this is what happens when you try too hard

i am currently heartbroken.

no, we did not split up…but instead, i worked with a very patient and cooperative and understanding customer for almost 4 hours but we were not able to resolve her PC issue.

scratch that, I was not able to resolve the issue.

ive never felt so frustrated before in a call. in the past, i don’t really give a damn whether i resolve my customers’ PC issues or not because we are not required to troubleshoot them in the first place. we are their ISP tech support team, so as long as their DSL is working fine and their PC is fucked up we either transfer them to their PC manufacturer or if they are willing to pay a certain amount of dollars to be on the phone per minute then we toss them over to Microsoft or Apple, whatever their Operating System is.

then came Miss O’Berry. a very sweet lady who called in because she cannot open her hyperlinks on her outlook express emails. she was currently up and surfing so i know that i can just toss her over to Microsoft to check her internet explorer browser settings. but i don’t know what possessed me at that very minute because the first thing i did was asked permission to access her PC through a software used for remote access. and from there my mission became clear to me: i want to resolve the problem. it was very clear to me that it is a problem on her PC software but i turned a blind eye and went on and on and on…

i checked her browser properties.

i checked the File Type of her URL.

we ran regsvr32 urlmon.dll.

we ran several other regsvr32 files.

we rebooted the PC a million times.

we rebooted her outlook express a trillion times.

nothing.

until i finally succumbed. i gave up. its obvious now that this is meant for the Geek Squad and not for me…

i was very disappointed with myself…

…and proud of myself as well because im no I.T. person, hell i took up Communications in college so when i first had this job the ony thing i know about computers and the internet are limited to: playing games | chatting | emails | blogging | watching videos/movies | downloading music…i don’t care a bit about browsers and proxies and socket errors and ip addresses and DNS and all that tons of sh*t that comes with internet and internet access. this job had me on a 3-week crash course on I.T. and its crazy. sometimes, when im troubleshooting really complicated issues, i tend to be overwhelmed with myself and what im doing. because for 5 years, i studied on how to put together a newspaper/magazine, write scripts, put together advertising/marketing strategies, creating costumes/props for theatre and the proper way to apply make-up. has nothing to do with my current job description.

so everytime i hear customers who are so happy and thankful because i had them up and running with their DSL, i feel happy and thankful myself…

and that’s the reason why i feel depressed on that call. the customer was thankful because i tried my best but unfortunately she is no near happy.

i hope the geek squad can cheer her up.

and btw, this has been a long, hard day so il go and hit the sack.