Are you a generous, patient person? Do you enjoy assisting people in need? Does it make you feel good about yourself if, as a result of talking to you, another human being’s life is made easier? Well, working at a help desk will cure you of these afflictions in a few short hours. Just spend a morning talking non-stop to confused, frantic, irritable, and generally non-intelligent people, and you will want to push a nun in front of a moving train.
There are numerous varieties of help desks. Many are of a technical nature, some are customer service-based, and others involve assisting company employees with their needs. All are centered around a philosophy of pain.
Technical Help
You have to know what you’re doing to handle this job, because people will be calling you with specific technical questions about computers, such as:
"How can I use a photograph of my pet Dachshund, Snoodles, as desktop wallpaper?"
"How do I adjust my solitaire settings for Vegas scoring?"
"If I accidentally spilled half a can of Surge into my keyboard, what will happen?"
"It’s asking me for my password, what should I do?"
"What is my password?" (Snoodles, probably)
Yes, all of your computer training has been for naught. Your situation will be comparable with sending in Stephen Hawking to teach preschool (meaning, you wouldn’t really need someone with all of his vast knowledge to teach a class of four year-olds. Plus, the kids would probably play on him).
You’ll probably be very helpful at first, but the lack of challenges will begin to affect you. I mean, how many times can you answer a call about a broken printer, only to find that it’s out of paper? How many times can you be frantically told that someone’s computer is broken, when it’s just that they’ve forgotten to turn on their monitor? Not many, and soon you won’t even be personally visiting the employee, but instead, over the phone, giving them one of the replies listed below:
"The network is down."
"The little computer goblin must be sick."
And (all together now) "Turn it off, and then on again."
One fun thing to do is to send random employees an e-mail stating that the e-mail is not working. See how many replies you get that say: "Will you send me an e-mail telling me when the e-mail is working again?"
Company Support Line
A great job if you can get it. The position exists at a company’s headquarters, and handles nation-wide employee concerns regarding company policy and technical support. The only qualifications for this position is that you never answer the phone.
Now, you’re only human, and a temp at that, so no one will expect you to get the hang of not answering the phone right away. Out of reflex, you might pick up a ringing phone during your training stage, but don’t feel too embarrassed about it: you can still avoid helping whoever has called. If you do happen to accidentally answer the phone, you should
a) supply incorrect information, or
b) supply no information whatsoever
Supplying incorrect information may sound easy, but it can be tricky. If someone’s computer refuses to print out a closing report, for example, and your suggestion includes a ritual involving a set of left-handed golf clubs, a moist Shetland pony, and six pounds of carrot shavings, they may be suspicious. And often times the person on the phone will insist that you stay on the line while they try out your "solution." When your fabricated instructions fail, they will be able to yell at you. The best thing to do is explain to them that the process will not work unless the phone is hung-up. Tell them the pony won’t do the special dance if the phone line is open or something equally preposterous, I mean, what are they going to do, ask for your superior? You’re a temp!
Happily, there are many ways to supply no information. The most effective is to put the person on hold for two hours, then disconnect them, and when they call back, disguise your voice so they don’t know it was you. Another is to listen to the employee’s problem, inserting the occasional "Uh-huh" and then transfer them to an random destination (Jiffy Lube, a cheese factory, Peru).
Customer Service
Let me be the first to admit that I have a real bug up my ass about this one. If you get a job in customer service, you’re going to hear something like this from the person who is training you: "Smile! People can hear if you’re smiling over the phone!" This is absolutely true. You can hear a smile over the phone. But so what? Since when did smiling equal good customer service?
The basic thing to remember is, people who call customer service aren’t always happy. Sure, some of them may be very happy. Apparently there are some freaks out there who are always happy about everything. Some people may be neutral, maybe just looking for information or needing some questions answered. But others will be people with problems. People with problems aren’t generally happy. People with problems don’t want you to be happy either. What people with problems want is for you to solve their problems. Now.
My own personal philosophy is that it’s important to match the customer as far as attitude goes. If you get a caller or customer that is happy and bubbly and perky, sure, go right ahead and be happy and perky back, in fact, you’ll probably find it a very natural, easy thing to do. If someone is neutral, well, you can be happy and smile then too, no harm done, or you can be polite and neutral right back, also no harm done. But what if you get an angry caller? Well, you need to match them, too. I’m not saying be angry. But be serious. They don’t want to hear a smile over the phone. They want to hear you taking them seriously. Listen carefully to them and don’t waste their time with a lot of nonsense talk. If you can solve their problem, do it quickly, if you can’t, promise them you will find out who can. Customers with problems want speed and competence more than anything else. And if you can’t help them at all, and this is really important, definitely don’t be happy. Nobody likes bad news from someone who is smiling. A smile in the case of bad news makes you seem callous, uncaring… evil.
Sorry, I realize there are basically no jokes in this section (there are jokes in other sections. Really). I guess this is just something I feel very strongly about. Not customer service, per se, but this whole sort of "smile" attitude that I keep running into. It’s a foolish idea that a sunny personality can make anything seem better than it is. You know, I could slap a bright coat of paint on my car, but it would still be the same piece of leaking, sputtering, malfunctioning garbage underneath.
I was not smiling as I wrote this.
