It's hard not to be cynical

Published on November 23, 2003 By digitalnoiz In Consumer Issues

I have a cool job. For about a year now I've been a Technical Support Representative. The program I support is newer to the company I work for, as they made their name on a really powerful program that is still considered the standard to do what it does, and then created this smaller program that really hasn't done much until about a year ago when they changed to a service model instead of a product model. (Yes I'm being dodgy because I like my job and want to keep it. This article does not have their approval so no names only descriptions

One of the things that I find so hard about this job is cynicism. The Dictionary.com definition of cynicism I'm talking about is: An attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others. Primarily the issue in Technical Support is the distrust of the integrity of others because they profess an insanely debilitating case of Technophobia. You can't help but become cynical when you receive a call and all they can say is that they don't know what their doing. To fix a problem over the phone requires nothing more than 3rd grade reading skills and the ability to follow directions. You obviously found our phone number and you used the phone to call us, so you just confirmed you meet this criteria. To fix a problem, you may need to describe what is going wrong. In some cases this does require some communication skills (again a 3rd grade level will do nicely) which is fine even if some people need their teeth pulled to provide an actual description with pronouns and everything. In most cases however what is going wrong is that an error message has appeared. Why would an error message be considered unimportant if you are calling for technical support? On average over 70% of the calls I receive are because of an error message, and the person calling has no idea what it said. Error messages are not uncommon with computers, and in most cases if it appears once, your eyes glaze over, you press OK and hope it doesn't appear again. But if the message is appearing every time you are trying to do something, perhaps it is trying to tell you that you have a problem. Maybe you should read it. If it doesn't make since to you, well call technical support and let them know the error you are receiving, and I bet you they can help. But why would you think that just saying your getting an error that they are going to be able to help? And Why is it such a problem that if the error message is the result of another piece of software, that it's so hard to accept that you may need to seek help from someone else too?

This is not to say that all error messages are created equal. The program I support has a good set of error messages that explain the problem and offer solutions if it's an application problem. In addition to the application though we provide a subscription service too, and the error messages generated by the components managing the subscription are literately cryptic in the form of numbered error codes that are completely meaningless to anyone besides me, our QA, and the programmer. (Yes this is a very bad design, but I only support it, I didn't build it) But does that mean you don't read it, or that you don't expect that you will need the exact error you are seeing to get a solution?

I don't know where the trend started, but the assumption that computers are toasters was a great exaggeration. The toaster is simple, you press the button and it makes toast. Simple, elegant, effective, and completely utilitarian. For some reason people cling to the belief that you press a button and the computer does what it is suppose to and they can't fathom the idea that computers are not utilitarian at all, they rely on criterion. There is not a software program available that does not have system requirements that are listed as criteria of the hardware that should work with the software. But even if you meet the criteria, it does not guarantee the program will work flawlessly. If you have background programs, old (in computer terms) or exotic hardware that is poorly supported, this can affect your success of using the software. These are the gambles you take with computers, but expecting to just click a button to fix the problem is an absurd expectation.

To sum up, I love my job, because I get paid to be a mad scientist and fix things for people. The problem is that I find my self everyday in situations that I want to write a person off as just too dumb to be helped, and I have to fight with every word I say to not be this cynical and provide the help the person needs. Hopefully with a little less cynicism on my part, I can get a little more patience and understanding on my callers part.

Comments

Melchiah

on Nov 23, 2003

I know exactly what you're talking about. I used to work in technical support for a very large computer company and it can be extremely taxing on someone's mood and emotions. We (at least from my experience) were trained that when in a call with a client our emotions are to be shelved. That's nearly impossible to do since emotions are a the core of what drives people. You get these calls from people who are usually riding an emotional rollercoaster becuase something is wrong with their computer and they don't know what. Add to it that if it is related to the software you support they're likely to get mad at you personally since you represent the company who's software just crapped out on them.

I can remember this one particular call from a guy who's problem was "My screen is black." That's all he'd tell us, over and over no matter what questions we asked. After about 15 minutes of this we finally got him to start checking all the connections between his various peripherals. Yeah, monitor was not plugged in. I can see how that can happen. There have been times when putting my computer back together I've forgotten to plug something back in. However, if when I try to use that device again and it doens't work that's the first thing I check...common sense to me.

So when you have people who are neophytes calling you all day with various problems I can see how not getting cynical would be difficult. Especially if these people would read their manuals or help files and realize they have a lot of control over their own situation and can take many steps towards resolving it themselves. For some reason though people don't do that, maybe because it's easier to just dial a phone number. Heaven forbid they look it up, how dare we ask too much of them!

Anyway, that's enough for my ranting. I sympathize with you digitalnoiz. Just remember to take it in stride and try to not take their ignornace personally.

~Melchiah

zman

on Feb 18, 2005

I just read your commentary on the love-hate relationship you have with your job. I find that you do not so much appear cynical, but rather arrogant and lacking in understanding yourself. You really must try not to "write people off" for being dumb when you yourself cannot even spell the word "sense" correctly...something I believe many third graders can do. If you would spend half as much time honestly taking stock of yourself as you do ranting about the seemingly endless flaws in other people, you might actually learn something about yourself. I should know as I have been a cynic for many years and am now seeing the futility of maintaining such an outlook. There's an old saying that makes quite a bit of sense...goes like this: "A cynic knows the cost of everything, but the value of nothing." People like us need to get over ourselves and stop basing our own self worth on the failures of others to perform. If we continue to maintain a negative and mistrusting attitude and outlook toward everything and everybody...we would notice anything good in our lives at all, unless of course it did something wrong or failed to meet our expectations. Then we would be right on it. Pathetic! We profess to be intelligent, but when it comes right down to it we fail ourselves and others through our own arrogant rantings and ravings. Time to grow up friend. This position in life can be extremely lonely and cold. You may, like myself, find that you can learn some very profound lessons from those that are seemingly ignorant of your greatness. Like I said before...we need to see past ourselves or we've learned nothing at all. Have a good life-zman

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