Friday, October 15, 2010

The Funniest Thing Happened @ Work Yesterday....

Now, I've been in support off and on, and in the Tech Sector for a long time. And I love hearing the hilarious stories of customer mishaps, brain farts, and other outrageous acts. Now these are funny for any number of reasons; the base stupidity of the customer, the reaction a customer gets from tech support, or how easily a "major problem" was solved. One of the reasons I love hearing about them is because they rarely happen to me. As you know, dear readers, I work as a support person for a company called Pinpoint Global. For the first time in years, I got a funny story to tell.

Yesterday, I got a support ticket from the support team of a firm which I shall name "Company". (I know original, right? I'm a beacon of creative potential, I am. BTW, all the names have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.) After reporting back to Company's support team that I fixed what I thought was causing the issue, I get this cry for help directly from the troubled soul drowning in the darkness of malfunctioning websites:

Hello,
My name is Gabriel and I have been selected by the Gods to endure the endless torture of not being able to access Step 2 in the Company Broker Portal despite the honorable and steadfast deliberations from some of the most knowledgeable souls and sages that have become snared by this curiosity.


Alas, the last fix did not hold and so I have taken extensive screen shots to document the process and its failure that plagues us. These I have attached so they may be examined and scrutinized in hopes a solution will show itself.
I do a little more digging and find a secondary issue. I cleaned up their account and force the fix through, so this guy no longer has to go through the registration process & can just log in directly to the site. Meanwhile, my co-workers are getting a kick out of this guy's email. It's so rare to see a customer with a sense of humor about all this. Me being who I am, I have to keep this going. So, I respond in kind:

Hi,
My name is Rodney and I am an Agent of Necessity, that force which compels even the Gods to succumb to Its will! As such, I have endeavored to break their stranglehold on your fate. With the arcane magic buried deep within the Access Code, I was able to restore your destiny to its proper place of greatness among the pantheon of warriors and successfully registered you on the site with the following logon information:
Username: xx
Password: xxx

At this point, Warrior Gabriel, you can just log into the site and continue on your quest to complete the rest of Company training. The Talisman of The Initial Training has already been emblazoned on your account and is displaying properly on your transcript.

Please do not hesitate to call upon myself or my fellow agents of Necessity to assist you on your path to greatness.

Thanks,
Rodney
Pinpoint Global (Necessity's Cover in The Mortal Realm)

The support team at Company were CC'd into this email exchange and one of them responds to me, quite unexpectedly with this:

Rodney,
That was such an awesome answer. I think I will keep it so that I can refer back to it from time to time. I wish that I could forward your answer back to the actual broker. You should have been a writer!

Thank you,
Vanessa

Now, I'm worried that the guy didn't get my email. So, I dig in and find his email address and send it to him directly. After about an hour or so, he responds with the following:

Thank you so much.

You must be a Titan or something because for the last three weeks: nothing. Rodney gets on the horse, and off we go into the blazing future like quicksilver.

SWEET, SWEET VICTORY!!!!!

(You are right though, my journey has just begun, it would wise to leave the celebrating to the God-wranglers and keep steadfast to the path...) Thank you again, and a thousand blessings to you and your own

Sincerely,
Gabriel

Thus the story ends, with evil vanquished and the Pure-Hearted Warrior victorious and ready to face the next challenges the Gods place in front of him….

2 comments:

  1. That was great story, LOL! Our tech support is based in India, so I doubt much of my humor would translate well over there . . .

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  2. you know, bro, that is an intensly funny situation.....i actually liked that he asked for help like that. see, your not the only one who talks like that!!!

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