A snippet from a real phone conversation:
(“Him” has a lovely British accent, btw)
Me: Just copy and paste it into the email.
Him: Copy and paste?
Me: Yes.
Him: What’s that?
Me: Highlight the add…
(interrupted)
Him: Highlight?
Me: Use your mouse, and highlight the text and then right cl…
(interrupted)
Him: Whoa whoa whoa! You are getting too technical for me. We had better wait until (his assistant) comes in and you can talk to her.
Reboot the fucking computer.
Also, repeating over and over (and over) “but… it was working just fine before” is not going to help.
Thank you.
Yesterday I was asked to record an outgoing voicemail message for a business. He’d prefer to have a female voice. No big deal, I’ve done it for him before. I tell him to email me a script and tell me the PIN number he uses to access his voicemail.
He writes back wanting to know how to find his PIN number. I tell him that it’s the number he uses to access his voicemail, maybe he can look it up on his account online. He has Vonage. He doesn’t find it and he gives me his Vonage userid and password.
Vonage does not show the PIN number in the online account, but it does allow changes online. I change the PIN to a number I know he can remember. I call in, access his voicemail and change the outgoing message. I also email him to tell him that I had to change the PIN and tell him what is (I don’t write out the numbers, I tell him what the numbers are, like “your birth year”)
Today he calls. He says that outgoing message “sounds great!” He can’t check his voicemail and is wondering if there is a problem. I ask if he means online, but he tells me he means by the phone.
“I used the same code I always do, but it won’t work.”
“I had to change the PIN, I sent you an email about it.”
“Oh yeah. Oh, is THAT the number you meant?”
“Yeah…” I tell him the new number but I say it by number this time.
“Oh hey! That’s a great number. It’s (the year I was born) it will be easy to remember!”
Yay me.
Somebody just forwarded me an email with 3 attachments, a pdf, a pub and a wps.
Can you open these? I can only open the pdf file. I have no idea what to do with the others.
I opened the non-pdf ones, created pdfs from them and sent them back. Not a huge deal.
Here’s the thing. Also included in the forward was the email, a portion of which says:
If you have any trouble opening any of these let me know and I will see if I can fax it to you or send it in another format.
Why exactly is the first impulse to send ME an email telling me about the trouble opening them? I can imagine that they might think getting it in another format won’t go smoothly, but I know for a fact that when this person is sending me an email they are sitting right next to a fax machine.
Also, the original sender is a business, trying to get a new customer. Why are they sending their information out like this? Not only are they sending three different documents (each one page only) in three different formats. They have also named them full sentences with spaces and periods, as in an extra . before the .extension. Surely this creates problems fairly often for the people they send them to. Why don’t they ask somebody what they should do instead? They totally overcharge for their services, they could afford to learn how to do it correctly.
Last week on Wednesday the 14th I ordered something at around 10 AM. I upgraded the shipping to next morning shipping. The place I was ordering from is 60 miles away from my house. Even shipping ground should have gotten it here overnight with no problem, but they also claimed that any order before 2 PM would ship same day if you paid for the upgrade, whereas ground orders would go out within 2 business days. I wanted to have it by Friday so it was worth it to me to pay the extra, because if they happened to take the full 2 business days to ship, I’d have to wait through the weekend.
On the 15th in the afternoon I got an email that said it had shipped on the 14th and provided me with a tracking number. Now obviously if the order shipped by next morning delivery on the 14th, as it should have, I would already have it by the time this confirmation email was sent on the 15th. I did not have it. I was annoyed but not yet completely pissed off. I just needed the item by the 16th. I clicked on the link to the tracking information that was sent in the shipping email. It took me to the FedEx website where I got this message.
Not found
No information for the following shipments has been received by our system yet. Please try again later or contact Customer Service.
There was also a link in the email to contact customer care if I had any questions. I tried filling out the form there, but it refused to submit properly. I tried to call, but they were already closed for the day. I tried looking up my order on their website. It claimed to have shipped on the 14th and also linked me to the same tracking information with the same result.
The 16th arrived and my package still did not. I had a very busy day. I tried once to reach them by phone but the hold time proved beyond my ability to wait through from home and my call was dropped by cell. Their customer service was closed by the time I made it home again and had a chance to breathe and think and make another phone call. I checked the tracking info again and got the same result. I tried submitting the web form a few more times. They were closed all weekend.
