Are you serious?

So in the spirit of Christmas I agreed to go bargain shopping with the wife today this as most men know is a true demonstration of love for their partners being dragged to every possible outlet in the town then standing like a lemon by the changing rooms of 'Next' trying not to appear like an out and out pervert, why do they insist of sticking the underwear next to the changing rooms? If you're not looking at a rack of 38DD bras and the string of cotton width gusseted knickers then you have to contend with some young girl walking out to show her friend that really short skirt she is thinking of buying and looking at you as if your name should be on the sex offenders register! Anyway having sated my wife's desire to buy everything in sight for the minute we headed to the latest edition to Walsall's eateries Frankie and Benny's Now one of my daughters had in fact been there a couple of weeks before and had said "The service is appalling" but my wife ...

Customer: "Hi Pete can you tell me what domains we own particularly acertaindomain.co.uk?" Me: "OK just bear with me a second, hm acertaindoman and all its extensions are available?" Customer: "Oh I didn't want to know about acertaindomain I wanted to know what we owned" Me: "I'm sorry I'm confused, you asked me about acertaindoman that's why I looked it up yet you're now saying you're not interested in it?" Customer: "Well the thing is someone has said someone wants to buy it" Me: "Oh hang on you've had an email or a phone call saying someone wants to buy it but it would be a jolly good idea if you bought it instead?" Customer: "Yes and I'm not sure what we should do" Me: "Buy it from me I can do it right now if you like?" Customer: "Oh is it a scam then?" Me: "Not really its a sales ploy they hope you'll get the gitters and buy it" Customer...

A couple of my colleagues went on a sales visit yesterday the customer is starting a new business and wants a Server, some workstations, networking etc, the usual stuff so one of our guys habitually does what I call 'The Chinese menu' type of selling. No matter if its and email, quote or sales pitch he just cant help himself and reels off every conceivable service and product we offer now you and I both know the reason why? Its called "Desperation" its a desperation to sell something anything! Problem is your Prospect (Customer) will see that too. Anyway having spent something like 30 minutes bombarding the poor guy with everything from a keyboard and mouse to a data farm they settle down to actually talking about what the prospect wants when Chinese menu man says; Menu Man: "So you will be looking for a secretary then will you?" Prospect: "Why? Do you do those as well!"

Lloyds Bank Delhi: "Can I speak to Mr ..... please my name is Pardeep from Lloyds TSB" Me: "I'm afraid he is out on site I'm not expecting him back in the office till 4pm" Lloyds Bank Dehli: "Oh, I do need to speak with him what time shall I call back?" Me: "Call me adventurous how about 4pm?" Lloyds Bank Dehli: "OK I will call at that time then" <cry>

Today's journey into work consisted of a stupid woman with what looked like half of Bloxwich's under 12's in her people carrier smacking into the back of my car while I was waiting at the lights and letting cars out. Driver: "I skidded" No you didn't your pack of gibbering baboons distracted you and you ran into me! The road is clear there is no ice or snow at all! I let it slide and as there was no damage and carried on then blow me on the A5/A34 roundabout at Cannock an 87 year old guy drives across the front of me like he is in a getaway van or something then does that famous "If I keep looking ahead I can pretend I don't see him shaking his fist at me". Thank god its Friday.

Customer: "Hi I'm looking at the Dell GX260 for £155 on the list you emailed me" Me: "OK how many are you looking for?" Customer: "Just the one I want to use it for graphics design but I must have it tomorrow" Me: "I'll need to phone the supplier to see if its available and if he can ship direct so you get it tomorrow" Customer: "OK" A short while later Me: "Hi I'm afraid the GX260's have gone I can do an HP 7700 same spec same price or he has a lovely HP Quad core with 12 months on-site warranty for £385" Customer: "That sounds nice" Me: "You'll need to order before 3pm if you want it next day" Customer: "Oh I'll order before then I need to make an order a.s.a.p. let me go and have a look" I'm still waiting.

