Morning Paper

Genie

This post is completely different from all the others I've written.  It's about little Genie, and why she was called the "wild child".

Two days ago, I watched a series on the National Geographic channel called My Brilliant Brain.  The show mentioned about a very young Marc Yu's beautiful talent with the piano and cello.  He has performed in numerous recitals, master classes, benefits, and orchestra concerts including (at Steinway Piano's invitation) on Vladimir Horowitz's piano to inaugurate Steinway's Historical Piano Tour at the age of eight.

What caught my attention most, was the story about little Genie.   She had been found strapped to a potty chair on November 4, 1970 in her home in Temple City, Los Angeles, California.  She was thirteen when she was found.  I was distraught.

Today, I spent about 3 hours gathering as much information as I can about Genie.  I started searching for "child locked in room by parents" but came up with a similar but different story.  Finally, after a few more minutes of searching, I found this one website that was most informative.  Based on the site I read:

While she seemed to understand a few words, the only words she could say were, "stopit" and "nomore." She had a strange bunny-like walk— she held her hands up in front of her like paws and moved in a halting way. She could not chew solid food and could hardly swallow. She spat constantly. She sniffed. She was not toilet-trained and could not focus her eyes beyond 12 feet. She weighed 59 pounds and was 54 inches tall.

As I read on, I also found out that after five years, the team of scientists and doctors that were helping Genie lost their funding.  Her biological mother had also filed a lawsuit against the scientists.  I feel like the mother did not have a right to do so.  Especially after trying to bring up her daughter and failed, twice.  Genie returned to live with her mother again when she was eighteen, but stayed with her for only a few months.

Genie was transferred from one foster home to another.  She was even abused at one of the homes just because she vomited.  Genie moved with her mother and is currently admitted at the San Gabriel/Pomona Valleys Foundation where they care for people who are developmentally disabled.

If you were touched by Genie's story as I was, you can make a donation for the San Gabriel/Pomona Valleys Foundation here. 

image c/o: http://www.feralchildren.com/en/showchild.php?ch=genie

Reporter customer calls the PSC

I came across this story about a CSR from AT&T who informed a certain customer that they were having "Massive, massive outages" in their area.  This certain customer turns out to be a reporter and immediately calls the Public Service Commission confirming if this bit of information is true.  Unfortunately for the CSR, not only did the PSC find her statement false, but that there was only one outage reported similar to the customer's case, and that it was not in that customer's area too. 

It breaks my heart to tell you that it is true, though, that most CSRs or TSRs do not know much about the "planned" or "unplanned" maintenance until tens of thousands of customers are already calling in to complain about it.  The Manager On Duty or Work Force Manager will then start to panic as to why the call volume suddenly shot up.  The MOD or WFM then walks around asking agents for any common issues and if convinced, will call the Network Engineers to find out if there is an outage.  Thirty minutes to an hour after the first report, an outage is declared on an area code with approximately 2,000 people affected.

Being a TSR for a big DSL company myself, we usually get complaints about our IVR not informing them of an outage.  Well, the IVR will be updated for the outage,but  about 2 hours after the outage started.  Some customers will cut us short and tell us "why do you still call it an Unplanned Maintenance, when we all know that it's an outage?"  We also have the gruelling assignment of calling our customers back to "apologize for the inconvenience" and to ask "is there anything else we could do for you today?".  Most people will acknowledge that it's not our fault personally.  But truthfully, I feel for the customers that were 'hypnotized' into signing up for such a sucky service that goes down at least twice a month.  I guess their last resort would be to cancel their account.  :)

Call Center Hell?

Today we get to hear about one of the delightful stories from Consumerist.com.  Here you will read about the alleged resignation letter of an apparently disgruntled Customer Service representative.  It's pretty long, so brace yourselves.

That post is about a well-known Call Center company and how it 'mishandles' its resources.  It talks about the increased hostility of employees towards each other, the unethical behaviour of most, and sacrificing employees' health just to meet quota.

