Luser wants us to be mind readers (long, boring, but I'm frustrated)

[vikingchyk]

Cast:
Me: VikingChyk, intrepid IT applications gal
BL: Bitchy Luser
CH: my boss, middle management CHeese
J: Co irker, not appearing in this picture

Me: #surfing the interwebs, probably CS#
BL: (stomping in) Are you the one who can help me with Application S?
Me: No, J handles that one-
BL (stomps off before I can finish that he just stepped away from his desk)
Me:

{stir slightly, wait one minute}

CH: (comes into cube, with BL right behind him) Where's J?
Me: He stepped out - I think he was handling task X.
CH: Oh, OK (turns to BL, but she turns and stomps off) (returns to his office)

Me: (to myself) Ruh roh, I can feel something bad coming down. I'd better go find J before she does.

I wander the floor, unsuccessfully, waylaid by chitchat - return to my desk about 15 minutes later. Oh look, new email. From BL. Uh oh. Sure enough, she had emailed me, CH, and some poor innocent guy on a different floor (I'm guessing she picked the wrong name from the global address book - brilliant!) to complain.

"All I wanted was for one of you to try to access AppS to see if it was up or it was my machine..." blahblahblah "I'm disappointed neither of you could do that..." blahblah "I was able to solve my problem by asking someone else" blahblahblah

Followup email from my boss "obviously we could have tried to access AppS, but I don't believe you asked me or VikingChyk to try to do that. I should have thought of doing that, but I was trying to answer the question you did ask." plus a little too much apology included from my taste, but yay, boss sticking up for us (or maybe just himself

Finally finding him, I fill in J, and suggest he ask CH how to approach BL to now offer tech support, so J doesn't get his head bit off. The three of us have a mini confab where I tell CH my side, he confirms that she never asked him for what she actually wanted, either. Then we send J off to face the firing squad. Good luck!

He gets back about 2 minutes later, and says BL gave him a smile, and cheerfully said the problem was resolved.

Well, goody, so now she's all happy, and I just want to someone... Darn me for not giving good customer service and not being able to read her freaking mind to figure out what her question was! Bad VC!! I'm guessing I was also supposed to read her mind to know that I should jump up from my chair, give her a big hug, a cookie, patted her hand and say "There, there, dear. Tell me all about it!" in the 3.2 milliseconds between answering her question, and her turning to stomp off to complain to my boss.

Maybe it will discourage her from coming in here, and get her to use the frigging help request form, so she can think about what she actually wants, and figure out how to get the thoughts out of her head, and into a form mere mortals can ingest.

At least there was some comic relief in the confused email from the poor innocent guy "I assume I was incorrectly CC'd on this, as I do not have access to AppS."

[angelicafire]

This is IT stuff right? At my call center, there's like 450 people, and 4 techs. YOU DO NOT PISS OFF THE TECHS. You kiss their asses, bring them Starbucks, etc. If you ever want a new mouse and keyboard because the person who used your desk before the shift realignment used enough lotion to make an elephant swim in it, you had better kiss their butt. Cuz that's gross. And I'll be damned if I scrub every key only to see it slime-ing down the sides.... *shudder*

[vikingchyk]

Yeah, IT stuff. We're a small team of 6 (soon to be 7), and we handle applications (not the network) which means we have some commercial apps, but we are also developing specialized stuff. So we have Real Work(TM) to do, in addition to support. We're only one-person deep on some of the apps, so if they're not in, you're not getting support. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, but it usually is.

[TheRabbi]

Man, that would be awesome. I'd love be a tech there, because I'd appreciate a workplace that appreciates me...