BOFH makes a hardware call
By Simon Travaglia
Posted: 09/10/2003 at 16:11 GMT
BOFH 2003: Episode 23
So I'm making a hardware call about a dud disk which can only mean
one thing: I'm going to be annoyed.
I start up a game of Age of Empires in the assurance that I will have
taken over the world with my water powered nuclear generators by the
time they answer the phone.
And I'm not far wrong.
After negotiating my way through an IVR phone system that was built
by the same guy who invented recursion, I'm slapped in a PRIORITY
queue, which will mean that I'll get to talk to someone about the
time I urgently need to go to the toilet.
I pull the PFY's briefcase a little closer, planning for future
needs.
The repeated assurances of how important both I and my call are to
the hardware manufacturer do nothing to improve my mood as I listen
to my number in the queue slowly decrement. I'm reminded all too
often that if I'd bought the vendors triple-platinum-bum-cover-
special maintenance contract, I could now be talking to a service
representative instead of waiting in a phone queue with all the other
plebs who bought the gold edition 24 x 7 x 2 hour response, foolishly
thinking that that was had something to do with maintenance coverage.
And surprise of surprises, for the price of a testicle transplant I
can upgrade my ex-top-of-the-line maintenance for the current top-of-
the-line maintenance and be assured that I will have priority
treatment from now on. Until they release the quadruple platinum
cover, of course.
OK, so I'm annoyed.
Several million rings later.
"Hello, how can I help you?"
"I'd like to log a hardware fault please." I say testily.
"Ok, I'll just transfer you."
"WAIT!" I cry, before he can do any more.
"Yes?"
"If you're going to transfer me now, why didn't I get transferred
when I pressed 7 on the IVR system to select 'make a hardware call'?"
"Oh, that's a customer assurance thing."
"As in 'assure yourself that the customer didn't hang up about two
hours ago, sick of waiting'?"
"I... uh... I'll put you through."
I wait impatiently while the phone rings. Mid-ring I'm informed that
the call may be monitored for training purposes (ie. when the company
wants to teach a skilled hardware engineer how to appear retarded).
"Hi, hardware service, you're speaking with Terry. How may I help?"
"Hardware Call," I snap.
"Righto. Do you have a maintenance contract with us?"
"Yes!"
"What was the maintenance contract number?"
"No idea."
"Well, without a maintenance number this would be a chargeable call.
Are you sure you don't have a maintenance contract number?"
"No. I do have a customer number, which our contract was indexed by
when I last called you. I also have the main switchboard number,
which our contract was indexed by a few calls before that. I can even
give you the serial number of the machine concerned, which worked
about a year ago, which was in turn the index method of choice after
you changed from caller name. Which was the index method you used
after changing from maintenance contract number about three years
ago."
"Uh. Well you see it's got this box that we have to type your
maintenance number into, before we can press search."
"Terry is it?"
"Yes."
"How long have you been working there, Terry?"
"Uh... three months..."
"And what did you do before that, Terry?"
"I was at college."
"Of course you were. Now, Terry, where do you see yourself in, say
ten years' time?"
"I... Well, I suppose as a chief hardware support specialist."
"I think you need to aim higher. With your qualifications, and at
your company, you probably have all they need already. Were your
parents married?"
"Yes."
"Ah well, that's running against you from the start - glass ceiling
material. But anyway, so you have a vision of yourself in an on-site
technical role sometime in the future?"
"Oh yes!"
"OK. Do us a little favour. Our customer number is 8732281. Click on
the Query Open Calls button and enter that number, and then press
search."
"Ah... >clickety< >click< OK, three calls outstanding in the past
four years."
"Right. Now look at the last entry in those call logs."
"Um >click< Engineer dispatched to site... >clickety< Engineer
dispatched to site... >clickety< >click< They all say "Engineer
dispatched to site'."
"Right. And do you know what happened to those engineers?"
"No?"
"No. No one does. No one ever will. One day, Terry, when you're a
hardware support engineer, you might get sent to this site. And if
you mess me around with maintenance contract numbers, pressing
search, or chargeable calls, your call will be the fourth on that
list..."
"You don't know who I am."
>clickety<
"Au contraire >clickey< Terry Carter, 22, partially completed
Bachelor of Science at the University of L..."
"How did you..."
"It's all there in your Company's poorly protected staff newsletter.
And look, there's even a photo of you. Why, I could recognise you in
the street - and with the quality of the photo, probably even late at
night in a darkened alley..."
"I think I'll just get my supervi..."
"DON'T PALM ME OFF TO YOUR SUPERVISOR!"
"I... Uh..."
"Now listen very carefully, and I'll tell you exactly what to do..."
. . .
Three hours later, and strangely within the maintenance support time,
the faulty disk is replaced and the engineer departs at speed.
Sometimes you just have to reach out and touch someone. ®
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