I called this morning, and waited on hold until I was able to speak to somebody. I gave my order number and explained that I did not have my package and FedEx claimed to not have my package either and that I was not exactly pleased with the situation.
The man explained to me that the tracking number was for DHL, not FedEx.
“Umm, you do see that the email I was sent and the account information on your website both say FedEx?”
“Yes, I think that is just a programming error, but the package was sent by DHL, so let me look that up for you…”
(In the meantime I look it up on DHL myself.
Tracking summary
Current Status Processed at DHL Location.
Est. Delivery Date: 3/15/2007Tracking history
Status
3/14/2007 10:25 pm Processed at DHL Location. Riverside, CA
3/14/2007 6:54 pm Departing origin. Fullerton, CA
3/14/2007 4:18 pm Picked Up by DHL. Shipper’s Door)
“…Okay, it tells me that DHL still has the package, so let me give you the tracking number and the contact number and you can call DHL and see what the problem is. Once you have your package, call us back and we will credit you back the difference for the upgraded shipping.”
*deep breath*
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand. Why do you want ME to contact DHL?”
“It shows me that they have your package still. There might be some problem with your address, so you should call them.”
“I bought this from you. I paid you for it. It is your job to get make sure I get it. I did not buy it from DHL.”
“Yes, but DHL has your package and there might be a problem with your address.”
“Well I am looking at my confirmation email from you and you have my address correct in that email. I provided you with the correct address. If DHL has something wrong about my address, it is between you and DHL. Why don’t YOU contact DHL and find out what is going on?”
“DHL has your package.”
“Yes, but I bought this from you. This is your problem. I don’t understand why I should be expected to do work to solve this. Why should I be on hold with DHL, you are the ones who pay DHL. I paid you. Why should I wait on hold again to talk to you later in order to get a refund?”
“I can escalate this to customer concerns and they will email you back.”
“When will that happen?”
“Within 24 to 48 hours.”
*really deep breath*
“On the 14th I paid for next morning shipping because I needed the item last week. I don’t understand why I now have to wait 24 to 48 hours for you to contact me back and tell me what you are going to do about it.”
“That is just an outside estimate.”
“When are you going to contact DHL?”
“I will escalate it to customer concerns and they will contact DHL.”
“When will they do that?”
“Within 20 minutes.”
“Then why will I not hear back from them for 48 hours?”
“That is an outside estimate, in case DHL needs to get back to them. DHL may take time to look up the information. If they have lost the package then we will need to ship you a new one. That will go out tomorrow, so it will be 48 hours.”
“If somebody is going to contact DHL within 20 minutes, why can’t they contact me then to give me a status report?”
“DHL might have to get back to them.”
“Can I speak right now to the person who needs to contact DHL?”
“I need to send the report first to escalate it, but they will get to it as soon as possible.”
“Within 24 to 48 hours?”
“That is an outside estimate.”
“You are less than 2 hours away from my house.”
“Yes, I see that from the address you provided.”
“But it might take 48 hours for you to get back to me about how I will get a package that I ordered for next morning delivery, last week?”
“They will get to it as soon as they can.”
“Why don’t you just ship out a replacement order today, so I can have it tomorrow. You and DHL can figure out what to do about the other package?”
“Yes, we will do that.”
“So I can expect my order to be here tomorrow morning? Whether it is a second shipment, or the original, I will have my order tomorrow morning?”
“Yes.”
“And, you’ll be refunding me the difference on shipping?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I will look for that on my credit card.
“Is there anything else I can help you with today.”
“No, I really don’t think so.”
Along with my general joy over the order, I also have to wonder… What is with DHL? They have in their system that it has an expected delivery of the 15th, it is past the 15th and that is it, just no further updates? I am not convinced that I would necessarily call that package tracking. If they got something with an incorrect address, shouldn’t there be some sort of procedure for getting the correct address from the shipper? They did pick it up from the shipper’s location, so they know where THAT is. They could just go take it back.
I am tired. My 3.5 hours of sleep did not give me enough energy to deal with this. I wonder if I will get my part tomorrow. Somehow I rather doubt it.
Oh yeah, for the curious, I ordered from Targus
.
