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' "But the salesman said . . ." The salesman's an asshole!'
Mascan42
'You will always find some Eskimo ready to instruct the Congolese on how to cope with heat waves.'
Ibid
I'm just an ex-tech lurking around and spreading disinformation!Comment
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Cthulhu for president! Why settle for the lesser evil?Comment
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Re: Out of this world questions of the costumers.
Hahaha,I laughed so hard at this, especially the dumpster thing. Some people just aren't inherently logical, when faced with a conundrum such as "How do I open this dumpster?" they never seem to arrive at the most obvious answer. What I find the most baffling is they almost consciously don't seem to choose the path of least resistance!! Like it would occur to them that the best way of changing a lightbulb is holding the bulb still whilst turning the entire house.
On the rare occasion when I turn up to tend to a terminally jammed copier, there's sometimes a couple of the resident highly qualified (doctors/teachers/lawyers) persons already on the case, it's fun to kick back for 5-10 minutes and watch what they do, it's sometimes an interesting insight into how peoples' minds work and sometimes some of the bizarre conclusions they draw. I guess it'd almost be like witnessing apes figuring out how to use tools for the first time. I have to intervene as soon as one of them decides to find some sort of tool (be that a screwdriver, breadknife, letter opener or hammer) to aid them in their endeavour.Comment
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Re: Out of this world questions of the costumers.
This woman walked in off the street, with no prior experience. She was just looking for a job, so the boss hired her. She worked in a restaurant, in the kitchen, and had been laid off. Up until then I was a firm believer in the belief that anyone can learn anything. Boy was I wrong. I figured she could do most of the parts cleaning, but would at least help us in the beginning by assisting with the stripping of fusers. I handed her a screwdriver and told her to remove the two screws on the top. She said OK and began. I looked away for just a second and heard a pop-pop-pop sound. "It won't come out," she said. "That's because you're turning the screwdriver the wrong way," I said examining the crack in the plastic fuser cover that was not there a few seconds ago. "Have you ever used a screwdriver before?" (She shook her head no.) I took the tool out of her hand and put her in front of the sink. In the next four weeks, I discovered that she should not be allowed on a ladder, put anywhere near a stack of parts, not allowed to refill spray bottles with cleaner, must be watched carefully for any task given, and was a horrible parts cleaner (water all over herself, the floor, the wall and parts were still dirty). At the end she was stapling papers in the front office. I heard she jammed 2 staplers up and stapled things in the wrong sequence. We had to let her go, but honestly, I don't know how she lasted as long as she did, in any workplace. I felt bad for her and she apologized profusely whenever she screwed up, which was all the time, but I couldn't do any more for her. It was like babysitting a child. I learned then, you can't train stupid.Some people just aren't inherently logical, when faced with a conundrum such as "How do I open this dumpster?" they never seem to arrive at the most obvious answer. What I find the most baffling is they almost consciously don't seem to choose the path of least resistance!! Like it would occur to them that the best way of changing a lightbulb is holding the bulb still whilst turning the entire house.Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Coke in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO-HOO, what a ride!".Comment
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Re: Out of this world questions of the costumers.
As I tell my boss all the time - I can teach anyone something new. What I cannot teach is common sense.
Failing to plan is planning to fail!!!Comment
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Re: Out of this world questions of the costumers.
I was doing a PM at this same real estate agency yesterday.
One hour into it one of the agents walks up to the completely disassembled machine, and starts digging through the plastic wrappers and trash in the finisher tray to see if his prints just printed.
All I can do is shake my head. =^..^=If you'd like a serious answer to your request:
1) demonstrate that you've read the manual
2) demonstrate that you made some attempt to fix it.
3) if you're going to ask about jams include the jam code.
4) if you're going to ask about an error code include the error code.
5) You are the person onsite. Only you can make observations.
blackcat: Master Of The Obvious =^..^=Comment
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Re: Out of this world questions of the costumers.