Seeing as I had an extra 50p this week I decided to treat the family to a slap up Sunday roast at a local eatery. We usually frequent 'The Broadway' however this is currently undergoing a feverish refurbishment in the hope they can reopen for the Christmas rush. This left us with little choice the wife suggested 'The Nickelodeon' which while being under the same banner as the Broadway is a pretty poor 52nd in my opinion and that opinion was about to be confirmed. The Nickelodeon looks really nice from the outside and is located on the canal which is very pleasant in the summer the inside is open plan Ive never been a fan of large open plan pubs when it comes to eating it sort of reminds me of dinner halls or factory canteens, anyway the family sat down and I went to the bar with my table number ready to place my order. A nice enough girl with either a broken or at least badly sprained arm attempted to serve us. Me: "Can I have four coffees please" Bar girl: ...

Customer: "Hi I'm after a bit of technical support we've bought some training software and I need to get it on the laptop and get the laptop on the Internet" Me: "OK you can drop it down here and we will configure it for £35 an hour or I can send someone out but that will be £65 an hour" Customer: "I thought we had an account with you?" Me: "No you've had nothing with us for about a year now" Customer: "Oh OK let me think about it" Yeah you carry on thinking about it

Marketeer: "Hi there just wanted a quick chat about a new service we are offering, most company's have a tele sales team cold calling we offer qualified sales leads! the idea is we've done all the work and have a customer looking to buy we put that lead on our website and a bit like ebay you bid on that lead" Me: "Erm hang on, so I pay you money for a lead we then go off and try to close that lead what happens if we're rubbish at selling? Or they can get it cheaper somewhere else?" Marketeer: "Erm? Ooh, Er, Well the leads are fully qualified" Me: "Yes but what if we are too expensive?" Marketeer: "Well we would just qualify the lead obviously it would be up to you to close the deal?" Me: "Yes and in that vein I'm closing the phone call" I wonder how many have fallen for this scam?

Customer: "Hi I wanted to download a program for our Tachograph system but I was not allowed so you put it on a disc for me, I want to know if its downloaded?" Me: "Um I presume you mean have we downloaded it on to the disc?" Customer: "Well apparently I don't have permission to do it" Me: "OK lets take a step back shall we, I would imagine you can download anything while you do have a web proxy box unless Ian has banned the site and I take it he has not as you can get on to it you can download. What you probably cant do is install the software as I suspect you do not have administrator rights?" Customer: "Oh" Me: "We possibly downloaded it and burnt it to disc for you because you said you could not download but unless you are allowed to install its not worth anything to you" Customer: "So should I really be talking to Ian then?" Me: "Seems like a plan" #facepalm

My family is full up with the lurgy (Illness), My daughter rang the doctors for an appointment; Daughter: "Can I book an appointment to see the doctor please?" Receptionist: "I'm afraid we have nothing for two weeks" Daughter: "I need to see the doctor today?" Receptionist: "I might be able to squeeze you in on Tuesday of next week at 2.30pm" Daughter: "I'm at work then I need something around 5.45 - 6.00pm" Receptionist: "Ah we are not very good for workers" Daughter: "Sorry?" Receptionist: "Are you ill?" Daughter: "Am I ill? Why would I be phoning if I wasn't ill?" Receptionist: "Well we are very busy?" So it would seem our local GP only caters for OAP's and dole scroungers the poor saps who actually pay National Insurance get shafted yet again.

Me: "What's the telephone number of that phone on the front desk?" Colleague: "Its 460xxx" Me: "You sure?" Colleague: "Thats what I've got on these fliers." As our phone system has caller display I walked into our front office and rang our company telephone number from the said phone. Me: "Oi that number is 571xxx no wonder nobody has ever responded from them fliers or emails" Colleague: "I don't understand?" Me: "You haven't spent any money on fliers or brochures have you?" Colleague: "No" Pity you deserve all you get.

Customer: "I cant get on the O: drive or the Internet" Me: "Your server is down? Have you switched it off?" Customer: "I dunno I haven't" Me: "Can you switch it back on" Customer: "How do I do that?" Me: "See that button near the logo? press it" Customer: "Oh some lights have come on" Me: "Yes its booting did you not look at it when you couldn't get on the O: drive then?" Basics.

