LaslowNET

During my time at QWE Computers, I was called out to a woman’s fitness chain. I’d previously installed a computer with a custom database/barcode scanner that the chain uses to keep track of its members. A client would come in, scan their barcode, and monitor would show them various details of their membership. Or at least, that’s what it was supposed to do. Only two weeks after the initial install, things just stopped working.

When I arrived at the site I was greeted by the owner (we’ll call her Sally), who was absolutely livid. I did my best to calm her down while I checked things out. After a few minutes of digging around, it became apparent that the Microsoft Access database that powered the system was corrupt. I tried the built in tools to compress and repair, however nothing worked. After explaining to the owner, she said, in a very calm voice, that she’d call the technical support people for the system. The following was her side of the conversation:

Hi, who am I speaking to? Dave? Okay, Dave, here’s the situation: (product name) isn’t working. My tech guy here says that the Access Database is corrupt. [Pause] No, I don’t have a recent backup. [Longer Pause] Okay, here’s what going to happen. You guys are in Texas, right? Well, I’m going to go and buy a plane ticket to Texas. When I get there, I’m going to buy a gun, because we don’t have those in Canada, and come and find you guys. [MUCH Longer Pause] You want me to put him on? Okay.

Sally handed me the phone. I proceeded to explain the situation to Dave, and he instructed me to email him the corrupt .mdb file. He said that he’d manually rebuild it and send it back later. Sure enough, the next morning a fresh clean .mdb was in my mail box with all of the customer data intact.

After that, I was always extra, super careful about handling Sally’s customer data for fear that she might make a quick trip across the border. After all, apparently we don’t have guns in Canada.

Here’s a collection of a few short Tales that aren’t quite big enough for posts of their own. Hope you enjoy!

How to Talk Yourself Out of a Sale

A few years ago, I was doing a quick-and-dirty wiring job for a friend and needed to grab a thousand foot spool of CAT-5e Ethernet cable. At this point, I hadn’t really developed any contacts in town, so I ran out to one of the local computer shops (we’ll call it “Pete’s Computers and Machines”) that tended to carry more than just systems and basic accessories. When one of the salesmen finally acknowledged me, the following conversation ensued:

Him: What can I get for you?

Me: I need a thousand foot spool of CAT-5e – no ends, it’s going in the wall and I’ve already got jacks.

Him (after a brief pause): No, you need these. *points to a wall displaying a myriad pre-made, bagged cable*

Me: No…I need bulk cable. I need to do a few long runs from a patch panel to wall jacks. All of this stuff isn’t long enough and has ends.

Him: I don’t know why you’d think you need bulk cable. Really, this will do for anything you need.

Me: Let me explain this one more time. I’m running cable. Specifically, it’s going from a patch panel in a utility room, through a drop ceiling, and then down a wall in to a box with a jack there. I need about a thousand feet for a few runs. Do you have what I need?

Him (flashing a beaming smile): Of course. *pointing to the same bags on the wall* Right here!

Me: ….

Needless to say, I never went there again.

A New Definition of Professionalism

A friend of mine that does low voltage wiring/telecom systems asked me to help him with a small job – the customer just wanted some jacks installed on either end of a direct-bury CAT-5e cable, but wanted two wireless routers and a debit machine configured as well. As I used to do debit machine installs in a past career I agreed to help.

After driving an hour to get to the job site, we got everything setup and working to the owners liking. I gave them a tutorial on how to use the debit and then we left. Later, the customer contacted my friend and told him that, by bringing someone in who specialized in networking and debit machines that he was being ‘unprofessional’. The customer went on to say that if my friend ever wants to ‘make it big in the real business world’, he should just do it himself, even if it takes three times as long, costs three times as much, and needs a second visit to fix things.

That customer was branded a P.I.T.A and neither my friend or myself will be doing any work for him in the future. It’s funny how some people don’t want things done right or cheap.

During my run at Gordita technical support, I had more than a few calls regarding laptop batteries. This one really took the cake, however, and even has a surprise twist ending!

Me: Thank you for calling Gordita technical support, this is Laslow. How can I help you today?

Her: Well, the battery in my laptop doesn’t charge, and as soon as I unplug the power it turns off. I need you to send me a replacement battery.

Me: Okay, I just need to verify a few account details….