I had a brilliant one today. Had a bit of a weird intermittent problem on a mid/low-volume machine that required me to do 200 or so test pages all in all. It was a call where there was one of those customer employees (no-one senior btw) who really had a chip on her shoulder and kept coming bothering me every 20 minutes or so to either rant about all the problems they have with this (and all the other) machines they have, or to bemoan how long it's taking to fix the machine, I guess she didn't have very much actual work to be doing because her protracted whine-fests must have eaten up nearly an hour in total of her employer's time and used up plenty of valuable oxygen... but I learned long ago to smile and nod and talk back in semi-technical gobshite until they take the hint and go away.
Finally I finish on the machine, and as I said before I digressed I'd done about 200 test copies, so I go and explain my work to this person so she'll sign the service book.
Her (Haughtily):- So are we going to be reimbursed? (note the complete lack of context... I did)
Me (Puzzled):- Excuse me?
Her:- We want reimbursing for all that paper you wasted messing around with the photocopier.
Me:- Riiiiight, well no we don't usually reimburse for paper used for machine testing.
This was like a red rag to a bull! I got a lecture about how hard-up her organisation is and how they are trying to cut costs and it's unacceptable (emphasis hers) for people like me to come in and waste supplies with such reckless abandon. I think for a minute about the best way to handle this, then I ask:-
Me:- Ok then, how much do you pay for your paper?
Her (caught off guard):- I don't know...... but I will find out!! Stay right there!!
She goes off to a make a phone call to the procurement people, meanwhile I'm looking at my watch wondering when this absolute f**king waste of time is going to end. Eventually after 10 minutes she returns..
Her:-Me:-Comment
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Re: Out of this world questions of the costumers.
If I could like that more than once, I would.Cthulhu for president! Why settle for the lesser evil?Comment
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Re: Out of this world questions of the costumers.
I'd have asked for change and a receipt. Most people don't worry about that kind of thing but if they had expensive stock and some of it is REALLY expensive then I'd be pissed too. Most places just get the cheapest superstore crap that's on give-a-way that week.
I think the best way to handle it is to keep a pack or two of decent stock on you. That way you're not using their paper and you can check to make sure a problem isn't related to a poor paper quality issue. I'm getting more and more in favor of an EVERYTHING is included click charge for simplicity but don't think it will happen anytime soon.
I think it would be very appropriate to comp them off their bill test copies made if it was nothing the customer did to be at fault. Equally though, I'd make sure to bill them extra if they did something to the machine or their was nothing wrong with it.Comment
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Re: Out of this world questions of the costumers.
Again, if I could like that more than once, I would definitely do so. High-larious!Cthulhu for president! Why settle for the lesser evil?Comment
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Re: Out of this world questions of the costumers.
I've seen that same thing taken to the extreme though. We had a print shop that called us to say that they expected reimbursement for copies that did not come out like they wanted.
to get some idea the scale of their request, I was sent out to observe a 50 gallon trash barrel filled with paper. They fully expected me to count out the number of pages and reimburse them the meter clicks. With a little digging through this barrel I found a 2000 page copy job. When asked to explain, they said that the copies should come out right every time.
After much conversation, we agreed to reimburse the first 2 pages of the 2000 page copy job, and every other copy job. An intelligent operator would not continue to run a 1998 additional poor quality images. And that they would have to sort out that 50 gallon barrel of paper themselves.
The customer decided that it was not worthwhile to sort through the barrel themselves. I helped them haul it out to the dumpster. =^..^=If you'd like a serious answer to your request:
1) demonstrate that you've read the manual
2) demonstrate that you made some attempt to fix it.
3) if you're going to ask about jams include the jam code.
4) if you're going to ask about an error code include the error code.
5) You are the person onsite. Only you can make observations.
blackcat: Master Of The Obvious =^..^=Comment
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Re: Out of this world questions of the costumers.
Had a customer with an MPC4500 which was leavng charge roller lines for a week before they logged the call. They wanted to be credited for the prints they had made as the outputs had marks on them. I told them it wasn't gunna happen and left, although when I was having a laugh to my boss about it later that day he went and grabbed a fresh ream of paper for me to drop to the customer while I was headed that way. I thought the lady would have seen the piss-take side of things, but no, she took the paper and said something along the lines of how she was just about to get her manager involved.
This would be a bloody great job without customers.I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. ~Thomas EdisonComment
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