Although the place I work at isn't the best, I caught myself looking around our own center, thanking God silently for not being involved in a similarly horrific situation.  I'm surprised that I could still write something decent through the haze and strong scent of paint thinner (they're rennovating our center).  Maybe that's the only thing I can really complain about.

Going back to the post.  There are very few comments on that post that I could agree with.  Some are really unnecessary.  Don't forget to read the last comment on that post. 

Find time to read through this other post from that same site too.  It is where I found a second home (2nd to Morning Paper of course), and see (I mean read) about how CSR's and TSR's fight back. 

I myself usually do not get into such situations that include a tone with more than 30 decibels (pats myself on the back).  Mostly because I speak in a very soft voice that you wouldn't notice when I'm already agitated.  I also always use 'please, thank you very much, and have a good day' with people I talk to.  As was mentioned on both of the links I've provided, we only need to be polite but firm. :)

Image c/o http://callcentercomics.com/

Nightmare on Customer service street

I think you've heard about Vincent Ferarri's 'eye opening' experience with a very persistent Customer Service representative.  I've read numerous articles regarding this one issue.  Yes, AOL apologized to Mr. Ferrari, but readers believe that the apology was only for PR purposes.  You will also be surprised that after more than one year the flame still hasn't died down.  And we all have our reasons.

Being a Technical Support representative myself, I feel for that CSR from AOL that got 'sacked'.  He was only doing his job, only, he was not doing it right. 

In the beginning, we are already trained to Listen Effectively.  Which is exactly what John from AOL failed to do.  The truth is, you don't need to be trained to listen.  A normal person would most likely listen to whoever they're talking to, whatever they're doing and wherever they are.  The only difference is, some of us CSR's or TSR's do NOT want to listen, they do NOT want to help, and they're only here for the money. 

It's sad actually. 

I also came across another recording of an obviously very upset consumer.   It's not a joke to lose 2 years of important data.  It's also not hilarious if you can't shut down your laptop.   
And it's definitely not amusing if you get back your rented car and find a 'little damage' on it.

I guess the moral of this post is to always remember that we are all consumers in one way or another.  We will always deal with CSR's or TSR's as long as we need help from them.  Maybe take a deep breath and say "gooooose fraaaahbaaaah" before dialing their number. :)

Trojans

What is a Trojan Virus? A few years ago I would have said “it’s a virus that looks like a horse? And it crashes your computer?” Now, I would say “this means you’re going to need to call a computer tech and you might need to have your OS reinstalled.”  Sometimes I also like to quote our video tutor, James Conrad, “there is a very technical term we technical guys call this state, and that is Screwed.”  Wikipedia defines it as software which purports to do a certain type of action, but in fact, performs another. It does just that.

 

I recall a certain customer (let’s call him Mr. Man) who needed assistance with removing a Trojan from his computer. He had acquired that virus by accidentally clicking on an email attachment from an unknown person. Mr. Man agreed for us to perform remote access so we could do it properly for him. We had downloaded and installed AVG’s free trial and were in the process of scanning his computer when we saw a pop-up on his screen. It was about 3 x2 inches and had a picture of this guy with a big mischievous grin telling us that he is currently uploading a copy of Mr. Man’s files to his personal site. By experience, people would usually: a. freak out; b. throw a fit; c. threaten to sue; or d. all of the above, but Mr. Man just sat there and said “I hope he likes my mother-in-law’s photos”. He wasn’t worried at all. He even mentioned that he didn’t have that much money, doesn’t have any credit cards, and has no idea what that guy would want from him. Whether it was a hoax virus or not, I advised Mr. Man to shut down his computer and unplug his modem first.

 

People ask me where Trojan viruses come from. I start with this new thing I’ve read about: Social Engineering. To better explain it to them, I just say, “there are a lot of people with too much time on their hands”. Where they respond, “I hope they get a harmless hobby like stamp collecting.”