After gathering all of the need information from her, I pulled up the warranty information on the account – although the laptop had a three year warranty extension on it, it was a month out of warranty. To make matters worse, batteries were only covered during the original warranty period and not at all under extended warranties.

Me: Well, ma’am, unfortunately your laptop is no longer under warranty, and the battery itself is only covered by the original warranty. The extended warranty you purchased explicitly states it’s not covered.

Her: But it’s been like that since I bought it!

Now, if there’s one thing I hate, it’s when people use the line “it’s been like that since I bought it“. Sometimes it’s legitimate, and they return it right away, or even a few days/weeks later if they’re busy. But when people try it months or even years after the fact, it’s usually pretty obvious that they’re just trying to get something for free. I hated it when I worked retail, I hated it when I worked in call centres, and I still hate it now, even to the point where I called someone out about it in line at a local London Drugs store.

Me: I’m sorry ma’am, but at this point I can’t do anything about it. If it did it when you got it, why didn’t you return it to the store, or call us right away? I mean, the battery is now three years out-of-warranty.

Her: Well, the laptop has been in my closet for a few years. I traveled for a while and never really thought about it.

Me: But if it’s done it since you got it, you had to have used it to know about that, right? Why didn’t you take care of it right away?

Her: I just didn’t have time. Now, if you won’t do something about this, transfer me to someone who will!

Those, folks, are the magic words that were my ticket out of an annoying call. As soon as she said them, I prompted ask to put her on hold while I got Customer Relations on the line. She agreed, and three minutes later I had an agent connect.

Now, at Gordita, Customer Relations was handled overseas. I really felt bad for these guys, because the only customers that ever got to them were usually pissed off, obnoxious, or just plain annoying. No matter how much they got paid, it wasn’t enough, as they only dealt with the bottom-of-the-barrel. Regardless, I was very happy they were there.

CR Agent: Customer Relations, this is Mary.

Me: Hi, Mary, this is Laslow from Level 1 support. I’ve got a customer on the line who is OOW [out of warranty] and wants us to replace her battery because “it’s been like that since she bought it”.

Mary: Is she just out of her standard warranty?

Me: Nope, she’s a month out of her three year extended warranty.

Mary: Okay, I’ll set her straight – put her through.

I couldn’t have been happier – a no-nonsense CR Agent willing to take the call immediately. Were it possible, I probably would have kissed her right then.

However, as I went to bring the customer in to the call, instead of hitting the Conference button, I accidentally hit the Disconnect button immediately below it. Shit.

Thinking fast, I got the customer back on the line.

Me: Sorry for the delay, ma’am – there’s a bit of a wait in the queue, so it’s taking longer than expected. Do you mind waiting a few more minutes?

Her: That’s fine.

So, back to the Customer Relations queue I went, and was connected to a different agent almost immediately.

CR Agent: Thank you for calling Customer Relations, this is Jen.

Me: Hi, Jen. I was actually just speaking with Mary over there. <snip the re-explanation of the problem>

Jen: Oh, so the customer wants a new battery, and she’s just out of her extended warranty?

Me: That’s correct. Should I put her though?

Jen (to the sound of furious typing in the background): No, that’s alright – I’m just adding an exception to the case authorizing the OOW replacement of the battery. Is there anything else I can do for you?

Refreshing my screen, I verified that yes, Jen had in fact authorized me to send the customer a replacement battery. I slowly thanked her, then went back to the customer.

Me: Ma’am, I have to say that you must be made out of a leprechauns, because Customer Relations authorized me to send you a replacement battery.

Her: Well, Laslow, I knew you could do it! I’m not happy that I had to wait so long, but I’m glad to see your superiors corrected you.

Me (grumbling): Yes, well, in order to process this, I need to go through the order process and inform you of what you need to do….

After reminding her that she would need to send us back the old battery and filling out the order form, I thanked her again and disconnect. Then, to the amusement of the people sitting around me, plowed my head in to my keyboard a few times.

I don’t remember ever getting Jen again on future calls to Customer Relations, but this whole incident just goes to show that it doesn’t hurt to try – the worst that can happen is they say ‘No’, and even if it goes against the odds, you might end up with what you want.

While at QWE Computers, we had our share of regular customers. These were the ones that would call a few times a week for help, and that were in often enough that if they had a quick problem, we’d usually throw their computer on the bench, fix it while they waited, and wouldn’t bother charging. Tom, as we’ll call him, was one of those customers.