Targus Group International, Inc. pioneered the notebook carrying case category, partnering with corporations, retailers, and OEMs to provide the best possible protection for notebook PCs. Targus continues to define and shape the market for mobile computing cases and accessories. As the leading global supplier of portable solutions, Targus has offices on every continent and distributes in over 145 countries.
Impressive.
A couple of weeks ago I made a black & white 8 X 10 ad for somebody to use in some dumbass program they were buying an ad in.
Last week they contacted me wanting to know if I still had a copy, and wanting me to send a PDF of it to another email address. They were purchasing an ad in a new program. Let’s not even address the fact that the first ad was personalized to the program it was being printed in.
I asked, “You are getting another 8 x 10 ad?” (It is an usually large ad.)
He asked, “Does it matter?”
I tried to explain to him that it did. It turned out he didn’t KNOW what size ad he was purchasing, just that he had agreed to spend a certain amount of money, so he was going to ask and get back to me.
He got back to me and told me that it was a 5 X 7 program and he was getting a half page ad. “Can you just reuse the old ad?”
“No, I really can’t. I’ll make a new one.”
Now, is the half page adspace 5 X 3.5 or is that the size of the paper, with the adspace being a bit smaller? Of course I have to wait to get the answer to that because he doesn’t know.
Today I get email that says:
they said to make it 5 x 3.5 and they will modify the size as needed.
they may enlarge the size to 8x 10 because kinko’s may do their
printing for free.
That, my friends, is why when you see ads in programs for dumbass little events they always look like total shit and the logos are completely stretched and distorted.
I HATE that, so I will email them a 5 X 3.5 design and an 8 X 5 design. I know it doesn’t matter, because they will no doubt use the wrong one for whatever fricken size they end up with. As long as nobody ever ever ever shows me the finished product, hopefully my head will not explode.
ETA: To be clear, yes I mind a little that he doesn’t just get the fact that an 8 X 10 ad can’t be used as a 5 X 3.5 ad, just because it means I have to work a bit to keep THAT tone out of my voice when I answer. I accept the fact that if most people feel like they “have somebody” who understands “that stuff” they call before they think. Also, you go to some portrait studio to have photos taken and they show you the proof and give you check boxes to selects photos in a variety of sizes. It is presented as if all these sizes will be the exact same visually, but in a different size. With photos they typically handle the aspect ratio problem by cropping and a lot of people won’t notice the difference. With print ads they usually distort to handle aspect ratio differences, the look of which drives me completely crazy. Or they maintain the aspect ratio and shrink to fit and create useless whitespace while a client is paying for a certain amount of advertising space.
What really pisses me off are the people on the other end. I don’t care if they are just volunteering to help some organization raise money and this isn’t their real job. If they are asking people to give them money in order to print and distribute an ad, they should make an effort to give those purchases a chance of having the best had possible. They should have an instruction sheet detailing out everything (preferred format, resolution, various ad sizes, type of color, b&w or grayscale, bleed, etc). If the purchasers are too stupid to follow the instructions that is one thing, but don’t just plan to do a half-assed job from the get go and then have the nerve to have people pay their hard earned money for your shitty nonchalant services.
For the people selling the ads and giving the instructions to say it should be made as a 5 X 3.5 and they will just resize it if they change to an 8 x 10 sheet (and notice they plan to resize it up, not down which will increase the quality issues) just irritates the crap out of me.
One of my clients just called, and asked me to take on a new client. He has a buddy in the midst of major computer problems who needs lots of help, starting today and ongoing…
I said NO.
I did it. I turned him down. Between the hating to turn down money, and the hating to disappoint a client thing, I wasn’t certain what words would actually come out of my mouth as I took a breath and opened it to speak.
I did give him some advice to pass on about the current problem, but today I am staying home and dealing with stuff that is already in my to do list. I am not going over to beat my head against a wall dealing with whatever fuckup has happened with this guy’s computers and network.
I am shocked I did it. I also feel very anxious, but… I feel just a tiny bit impressed with myself.
A couple of weeks ago I made a black & white 8 X 10 ad for somebody to use in some dumbass program they were buying an ad in.
Last week they contacted me wanting to know if I still had a copy, and wanting me to send a PDF of it to another email address. They were purchasing an ad in a new program. Let’s not even address the fact that the first ad was personalized to the program it was being printed in.
I asked, “You are getting another 8 x 10 ad?” It is an usually large ad.
He asked, “Does it matter?”