and ye verily he said "don't do your job"

[smileyeagle1021]

As some of you know, I have been having a lot of problems with my comcast internet for the last several weeks. I could really post a praising thread about the tech that they finally sent out today (in fact I think I will later)... but I really have to post the sightings about the tech we had been using. This guy had come out three times over a two week period and had done basically nothing for us. Finally we got a different tech today because it was the original guy's day off.
The new tech came out, looked at all the wiring, found that some of the wiring at the comcast box was worn out, replaced it, took him about an hour and looks like everything is working now. We asked him why he the other tech didn't just do that... his answer blew me away.
He told me that the other techs suspected that this guy was intentionally doing bad work. That this guy was 'one of the faithful' and that it went against his conscience to do work for a household with two gay couples and an unmarried straight couple
OK, I get having religious beliefs and restrictions... but seriously, when you work with the public you have to know that you will have to work with the gentiles and sinners... why would you take the job if you can't handle that. That said, Comcast is a huge company... if his religious beliefs truly are that strong he could always tell his boss that he can't do a job because of religious belief, can he switch with another tech, and they could easily work something out (it would still be bullshit... I'm sorry, I'm not paying you to have religious beliefs, I'm paying you to fix my internet, but at least it gets my internet fixed).
Of course, there is always the more likely option... the guy is a lazy douchebag and his religion makes for an easy excuse not to have to do work.

[Lil Bunny]

Dood, that so isn't right. Tell me you're making a complaint right?

[smileyeagle1021]

I have made a complain about the previous tech... but I'ver left at at he appears incompetent (after all, it really shouldn't matter whether the problem is that he's purposely incompetent or just incompetent)

[chainedbarista]

i'm glad you did; this guy needs to consider something that doesn't involve public interaction, so his morals won't be offended, or we could just relocate him to a desert island somewhere.

enlightened my butt...

[bainsidhe]

Smiley, I support you 100% and if this is true, the guy is a really douchebag.

But. Why would the awesome tech tell you such a reason? Sorry, but it shouldn't matter if it's true, you don't throw your coworkers under the bus like that. Sympathize with the frustration, certainly. But this type of gossip is way unprofessional.

Maybe it didn't seem that way. But this clearly got a rise out of you (of course!) and wasn't helping the situation. As you said yourself, it shouldn't matter if douchebag is intentionally incompetent or not. He's just incompetent.

I'm glad you finally got things fixed and hope you don't deal with that again. Some people just make me

[Can I Help Your A$$?]

I would throw my douchebag co-worker under the bus. I wouldn't want to be associated with someone like that. If someone I work with is pulling that kind of crap, if I couldn't help get him fired one way, I might try another. I've never had one that was that bad, though.

[Broomjockey]

Yeah, I'd throw him under the bus too.

Maybe literally. He's creating more work for the company. He's shirking his own by not handling it properly. Dozens of other little things. But people are inclined to forgive simple incompetence. How often is your order screwed up in a drive-through, and you go "meh, they just screwed up" and you carry on? You ascribe it to someone having a bad day, being new, no one's perfect. Hundreds of perfectly probably legitimate reasons.

But here's the thing. You get your order screwed up enough, you don't care why, you just stop going to that drive-through. And then that place loses business. Maybe it was a good place to work before, but now it's in a budget crunch. Goes downhill. More customers leave, eventually, it either folds, or is just miserable.

But if I could save it by getting that one co-worker fired who keeps screwing up on purpose? Just by telling a customer the truth? Hell yeah, fucker's going under that bus.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Smiley, I support you 100% and if this is true, the guy is a really douchebag.

But. Why would the awesome tech tell you such a reason? Sorry, but it shouldn't matter if it's true, you don't throw your coworkers under the bus like that. Sympathize with the frustration, certainly. But this type of gossip is way unprofessional.

Sometimes, professionalism is highly overrated.

Had I been the tech, I'd have lobbed that co-worker under the bus so fast your head would spin, believe you me. I'd want the customer to understand the problem is with one terrible employee and not the entire company.

[bainsidhe]

Hmm, perhaps I should clarify, although I still appear in the minority. When I say you don't throw coworkers under the bus, it's not because I want to protect douchebag. I suggest it to protect yourself and the company from looking bad, and to prevent the customer from hearing gossip that will only insult them and really piss them off.

I have no problem with awesome tech alluding to douchebag's incompetence/unprofessionalism and suggesting that a customer should complain about douchebag's poor performance. But giving the true reason, which happens to be an incredibly volatile and personal subject, is way unprofessional and also looks badly on awesome tech.

Should douchebag be punished for it? Absolutely! Yet let's consider if it were a different reason. If the tech says: "Sorry, he doesn't want to work for you because you're *race*/fat/old/breath smells bad/he thinks you're a whore/etc etc etc", how is this appropriate? Damn right a customer will be pissed. Frankly, I think it's lucky awesome tech explained this to our warm, loveable Smiley, who isn't going to go and beat the snot out of douchebag.

Well...hopefully.

[Broomjockey]

If the tech says: "Sorry, he doesn't want to work for you because you're *race*/fat/old/breath smells bad/he thinks you're a whore/etc etc etc", how is this appropriate? Damn right a customer will be pissed.

As I said, a customer's likely to forgive incompetence until they just leave, and never complain. Giving an actual reason that isn't incompetence will actually spur the complaints. After all, look at smiley's case. He got multiple visits, and never complained to the company until he was told it wasn't just the guy not knowing how to do his job.

[lush]

I've got to go with bainsidhe here, there were better ways of the tech that fixed it of handling that.

Instead of passing along gossip, he should have just apologized, maybe even said he'd let his boss know about his findings and went on his way. THEN taken it up with the boss, if he felt that was the case he could have gone to his boss and said "hey I think this tech was dicking around this customer because of his beliefs".

There was no reason for him to be a gossip and say something that could cause issues for the company like that.

[smileyeagle1021]

But giving the true reason, which happens to be an incredibly volatile and personal subject, is way unprofessional and also looks badly on awesome tech.

something to keep in mind that I didn't mention (but should have) is that one of my roommates already knew the tech... she and the tech that came today are part of an online gaming group... so this wasn't said from a tech to a customer (well, it was) but from one friend with inside knowledge to a friend without inside knowledge.

[Lil Bunny]

I can see where you all are coming from but this just seriously irks me to the point where I wanted to throw something at my screen. Broomjockey hit it perfectly in my opinion.

[tropicsgoddess]

Hopefully management put some action from that complaint you made on that shitty tech. It's bad enough to do a half-ass job, let alone nothing. But to have some lame excuse for it is just plain unprofessional.

[gremcint]

You know I thought lying was a sin. He lied when he agreed to do the job properly.