Some policies are so broken that following them feels like setting customers up for failure.

Imagine working in tech support where you know exactly why a customer’s service isn’t working, but management forbids you from telling them the truth.

Would you follow orders and leave people in the dark?

Or would you find a quiet way to get them the help they deserve?

In the following story, one DSL tech support employee faces this exact situation and opts for the latter.

Here’s what he did.

Can you hear me now? DSL tech support

When I worked in a DSL tech support role, there was one customer classification I kept coming across: those who had their DSL account in a “pending” state.

What that meant was that the phone line and the DSL were sold at the same time.

The other thing it meant was that the DSL would not be turned on until the old sale was canceled and re-entered into the system.

Whenever I found someone with an account in pending status, I would tell them this and transfer them to Sales so they could get it set up.

After a while, though, Management got upset at this, because it made them look bad.

It’s like they weren’t supposed to actually help the customer.

We were told not to tell the customer that it would never be fulfilled unless they talk to Sales.

Instead, we were supposed to say that the account was in pending status and, if the DSL wasn’t turned on in a couple of weeks, to call back.

We had customers call back for months because of this, getting more and more upset that their DSL wasn’t on.

I finally got to the point where I would say, “Your account is in a pending status. Let me transfer you to Sales to see if they know why.”

So even though I didn’t tell them that their DSL would never come on (like we were told to do), I hopefully got them the help they needed.

Bravo! At least someone cares to help customers!

Let’s see what the people on Reddit have to say about his story.

Here’s someone who did the same work.

Yet another person who worked for a DSL company.

This is a great question!

That basically sums it up.

That job sounds terrible!

Given how it was run, they must have had some of the highest employee turnover rates possible.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.