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Computershop Tech Rant Thread | by slacktime | 2002-06-03 12:28:29 |
| I look at life from both sides now... |
by saxguy |
2002-06-03 18:52:52 |
Ok. I used to be that guy. Then I was the boss of guys like that for awhile. Truth be told, the only time I got snotty with any customers was when they came in "armed for bear" with the firmly-affixed chip on their shoulder that proudly exclaimed to the world in no uncertain terms that they know more about their computer than I do because their cousin-in-law works for Intel (probably in the mailroom) and HE said that they had this problem or that problem and so now that it was already successfully diagnosed, why don't I be a good little red-shirted monkey-boy and fix it for them at no charge since they had already spent so many hours agonizing over it to figure out what the problem is. I got really close to telling some pimply-faced teenage punk "Hey, if you think you know so much about it, why don't you fix it your damn self;" Fortunately I thought better of it and got to keep my job. The thing is, 9 times out of 10 when somebody came in to my shop with a PC that they had "diagnosed" themselves, it was 10 times as bad as if they'd just left it alone and let me deal with it. After you see that kind of customer so many times, you just sort of assume they're all like that -- especially when the people you deal with every day are fellow employees from other parts of the store who *THiNK* they know something about how a PC works, and they tell the customers what they *THiNK* they know, and the customers then proceed to come over and tell me how to do my job based on what some retail stooge told them. Why they would accept some salesperson's word as gospel and then come over and hassle me when I tell them something different, I have no idea.
On the other hand, if someone came into the shop and began an intelligent discourse with me that showed me that they'd used empirical reasoning to narrow down the problem, or even if they'd just tried some basic troubleshooting or had had someone else try some basic troubleshooting who knew enough to write down exactly what was done so I'd have a place to start, I was the picture of kindness and patience.
But never once, even in the face of the nastiest, most asinine customer, did I hold my A+ certification over their heads (or any of my other certs, for that matter.) That's just unprofessional. I've cleaned up some messes from some other techs who did that, which makes me all the more sure I'd never be that kind of tech. I actually was in the position of hiring A+ certified techs for a while, then firing most of them later for doing stupid things like plugging floppy cables in backwards and arguing with the customer that it must be user error. I had to clean up similar such messes enough to know how not to behave.
But now, I'm on the other end. I own my own business, I do PC and Mac repairs and cross-platform networking and other such things. My clientele all call me instead of the large retail dealer even though I charge more, because they are happy with the work I do. I treat them like intelligent beings, and if they don't know how something works I patiently explain it to them. If they want to do the work themselves, I let them, but I also let them know that if I have to re-repair one of their "repairs" I will still charge them by the hour for the time it takes me to fix whatever's wrong. Generally, the people who feel up to the task of doing it themselves are very qualified to do so; there's no need to insult their intelligence by telling them they're not -- instead I just tactfully explain to them that if they feel like assembling a PC would be over their heads, I'd be happy to do it for them, and that the best time to make such a decision is before they start actually working with the components so why don't they read the manual and decide for themselves whether it's something they'd like to get into. That puts them in charge without being insulting, and gives them the option of deciding for themselves whether they're qualified to do the job.. (of course, if they're calling me in the first place, it's usually because they don't want to do it themselves, so it's an easy speech to make...)
Anyway, sorry you had to deal with a retail stooge. Hope your next experience is better.
Pete |
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