Customer: "Hi have you got a problem with your Internet?" Me: "What do you mean?" Customer: "I cant get on the site from my favorites it says insecure site" Me: "Ah that means they either issue their own certificate, or the certificate has expired" Customer: "Well its not done that before I used it the other day" Me: "Things change" Customer: "What do I do?" Me: "It should say something like get me out of here or continue but not recommended" Customer: "It says continue not recommended in brackets" Me: "There you go click on that" Customer: "You sure its not your servers?" Me: "No its nothing to do with us at all we are not the Internet" Customer: "We get our Internet from you?" Me: "No you access the Internet via us, what everyone does on the Internet is not our responsibility" Customer: "Well I cant be doing with this every da...

Colleague: "Why is xxxxx not on our database?" Me: "Because nobody has bothered to put them on?" Colleague: "Why is his division not on the database?" Me: "Yes it is look xxxxxx a divison of xxxxxx" Colleague: "Whats his phone number?" Me: "I have no idea we have just ascertained he does not have a record" Colleague: "But, but, I need to call him back" Me: "Did you not think to write his number down?" Colleague: "I thought we had it" What does assume make? ASS out of U and ME.

Customer: "Hi I'm trying to send an email with an attachment but it wont go" Me: "What's the attachment?" Customer: "Its a DVD" I'm still waiting to be rescued :'(

Customer: "Hi you know that Dell D630 we bought off you in June?" Me: "Not really that was like nearly three months ago but carry on" Customer: "The battery is dead" Me: "Oh OK let me get you a price on a replacement" Customer: "No no, Steve said I can have 3 months warranty" Me: "Erm its 30 days on refurbished stuff but even it he did say 3 months a battery is a consumable and not covered" Customer: "But, but, but" Me: "Sorry about that shall I get you a price then?" Customer: "S'pose you better had" Nice try

Customer: "Hi I have a spreadsheet that I've scanned in and sent to ........ can they see the hidden cells?" Me: "Erm? Can you see the hidden cells on the scanned documents?" Customer: "No, I printed off the spreadsheets then scanned them in by hand" Me: "So you cant see the hidden stuff on the printouts of the spreadsheets and after scanning in the print offs you still cant see the data you are trying to hide from them?" Customer: "No I cant see the hidden stuff I was just wondering if they can un-hide it" Me: "No I think you're safe" Please rescue me :'(

Customer: "We bought a printer from you in May 2009 and its using ink every two weeks!" Me: "Wow are you doing a lot of printing or is there ink all over the bottom of the machine or is the cartridge in fact not empty but the printer says it is?" Customer: "No, none of those, we bought the cartridges from Viking supplies they replaced it when we said it only lasted two weeks" Me: "Looking at the serial number I think you might have the wrong cartridge you can go back to viking and ask them to replace the cartridge again but I suspect they will want you to buy it" Customer: "Is there nothing you can do seeing as we bought it from you?" Me: "You bought it 15 months ago! Its just an inkjet printer, throw it in the bin and I'll sort you out a new one" Customer: "I think I'll give Viking a ring" And British business wonders why we cant compete against other countries?

Customer: "Hi Pete I need some advice, I bought one of those wifi access points but its WEP and all my machines are WPA" Me: "Chuck it in the bin and buy another one from me which is what you should have done in the first place" Customer: "Oh no, I can send it back to Amazon. What one should I get?" Me: "Well I have a Zyxel at home works really well" Customer: "How do you spell that?" Me: "Oh I see you're looking on the Internet for it? There's not much point me sorting this out then is there?" Customer: "Well if I had any problems I thought you could help me." Me: "Yes but seeing as you used my knowledge to get the right product and have no intension of buying it from me I wont be here much longer to help you we need to sell stuff to stay in business" Customer: "I've just bought a DVDROM from you!" Me: "Yes you have spent £12.00 with me but apparently I wont be selling ...

Me: "There is a fault call at xxxx they cant get on the O: drive and xxxx cant send emails". Engineer: "xxx was dealing with that he should be back soon". Me: "No he won't I have already given him three additional jobs so I doubt he will be back till late so you will have to deal with it" Engineer: "Their Broad Band is down". Me: "That'll do it, have we rung them?" Engineer: "No not yet". Me: "Well lets ring them then" Engineer: "Oh Their Broad Band isn't down its the server thats down". Me: "That's why they cant get on the O: drive then, here's a thought ring them and get them to reboot!" So initially it was a case of "How the hell can I get out of doing this?" with this in mind a slap dash approach was instigated.

