I have lost faith in Tier I.

[draggar]

Sometimes I get tickets (as people here have seen) that just makes me want to and as well as from our Tier I support.

I have decided that they are nothing but brainless robots - much like the Azguard before their consciousness is uploaded into them (SG-1 reference).

I have a ticket sitting in my bucket:

The user wants to copy files over to her external hard drive. Not only is this NOT IT"s responsibility (we do not train people on HOW to use their PCs), Tier I decided to pass it along to me. Now, why didn't they just take care of the user and walk her though it or even remote into the PC and do it for them? I see in the notes they could PING the PC so they could have remoted into it, but didn't.

Does Tier I not know how to copy files?

[Darkforge]

Does Tier I not know how to copy files?

well.... now you mention it....

[artcurmudgeon]

Tier 1?!? Tier !?!?

Say hello to my little lart! (yes an alt.sysadmin.recovery ref)

::WHAM::WHAM::WHAM::

Dont we all all feel better now?

[Polenicus]

I have so many stories from my Call Center days.

In days of yore, back when my heart was shriveled and blackened, but not yet the fossilized lump of coal it is today, I was a Tier 2 tech support agent. This meant we handled whatever calls Tier 1 couldn't handle, did coaching, took supervisor calls (Because we had all the tools supervisors did, and generally knew the tech side better).

However, our center had recently gone through an ownership change, and the owners, seeing the Tier 1 techs were generally a poorly performing, unpleasant, snarky bunch decided that this was due to them not having their hands held enough.

A new policy was put in place that whenever a Tier 1 tech had called Tier 2 twice on an issue, the call was automatically escalated. This in and of itself was not a bad policy, but it was also mated to a new scoring system where Tier 2 was not rated on how well we handled CUSTOMER calls, but how well we handled Tier 1.

... In other words, they had made Tier 1 our customers. they even phrased it as such.

And being that in a center of 300 techs, you are going to have a significant number of cockweasels, we started getting quite a few sucky tier 1 calls.

My favorite was a lady who REFUSED to do her job. She would escalate every call. Every call. She wouldn't verify account information, she wouldn't check her knowledge base, she wouldn't even ask the customer what the problem was.

I got her many times, but this was the time I lost my head.

Pol: Your friendly neighborhood ME!
CW: Cockweasel... errr, co-worker.
Customer: Surprisingly non-sucky customer.

Pol: Hi, this is Tier 2 Polenicus, how can I help you?
CW: Hi, this is <CW> I'm escalating this call.
Pol: Okay, what's the issue?
CW: I don't know.
Pol: ... (At this point, I could have pushed back, but this girl was a serious drama queen, and a lot of times it was just easier to take it) Okaaaaaay... can I get the account info?
CW: Look, I don't have any of that stuff! Just take the call!
Pol: I'm sorry, but I can't take the call if you haven't even verified the account info! Go back to the customer, get the account info, find out what the issue is, check your knowledge base, and then if you're still not sure, call us back.
CW: You guys NEVER take calls! You're always so lazy! You always push back! I'm just going to keep calling until someone takes this!
Pol: You can't... *Dial tone*

Hmmm... crud... Well, she did two things. One, she called over a supervisor to tell him I was a misogynist and calling her stupid, and second she called tier 2 again.

Surprisingly enough, she got me. Y'know why? Because we were BUSY.

Pol: Tier 2 Polenicus, how can I help you...
CW: This is my second call, you're TAKING the call!
Pol: Hang on, is this <CW>? Have you verified any of the...
CW: *CLICK*
Customer: ... Hello?

She simply duped the customer onto my line, and then went off with the supervisor to the back room, crying and telling them how horrible I was. The call hadn't been monitored, so guess who got coached? Yeah, ME.

Things steadily got worse at that place as they pandered more and more to Tier 1's, until they had more or less FORBADE Tier 1's from doing ANY troubleshooting, and made them glorified secretaries for Tier 2.

CW eventually quit because the job was 'too stressful' and everyone was 'so mean to her'.

[crashhelmet]

Gawd Polenicus... It sounds like we work for the same company.

CH

[Taubin]

Gawd Polenicus... It sounds like we work for the same company.

CH

I was thinking the same exact thing....

[ShockQueen]

Cheese-on-rice-on-day-old-toast, what a waste of flesh that Tier I was. I'd have drop-kicked her drama-queen butt out the 3rd story window for being such a douchenozzle - after politely having a conversation with her behind the dumpster with my friendly clue-by-four.

It takes a certain amount of patience and intelligence to work in a call center, and I guess she had zero of either.