That little voice inside you

No, not conscience.

Gut feeling. "Sixth sense", or whatever.

That little voice of reason inside you. It usually tells you that you're about to do something retarded. That speck of doubt which makes you wonder "Am I going to regret doing this?".

I didn't listen to the voice and switched shifts with another TSG today.

Sign up, log in, etc...

Calls waiting: 0
Number of idlers: 60% of center

You gain Glee.

>TSG (to adjacent people): Hey guys, what's going on?
>Other TSG: Oh, we're on a systematic failure now. We can't deal with anything.

You gain Ultra-Glee.

Check personal status on log-on screen...

Your first priority is [non-official language here].

Which means that as long as [official language here] guys are idling, I won't get calls in that language.

You gain Freakin' Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Glee.

I'd dance if I could (anything but waltz. Yeah, I can waltz but without proper setting it's gay). I literally sat on my thumb the first hour.

Well,... unless you count:

>TSG: [ISP name here] at your service. Currently we have a systematic failure inhibiting every representative's ability to help and affecting all customers. Please try again later. If your error persists, please call in an hour or so.

every few minutes as work.

Then...

>Shift Manager (over PA): Okay guys, they fixed the servers, we're slowly going back to full action now. We're not taking care of [error] and [customer stupidity-induced error] yet though.

Glee fades from you.

You know what part I hate? Where you tell people stuff and they follow it to the letter. They don't think about implications or anything, they just do it to the letter. In every wrong way possible.

I hope you see where this is going.

>Retard: Hmmm, TSG told me to call in an hour.

* 60 minutes later *

>Retard: * dial TSG's number *

Calling us is wrong. It's bad for my sanity and their already low IQ. Especially when the problem is something like:

>Customer: I'm getting error 678 and the DSL lamp on my modem isn't on.

That sentence was slightly paraphrased to get to the point. So far, no one has ever provided me with so much detail that turned out to be actually useful.

That is, I didn't have to ask retarded questions in order to get the information. Or not.

>TSG: Is it connected to the phone line?
>Customer: I don't know.
>TSG: Find out.
>Customer: How do I do that?

Primal Reproduction Instinct fades from you.
You are afflicted by Genocidal Tendencies.

>TSG: * instructions a retarded sea cucumber would understand *
>Retarded Sea Cucumber: I'm not an electrician! There's wires and stuff all over the place! I'll never know which is which.

That call ended with physically connecting the modem to the phone line. I had to write "Solution: Connect modem to phone line" in the report.
Yes, people call us for stupid crap like that.


Anyway, I was peacefully minding my own business, occasionally flipping some moron off, when the systematic failure status got recalled.

Calls waiting: 10

Okay, I've had worse. 2 minutes later,

Calls waiting: 40

Oh god, they're coming in like fat people in a buffet!

Calls waiting: 100

I should've listened to the voice.

>Shift Manager (over PA): Guys, no breaks in the next 20 minutes. We're also dealing with connection issues only.
>TSG (muttering to himself): I hate you all.


Ever had a time where you had to work straight with 4 seconds to loose your focus a bit every 10-20 minutes? That's peak times for us.

Agonizing times. Now, calculate the distribution of retards, probability that a retard will call us over a completely moronic issue that WILL make you want to gouge your eyes out, multiply by 50 and you get pretty much 4 hours of my shift.

You'd think people got smart enough to set up dialers and email accounts in their stupid little programs. You'd be very, very, very wrong.

But then...
>Shift Manager (over PA): Come on guys, just a little push now until idling.

* 5 minutes and 2 stupid calls later *

>Shift Manager (over PA): Well done everyone. You can applaud yourselves 'cause you deserved it.

Glance:

Calls waiting: 0

You gain Impulsive Cheer.
You gain Urge to Dance.

* ring *
Goddamnit.

In retrospect, I could've avoided the entire situation. I could've listened to the voice and never switched with the other TSG in the first place.

So, people, my advice to you is:

LISTEN TO THE DAMN VOICE!

It might just save your life.