I cant believe the conversation I am having internally on and off throughout the morning. I have a customer who has been running a peer-to-peer network (Yes they do still exist) they have Sage accounts on a PC which they all access as the drive is shared out, obviously this is a very slow and poor method compounded the other day when said machine had a hissy fit and fell over. I sold the customer a Qnap NAS the idea was that it would arrive Wednesday, the 'guys' could play with it Thursday update, RD etc then install on Friday. None of that was done and to be honest I'm not convinced it was installed properly anyway for a start of it had the wrong time, a latest firmware update had not been applied and the backup routine had not been set up correctly either! The poor customer rang four times yesterday and so far has rung twice today, now to put things into perspective he is a bit of wuss so is probably making the problem sound ten times worse than it actually is however he ...

I've blogged before about how appalling suppliers are most of them obviously sit at a screen and treat it a bit like Pick-n-Mix "This'll do, that's close enough" Today I needed a price on an ASUS PC and MS Office SBE. Back comes the quote with HP Microsoft Office 2007 SBE Wait a minute HP? Whats with the HP? Apparently I can have a non HP one but its £30 more? WTF? So you want me to put an HP designated office package on an ASUS? But wait it gets better "I see you've quoted for the ASUS where's the price?" They cant get it! Yep he took the two or three minutes to write out the spec yet cannot get the machine, why? Why write it up? Just put "Not available" sheesh!

Me: "Hi your ESET Anti Virus is due for renewal" Customer: "Oh which machine is it on" Me: "Its on a laptop we loaded it three years ago" Customer: "Yes but which one?" Me: "Erm well you have five laptops its the one that will say EAV-thispassword" Customer: "And which one is that?" Me: "I have no idea" So apparently we must keep a record of every customers PC and Laptop noting every item of software loaded including code keys, and will they pay for this asset management service? Of course not especially if they are double checking which machine an anti virus has expired on before paying a whopping £40 odd.

I have a customer who needs; 1 X Adobe Creative Suite. 10 X Office 2010 Business Edition. 1 X Corel Draw. As usual we put a request in to our suppliers for some prices. Ever the efficient account manager at one of our suppliers they came back with; Adobe Creative Suite, OK no problem there? Office 2010 Student edition, What? And finally Coral Draw for Mac! Now your taking the piss? Now this is not a 'one off' this sort of thing happens on a regular basis, now is this poor product training or just that the individual does not care so slaps any old thing on the the quote? This sort of thing causes a problem thats out of proportion to the requirement, what I mean is it causes a delay so getting back to my customer takes longer, we now have to make a repeat request this time pointing out their errors which on a 'bottom line' basis means we are already down on the deal having had to use more resources. Get it right first time and we are all happy.

Customer: "Hi its Mandy here from XXXXX we have a problem with a printer we purchased from you" Me: "When did you purchase it, I'm sure it was not recently?" Customer: "I think it was six months ago maybe longer" Me: "Oh OK it was they way you said purchased from you as if it was the other day" Customer: "No no, there must be something wrong with it the printing is very faint" Me: "Er needs a new cartridge" Customer: "Really? Its only six months old you sure its not broken?" Me: "I'm certain" See if you hadn't of quizzed me about when that printer was purchased I could have scammed a new one out of you.

So I sent out a mail flier advertising some TV's, we don't normally deal in that kind of thing but times are tough at the minute. I had an email this morning; Customer: "I am interested in two of the TV's on offer the TV needs to fit into a recess in my caravan so I am trying to work out which one will fit" I have no Idea, I don't know your caravan!

Me: "Hi there XXX I'm ringing about the £800 labor costs outstanding for 5 months now" Customer: "Well I thought all those costs was covered under warranty" Me: "No, Warranty covers the hardware not the labour" Customer: "Well I didn't know it was a refurbished Server" Me: "Oh come on XXX not only did you know but in fact you are on your 3rd replacement server which we have not charged you a penny for!" Customer: "Well what about the backups?" Me: "What about them?" Customer: "They're not being done" Me: "I don't understand what do you mean they are not being done?" Customer: "Nobody has done a backup" Me: "Erm thats your responsibility you need to do it" Customer: "Well what about the BroadBand?" Me: "What about it?" Customer: "I thought the price was for everything" Me: "We seem to be getting nowhere, at the en...

