Help Desk Worker Ends Up Setting Up A Man’s Entire Tablet After He Claims The Instructions Are Unreadable And Threatens To Call The Manager
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It’s hard to help someone when they treat every question you ask like a reason to complain to their manager.
That’s what one help desk employee dealt with when a man called about setting up his new tablet.
He knew the tablet came with instructions, so he tried asking the guy what step he was on before jumping right into it.
But the man claimed the instructions were too blurry for him to read and that he would just call his manager.
Oddly enough, he’d managed to read a password several pages in. So when he offered to send a photo showing how blurry the instructions were, the workers took him up on it.
Read on to see what happened next.
“If you won’t help me I’ll just talk to my manager”
This “adult” called in to the help desk a week or so before with some computer issues after being off on workers’ comp for a whole year and a half.
Recently, as we had seen an influx of calls from people coming back after an extended period of time, we instituted a new policy. If the user calling in has been out of work for more than 3 months, we just order them a new tablet.
This is because the sheer amount of work we would need to do to get them back up and running was taking way too long, and we couldn’t risk wasting time on it.
They ordered him a new tablet and thought that was the end of it.
So we ordered the guy a tablet after the call where the new guy, bless his heart, spent 1 hour and 50 minutes on the phone trying to get him up and running. Remember that number, everyone. It’ll be important for later on.
In this story, you’ll meet: Me: The hero of this anime and palmer of faces. User: This guy should probably have an actual adult with him at all times to make sure he doesn’t hurt himself. And T: The other tier 2 on my team and a generally chill guy.
This story begins on a Friday, and it started out as a really great day, all things considered. T and I were watching the queue to make sure no calls were waiting while the tier 1s were on other calls. A call comes in, and it’s my turn to take it. If only I knew how bad it was going to be.
The guy sounded difficult from the moment he answered.
I answer the phone with my usual greeting:
Me: Thank you for calling the help desk. My name is EonThief. Can I have your employee ID?
He gives me the employee ID, and I instantly recognize the name.
Me: Alright, I was able to pull up your account. How can I help you?
User: Yeah, I was off for a year and a half and need my tablet set up. My manager told me to call in once I had my IP address so you all can remote in and set up the tablet.
All he needs to know is what step the guy is on.
Me: Okay, normally we don’t do all the setup work ourselves. We send a 15- to 16-page packet with each tablet sent out that walks the users through setting the tablet u—
User: Well, I’m just doing what I was told, but I know the packet you’re talking about.
Me: Okay, wonderful. What step are you stuck on?
User: I’m signed in and have my IP address so you can remote in.
Me: I understand that, sir. However, I need to know what step you’re on so I can help you.
At this point, the guy is getting pretty frustrated on the other end of the phone.
User: Listen, I was off for a year and a half and don’t know this new system. So because of that, I was on the phone with someone for over 3 hours, and then he sent this tablet to me. Now my manager told me to get my IP address and call the help desk, so that’s what I’m doing.
Me: Again, I understand that, sir, but to best help you, I need to know what step you’re on.
User: Are you saying you won’t help me? ‘Cause if so, I’ll just reach out to my manager, and we’ll go from there.
At this point, it’s more of the same. I assure him that I am trying to help him and that I never said I wouldn’t help him, and that I only needed to know what step he’s on in the setup instructions. Then he hits me with this.
User: I don’t know what step I’m on. These instructions are so small and blurry I can’t read them.
It almost seemed as if the guy just wanted to be combative.
Remember that bit of info, dear reader. We’ll come back to it later.
Me: Alright, sir, you said you have your IP address. How did you get to that point?
User: I signed into the account?
Me: What account?
User: Are you going to help me or not?
Me: I never said I wasn’t going to help, sir. I just need to make sure I have all the proper information so that I can best assist you.
Suddenly, the guy knew the password for the account.
User: I signed into my account.
Me: So you signed in with your username and password?
User: Username? Do you mean my employee ID?
Me: Yes, sir, that is what I’m referring to.
User: No, I didn’t sign in with that. I signed in with this password. *Proceeds to rattle off the local user account password that we use for setup.*
Alas, he had read the documents.
Me: *Confused.* How did you get that password?
I, of course, asked this because the password isn’t very easy for a lot of users to remember. So he, of course, tells me.
User: I read it in the instructions.
Remember that bit of info I told you to remember from before? Yeah, he claims that he can’t read the instructions but was able to get this username and password for the local account he’s signed into. That by itself wouldn’t be so bad… if that information wasn’t seven whole pages deep into the instructions!!
I, of course, try to question this bit of info, and he tells me the same ** from above and, of course, says that if I won’t help, he’ll reach out to his manager.
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Frustrated, his colleague called the guy’s bluff.
Now, by this point, T has started listening in and, like me, is actively getting frustrated in real time with me.
Me: Sir, I am trying to help you. I just want to make sure that I’m helping to the best of my ability. But I need to know what step you’re on in the setup instructions.
He reiterated the above point that “it’s blurry and he can’t see it even with a magnifying glass.” He then, of course, offers to send us a picture of the instructions so that we can see how bad they are, too. Because I and some others all take calls on speaker, T is able to chime in and provides him with a phone number to send the picture to.
User: What’s the number you gave me for?
Me: Oh, it’s for you to send us a picture of the instructions so we can see how blurry and hard to read they are.
As you probably expected, they never received the photo.
I don’t think User expected us to call his bluff, ’cause he didn’t seem very happy that we wanted a picture of the instructions. He, of course, reiterated the above “I’ll just reach out to my manager since you don’t want to help me,” and at this point, both T and I are ready to fight this guy and send him back on medical leave.
But he told me to, and these are his words, mind you, “hold his wittle baby hand and set up the scawy computer for him.”
So I begrudgingly set up his computer for him and send him on his merry way. We were, of course, still waiting on that picture, but alas, it never came…
Wow! The guy could’ve saved himself a lot of time by just being cooperative.
Let’s see how the readers over at Reddit would’ve handled him.
This person had something similar happen.
Here’s what this reader would’ve said.
Apparently, some people would’ve hung up.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a cashier who got annoyed with a group of friends who insisted on returning their items separately.
Here’s a good way to get them.
This guy spent more time arguing than it probably would’ve taken to follow the instructions.
Obviously, he wanted someone to do it for him, and he wasn’t going to stop until they did.
It’s a shame they gave in, because now he knows threatening to call his manager works.
Hopefully, whoever gets his next call doesn’t have to go through all this again.
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