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Students often get discounts on various types of software that they use, or they can log onto school computers for free access.

What would you do if you worked at a university help desk and a student called in irate that he couldn’t get free access to software at home even though he paid so much money for the tuition?

That is what happened to the tech guy in this story, and while he sympathized with the student, there was nothing that he could do.

Read through the full story below and see what you think he should have done.

But it’s not fair that the university doesn’t have unlimited funds!

Background: I work for my university’s help desk. My job consists of answering phone calls/emails. 90% of the problems are log in issues and such which are resolved in <5 minutes.

Students often get free or discounted software.

I wasn’t a part of this incident, but it is very well known across my colleagues. For my uni, Adobe Creative Suite can be accessed for free on all campus computers and full-time staff, but if a student wants to access it at home, they can purchase it at a discounted price.

So, one day, we got an email from a student who was pretty upset with this. (This is paraphrased for the most part)

Why is he getting so upset?

Client: Why can’t I access ACS on my personal computer?! It should be available for all students and not just staff!

Help Desk: Adobe Creative Cloud can be used on campus for students in computer labs. Here is more info” moreinfo..com

Client: THAT DOESN’T ANSWER MY QUESTION! This should be able to be used at home for students!

The client has the option to buy a license.

Help Desk: The uni’s Adobe license only covers full-time employees. This is why it’s not available at home.

Client: Then the uni should look into alternative options. This limits students’ productivity. With what I’m paying for this school, it should be included (fair point).

This also is an administrative issue, the help desk shouldn’t be answering these questions.

None of this is the help desk’s fault.

(BUT YOU EMAILED THE- nevermind) This ticket was then marked as resolved. Oh boy, did they not like that.

Client: This issue is not resolved. Grow up.

This client then called the direct help desk line to berate whoever picked up.

It is good that the manager is willing to step in where needed.

A supervisor then made a note saying if this person called again, to direct them to the manager of the whole department.

This was pretty big because he is never in direct contact with any of us. We then sent him a recap of the situation to make sure he has all the info that we gave him.

The level of entitlement some students have is hard to believe.

Client: A RECAP? IS NOBODY LISTENING TO ME? Your ignorance is not an excuse.

It was safe to say that we are no longer assisting this student when he calls.

It is just crazy how some people think that yelling and getting upset is going to help them get their way. In most cases, when people behave like that, they end up getting worse service.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

This commenter has a good way to deal with callers like this.

Here is someone who is going through something similar.

Schooling is very expensive.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a helicopter inspector who grounds a flight after the pilot is rude to him.

It is good that they were told that they don’t have to help this person.

This is a simple way to reply.

Why do people think that it is acceptable to be rude to the help desk? They don’t write the policies; they just communicate them when asked.

At least in this story, the help desk manager was willing to step in and take the calls.