And so it was that, one Saturday afternoon, Tom dropped his computer off saying that he had been watching a movie, then got up to go to the bathroom and when he came back, it wouldn’t play anymore. We told him it would be quick, so he thanked us and said he’d run out for a coffee and come it later that afternoon.

After he left, I grabbed the machine and hooked it up on the bench. It booted fine, and the first thing I did was open up Windows Media Player. It opened fine, and showed three files in the playlist – something to the tune of clip_01.avi, clip_02.avi, clip_03.avi. I double clicked one, then nearly immediately killed the window.

As it turns out, those three clips were very, very graphic porn, and of course, I had the speakers cracked up to make sure the sound worked. Boy, did it ever.

After assuring my boss, Todd, that it was Tom’s computer and everything was alright, and listening to him explain what happened to a customer who heard from the front.

So, with the computer obviously working, I started to unhook it when a thought came to me: Wait a minute. He said he was playing a video, then got up to go to the bathroom….

After that, I started disinfecting Tom’s computer whenever he brought it in.

At QWE Computers, my boss, Todd, was a very popular guy. He ran the business himself for years before hiring a staff, and knew nearly every customer on a first-name basis. There was one customer, however, who always seemed to want to know him a little better. As in, do things that Todd’s wife might not appreciate. We’ll call this customer Patty.

It was mid afternoon, and Todd was doing paperwork while I was doing malware cleanups on half a dozen computers, as was the norm. From the back, I looked up just as the door opened and Patty walked in, carrying her computer under arm. Setting it on the counter, she started chatting up Todd.

Patty: So, Todd, it’s acting up again, and I think it needs  a reformat. Can you look after it?

Todd: Well, I don’t know if we can get to it today, but we’ll get it fixed up for.

Patty: Are you sure you can’t look at it for me?

Todd (getting a little fidgety): Well, err, I might be able to, but it will either be Laslow or Shane that does it.

Patty: Well, if you do, can you make sure to backup everything?

Todd: No problem. Anything special we should know about it? Any documents, music, videos and so on in odd places we should look out for?

Patty: Everything should be in the My Documents folder, but whatever you do, don’t look in the folder on the desktop called Lioness!

And then she winked at Todd and left. He looked at me, and I looked at him.

Todd: We’re just going to leave this one for Shane, I think.

Shane was in the next day, and as he came in, I told him Patty’s computer was top priority. I gave him the details, including the instruction ‘whatever you do, don’t look in the folder called Lioness’! I even threw in the wink, knowing exactly what he’d think.

At this point, Shane had been working there for quite a while, but hadn’t dealt with Patty enough to really recognize her name. After setting up the computer on one of the workbenches, he started backing up the data. Once finished cloning the drive, he fired the system back up with the other drive attached to make sure the process worked. After confirming it had, though, his curiosity got the best of him.

He opened the folder marked Lioness.

I was in the other room at the time, and Todd was still up front, but both of us heard the strangled cry as if we were standing right beside Shane.

Shane: MY EYES! OH GOD, MY EYES!

The swearing went on for several minutes while Todd and I laughed so hard we nearly cried. Come to think of it, I probably did. After regaining our composure, we went to assess the damage.

Shane had the monitor turned off, and was glaring at us hard enough to make me start laughing again.

Shane: You knew, didn’t you? Admit it!

Me: Hey, I just told you what she told us. What was in there?

Shane: Not good enough. YOU KNEW!

Me: No, I didn’t! What was it?

Shane: Porn. Not downloaded porn. Homemade porn. Patty and her husband. I can’t get the images out of my head! I only saw thumbnails, but…ARGH!

Todd and I went back to laughing, and the rest of the morning was fairly unproductive. Shane was able to finish the computer, though, and called Patty to tell her to pickup the computer. Later that afternoon, she dropped by to get it. After paying and getting the machine, she pulled Todd aside on her way out the door.

Patty: So, did you look at the Lioness folder?

Todd: Nope. I did just like you said and didn’t look.

I almost felt sorry for Patty – she flounced out, but not before flashing Todd as though he had kicked her puppy. Shane, on the other, I’m sure still wishes death upon me to this very day. I still can’t stop laughing.