Wednesday, June 20, 2007
No!
Me: "Well then, the next step that we'd want to try would be to unplug all of your phones and filters so that we can give the modem a chance to try connecting without any devices on the line to potentially interfere."
Caller: "So you want me to unplug every single phone in the house?"
Me: "Exactly. That will let us rule out almost everything inside that might be a problem."
Caller: "No."
Me: "... OK then, I guess that leaves us at an impasse."
I mean, really, what do you say to someone who's called up for help and then just refuses to take a troubleshooting step?
Caller: "What else can we do?"
Me: "Well, there are a bunch of steps that we could try after unplugging the phones, but the thing is that if we try them without this step, we won't know if they're working or not."
Caller: "So you want me to unplug the millions* of phones in this house?"
Me: "Exactly. Once we've gone past that step, we'll have either found the problem or we can move on to other sorts of troubleshooting."
Caller: "I'm not doing that."
Me: "OK then. Is there anything else I can help you with?"
She hung up on me at that point.
*I'm guessing that this was an example of "hyperbole", a linguistic and rhetorical device of which I'm vaguely aware.
Caller: "So you want me to unplug every single phone in the house?"
Me: "Exactly. That will let us rule out almost everything inside that might be a problem."
Caller: "No."
Me: "... OK then, I guess that leaves us at an impasse."
I mean, really, what do you say to someone who's called up for help and then just refuses to take a troubleshooting step?
Caller: "What else can we do?"
Me: "Well, there are a bunch of steps that we could try after unplugging the phones, but the thing is that if we try them without this step, we won't know if they're working or not."
Caller: "So you want me to unplug the millions* of phones in this house?"
Me: "Exactly. Once we've gone past that step, we'll have either found the problem or we can move on to other sorts of troubleshooting."
Caller: "I'm not doing that."
Me: "OK then. Is there anything else I can help you with?"
She hung up on me at that point.
*I'm guessing that this was an example of "hyperbole", a linguistic and rhetorical device of which I'm vaguely aware.
# posted by Terry @ 11:50 PM 
Comments:
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While that was a little rude, at least it was vaguely sensible. I've had calls like that where people refuse to hang up. Where do they think the call is going to go after they've refused to try what I've said is the only thing we can try that might bear fruit?
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