Well hello everyone and welcome to my very first blog post ever. I've started this blog as a means to vent my personal frustrations as well as provide some simple advice on how to, you guessed it, not look like a complete moron.
First off, a bit of information about me and why I decided to start doing this. I work in a contact center doing online sales support for a large American mobile phone company which will remain unnamed for now. In the course of my day I chat with anywhere from 50 - 80 customers (3 at a time) and have seen a wide range of general typing ability, along with basic common sense. With all that in mind, let's get started!
To begin with, we live in a digital age. That's no secret anymore since it's 2011. That being said, unless you have been living under a rock for the past 25 years you have absolutely no excuse for not understanding some very basic terms that are thrown around quite frequently. This includes MB (Megabytes), GB (Gigabytes), Wi-Fi, as a few of the more common ones. While some of you may be biased and go "Oh well you grew up in the digital age, you understand this so much more easily". Yeah, you know what else I understand? That it doesn't take 20 years to learn what a term is especially with how frequently you see it. For the record....1024 bytes = 1 KB (kilobyte if you're still not following the bouncing ball). 1024 KB = 1 MB. 1024 MB = 1 GB. 1024 GB = 1 TB (terabyte). These are fairly standard terms that are used as a measurement of data storage and transfer, and shouldn't be so hard to keep in mind. Learn more, and look less like a moron.
Now onto my next part. Quite blatant disregard for knowing how to use the language you've used your entire life. I actually don't blame most people for this, I blame a horribly failed education system that for the past 30+ years has made it so easy to get by without knowing how to spell some very simple words that it makes me cringe. I often and frequently in the course of my day will come across customers who are not shy to admit that English is their second language. That's fine, I may struggle a bit with it but I applaud anyone who can carry on a conversation in a language they have not spent the entire life using, especially since I know I cannot. If you don't know how to spell (and use grammar) then you may want to invest some time into picking up a book that will help you with spelling and grammar. Believe it or not this is going to help you get by in life since people will stop looking at you like you're a downs syndrome child that also has F.A.S., and actually treat you like you have half of a brain. By the way, using an item like Dragon voice to text is not going to help you in the long run since computers make errors too, and if you can't spot them you're going to get in trouble with it eventually.
For my third section, if I had to title it anything I would call it "Help me, Help you". Now this seems like it should be common sense to me but maybe I'm just a gigantic asshole. Part of my job is asking questions designed to help me find out what you really need, or even want (yes there is a huge difference between the two). If you *need* and iPhone so you can call your friends once a day, and use the phone for nothing else you better not complain about the price of the phone as well as the extras you have to pay for on the plan. If money is really an issue each month you can probably get by using a phone that does everything you need without any extra frills. For that reason alone my favorite customers are the ones who simply tell me that they need a phone that calls and sends/receives text messages. Bam! Easily done, and we're going to get through this process with a smile on both of our faces. If you want an iPhone so you "Can use an iPod, but why do I need to pay data if I'm only using it as an iPod?" I get very tempted to point out that the iPod in best buy for $300 is going to be a lot cheaper than the bare minimum $1319.76 plus taxes and fees this phone is going to cost you over the course of 2 years. Morale of the story is don't live outside of your means. P.s. that's how you got into a recession America. More of the same isn't going to get you out of it.
For my final little bit of ranting today, I want to touch on the subject that never ceases to frustrate me. Insanity. How much insanity do I deal with you ask? Simple. At least 2 or 3 times an hour I will deal with a customer who thinks they are being clever when they ask me the exact same question in 4 different ways because they didn't like the first answer I gave them. When you ask me the same question and expect a different answer that is being insane, as the definition of insanity is doing the exact same thing and expecting a different result. You can avoid looking like a moron by accepting the answer you were given the first time. If you don't agree with my answer, please tell me! I'll gladly explain it in more detail for you in very small easy to use words that match a grade 2 level of understanding since that seems the most you are qualified to ingest. That way we can both move on and instead of a painful 45 minutes of both of us being annoyed we can have a quick 10 minute conversation and both leave it satisfied.
To sum up this blog post, just don't be a moron. Use some common sense, and realize that telling me you do not understand is not being a moron, it's showing me that you are willing to work with me, but I've said something that you require further clarification on and I can do that in generally 30 seconds or less. When you assume I'm just stupid and don't know what I'm talking about remember I do this for a living and you don't know how to navigate a web page. Who's the moron now?
-Rob
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