Customer: "Hello I need to send a picture but the girl who normally does that sort of thing is not in until mid week" Me: "OK do you know how to attach a file to an email?" Customer: "No but I know how to create emails" Me: "OK can you see that paper clip? click on it and it becomes a browse feature, browse to where the picture is, select it and say OK, its attached"" Customer: "I cant see it" Me: "Do you know where it is? Is it in /my documents/Pictures?" Customer: "No its on my desk" Me: "Ah your desktop OK lets browse to ........." Customer: "No no I mean its on my desk I'll have to scan it in, how do I do that?" And people wonder why we cant compete against the rest of the world.

Customer: "Hello can you give me a price on a computer package?" Me: "OK are you a home user?" Customer: "Yes" Me: "OK we are really for business but I can give you some numbers of companies that can help you, when you say package what do you mean are you looking for a new computer?" Customer: "If the price is right I want it for my kids so they can write stuff we have a computer here" Me: "Aha, you have a computer? Then you just need an office package." Customer: "My computer is broken" Me: "OK give xxxx a call he can either fix yours or give you a price for a replacement" If I'd have sold her a unit she would have been on the phone every day "We cant play this, how do I do that?",

Customer: "Can you check our Broad Band we cant seem to get on the Internet and we have not had any mail since Friday" Me: "Your lines been ceased!" Customer: "Oh I think we haven't paid the bill" Me: "That'll do it" :'-) What more can I say?

Me: "Have you come to a decision about the email hosting?" Customer: "I'm waiting on xx to come back to me they do Websites as well" Me: "OK but what about the email are they going to host that too?" Customer: "Oh I didn't ask" Me: "But when we spoke last week about the fact you was not currently paying us to host your email yet getting email hosting services you said thats why you was going to ring xx" Customer: "Ah, well I'm hoping they will ring back today" Me: "OK listen Jon I'll ring you Tuesday of next week shall I?" Customer: "Well as you know I'm semi retired I wont be in until Wednesday and then I'm off to Florence for a week" Me: "Well I need to get this resolved, you are in fact getting a service for free at the moment I'm sure if I asked you to start transporting stuff around the country without any payment you wouldn't be very happy?" Customer:...

Customer: "Can you get me a battery for our Acer Travelmate?" Me: "What model number is it?" Customer: "I dunno you sold it us" Me: "I need the part number off the battery really but if you can find out what model it is I can do it that way" Customer: "Cant you just look it up you sold it us" Me: "Yes OK I'll get someone to sit down and go through Sage" Hello is that Kwik-fit yeah I want a tyre for my car, I dunno what size, I dunno what car!

Customer: "When we purchased the kit off you last month you supplied 3 copies of Office 2007 but Debbie's machine cant open the documents" Me: "That's because she is on Office 2000 you need to purchase another 2007 license" Customer: "But we've already paid you for sorting our system out" Me: "Yes but you said to leave Debbie's machine" Customer: "Well I don't think that's very good customer care you should make a gesture of good will and sort this out" Me: "I want to this is why I have advised you that you need to purchase an additional license or make sure everyone saves in the old format" Customer: "We are not spending any more money this really is not good enough" I just cant think of a witty response for the minute other than "Nice try".

Customer: "I can't open an attachment on an email" Me: "I thought you had winzip installed?" Customer: "I do but the icon in the attachment won't open" Me: "Hang on you can open the attached zip file then?" Customer: "Yes but the word icon inside is not opening" Me: "Can you right click it please, what's it say in the property's?" Customer: "shortcut to O:/Customers/quotes/blahblah" Me: "They've sent you the shortcut not the file ask them to send the document" So we have two Muppets, the one who sent the shortcut and the recipient who doesn't know what a shortcut is.

Customer: "When can you make our site live?" Me: "Its 10.40am now if you can get it done by say 11.30am our DNS updates at 12 midday so in theory you should be live after that time" Customer: "Groan, hm, erm, oh, OK thanks" Huh? Do you want it live or not? Is that too quick? Would you prefer it to take a week?

Customer: "Hi you've setup some web space and I've uploaded the site but its not working" . Me: OK let me look Me: There's your problem the webspace is the folder yourcomapnysite you've uploaded the folder /oursite with everything inside it . Have you been creating and working with web sites long? Customer: Click brrrr