I really farking hate my job.

I do software support for a local company. They produce software is also supposed to bring geezers that have been doing mainframe programming for the last 20 years into the happy shiny world of Microsoft .NET and Visual Studio. The software this company creates has a programming language attached to it. With just a week of training at our facility, they will know Visual Studio, .NET, Windows programming, and Web programming. What could possibly go wrong?

Every single farking thing, that’s what.

I went into this with the hope that since I would be dealing with other programmers, they would be somehow smarter than the unwashed masses that I have had to deal with in previous customer service jobs. I could not have been more wrong. (read this to find out why) More and more I wonder how some of these people keep their jobs as my sanity slowly leaks out of my head.

We take calls from customers day in and day out, but one unfortunate person gets the -snicker- honor of answering email requests for assistance. These are usually the worst, they usually fall into a few categories:

Customer emails an error message and nothing else.
Customer wants to know how to do something, but does not specify exact details or a version number.
Customer is having problems with their code, but does not send any code at all, just a vague description of the problem.
Customer has something that OMG REALLY NEEDS TO BE FIXED RIGHT NOW but they email it instead of picking up the phone and calling our toll-free 800 number that is usually answered quickly.
Customer has a question that anyone who took Programming 101 should be able to answer.
Customer actually has a genuine question or problem. Customer provides code, version numbers, operating system, and other things that may be relevant to their problem.

Needless to say, we get the last one very infrequently.

Every three weeks, it becomes my turn. I dread going to work that Monday morning, and of course there is a (virtual) stack of things waiting for me when I get in. I also still have to answer the phone while on ’email duty,’ and every so often I get chastised for not answering a question “the right way” or not giving “special treatment” to an important customer.

I am not a salesperson, nor do I have any desire to be. I treat all my customers more or less the same. I’m only human: some folks do get special treatment (particularly if they’re nice) and some folks get to wait a little longer if they’re being dickholes. Either way, their problems get fixed, their questions get answered, the company gets paid, and everyone is happy…well, except for me.

Frankly, I think a trip to a certain monstrous career-building hotjob website is in order. 😉