeing the work benches. Knowing that look, I went over to where I had a drive scanning, to guard it. I could hardly believe what he did next. I watched him attempt to plug in the hard drive....to a power supply tester. To anyone with a working pair of eyes or really even one eye or hell, even a blind person could tell there is no humanly possible way that drive would ever plug into the tester. Forget the fact that is says in big letters "power supply tester" on it. He spent a good 3 minutes attempting to get the two to be friends before giving up, looking very confused. I didn't know if I should laugh or just shake my head at him. I choose to just keep staring at the viruses found counter. Mmm Limewire

First story, typical day at work

A typical day here in the tech shop is full of fun and craziness.

Morning will usually start out with me arriving and either starting the coffee brewing or if it's already going, I plop down at my desk and do my morning internet checking. Work email, personal email, check my comics while mail is loading, check my work que list, check headlines on news, and then stare at my screen for a while.

By now we have opened but it's morning. Generally do not see a soul till around 10am. And since parts do not get delivered till between 10:30 and Whenever he feels like it o'clock, there usually isn't a whole lot to do in the mornings. Now and then there will be a computer that had been left running to finish overnight, so a quick check on that will usually clue me into how the day is going to go.

If it finished and is all happy working, it will be a good day. But if the computer gnomes decided to attack the shop during the night and the machine has mysteriously fubarded itself, it's going to be a long day. Even longer and more painful if you called the customer before leaving the evening before and told them it would be ready today. That's just asking for the computer to go haywire.

By now the other techs have all wandered in.
Side track!
I am the only female tech that works here as well as I'm the first female tech to be hired to work here in the 20+ years they have been in operation. Ha! Yea, no pressure to do well!
There is one other female that works in the shop as an accountant/billing person. She is awesome. She was very very very pissed at our boss when she found out he had hired a female. She figured I would cause all sorts of drama and issues. My first day, I arrived early. She was the only other person here. First thing she says to me, "Okay, I have to ask you. Are you a girly girl?" I laughed and told her I couldn't recall ever being considered one in my life, I mean come on, I'm a computer tech! Since then we have gotten along great.
Back on track!
Coffee is consumed, latest rumors or news is exchanged, and general tinkering and fixing begins. By now the phones will start to ring a bit, usually staff/faculty calling. Students don't typically stumble around till after 10 or 11 and then the fun begins! Though staff and faculty do contribute a large amount to the amusement fund.
By mid morning the resident package delivery guy has arrived. This guy is a riot, he so reminds me of Katt Williams. He can be a bit flaky on deliveries or pick ups but generally he's an awesome guy.
Getting in parts starts the land rush for bench space. Everyone sort of has already staked out a claim on a bench but the bench to tech ratio is a bit off. So that leads to invasions into other people's territories. Generally these are peaceful takeovers though and no loss of life or machine parts happen.
11:30 rolls around and a general exodus occurs. Lunch! We will usually all eat together, be it going out or chowing down in our makeshift break room. We get a 1 hour lunch break but rarely do we use the whole hour. Upon returning to work, it's fight off the nap time. For some people this can last till 5pm, closing time. But that usually occurs in conjunction with an empty work que.
The rest of the day is a mix of work and prank wars, which usually involve flying screw drivers, pens, screws, electrical tape rolls, or other various objects that can be chucked.
And we can't forget the walk in customers. They are the gem of the day. At least once a day you can bet on getting a "my friend/room-mate spilled *fill in the blank* on my laptop and now it won't turn on". There is also the shirt to problem correlation that is always amusing to witness. As the severity of the problem increases, the lower the neckline on the girl's shirt will be, generally speaking. It is especially amusing if I happen to be the one assisting said girl. 9 times out of 10 she will crane her neck, looking past me for any sign of a male to assist her. The guys will have suddenly become busy, just for the pure amusement of watching the expressions on her face. The other 1 out of 10 times, I will be asked a number of times if I am sure I'm a computer tech. Oops no, you caught me. I'm the receptionist. I was just pretending to be a tech for giggles.
5pm rolls around and we start to trickle out the door. A few might stay later to finish up a computer someone just had to have done first thing in the morning. Or just simply because the machine is being stubborn and so the problem has become personal now.
I putter my way home, change out of my work clothes and then relax in front of my tv.
And that is my typical day!

First post!

Seeing as how this is my first post in my very first blog, allow me to introduce myself.

On the off chance that the title didn't give it away, I am female and I work as a computer technician. When computers break, I fix them. When a printer throws a tantrum and spews toner or ink everywhere, it's my hands that get stained lovely colors.

I have been doing this job for about 6 years now and I enjoy every moment of it. Well, almost every moment.

The majority of the time I have worked at a major state university. I did have short break working at a certain big electronic store's tech department.

I am now back at the university working in a department that also services the general population. So it is sort of half retail.

Everyday there is something new that happens that either makes me laugh or groan in disbelief.
I hope you all enjoy this blog!