I Swear, These People Have the Patience of Saints

[Anderton]

Every now and then I walk past people in Gibson support and catch their end of the conversation...

 

"Well no, that serial numbering scheme wasn't put into place until 2003. Besides, a genuine '59 Les Paul would almost certainly cost more than $200 "

 

"I'm completely sure Gibson did not have a rare run of guitars with the name misspelled "Less Paul" on the truss rod cover. [pause] My supervisor would give you the same answer, sir. [pause] Yes, I've been working here for more than a week."

 

"Great, I'm glad I could help. Just remember that if the KRK logo on the front isn't lit, the power switch isn't turned on. The power needs to be turned on for the speaker to work."

 

"It's acceptable for a 500k potentiometer to measure 496k when removed from the circuit and measured. [pause] No, that does not mean Gibson's quality control has become worthless. Pots are specified as being within a certain tolerance. [pause] No, it means they can deviate from the specified value. [pause]. Well I don't mean 'deviate' in that sense of the word, I mean that it differs."

 

"Have you read the Quick Start instructions? [pause] Yes, I'll wait while you read them. [long, long pause] I'm glad that solved your problem, sir. Is there anything else I can help you with today?"

 

These are definitely people I would want to have teaching 3rd graders how to do...anything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

Every now and then I walk past people in Gibson support and catch their end of the conversation...

 

"Well no, that serial numbering scheme wasn't put into place until 2003. Besides, a genuine '59 Les Paul would almost certainly cost more than $200 "

 

"I'm completely sure Gibson did not have a rare run of guitars with the name misspelled "Less Paul" on the truss rod cover. [pause] My supervisor would give you the same answer, sir. [pause] Yes, I've been working here for more than a week."

 

"Great, I'm glad I could help. Just remember that if the KRK logo on the front isn't lit, the power switch isn't turned on. The power needs to be turned on for the speaker to work."

 

"It's acceptable for a 500k potentiometer to measure 496k when removed from the circuit and measured. [pause] No, that does not mean Gibson's quality control has become worthless. Pots are specified as being within a certain tolerance. [pause] No, it means they can deviate from the specified value. [pause]. Well I don't mean 'deviate' in that sense of the word, I mean that it differs."

 

"Have you read the Quick Start instructions? [pause] Yes, I'll wait while you read them. [long, long pause] I'm glad that solved your problem, sir. Is there anything else I can help you with today?"

 

 

 

It really does take a special breed of person to deal with customer support on a daily basis. And the good ones are rare - and worth their weight in gold to customers!

[AlamoJoe]

Takes almost as much patience as it takes to be a HC Mod or Admin huh?

[Ernest Buckley]

 

 

It really does take a special breed of person to deal with customer support on a daily basis. And the good ones are rare - and worth their weight in gold to customers!

 

For sure. I for one would absolutely suck at that job. Patience and tolerance for stupid is at an all time low on my meter.

[Idunno]

 

For sure. I for one would absolutely suck at that job. Patience and tolerance for stupid is at an all time low on my meter.

 

My standard answer would be 42 to all questions.

[UstadKhanAli]

I'd be okay with it if someone wasn't being a total jerk.

[veracohr]

"It's acceptable for a 500k potentiometer to measure 496k when removed from the circuit and measured. [pause] No, that does not mean Gibson's quality control has become worthless. Pots are specified as being within a certain tolerance. [pause] No, it means they can deviate from the specified value. [pause]. Well I don't mean 'deviate' in that sense of the word, I mean that it differs."

 

That's less than 1% deviance. Pretty damned good for a potentiometer!

 

[Beck]

Having worked in IT for some years, a bit of it via phone support, I feel for those guys. I don't think I could do phone support full time. The rare times I call any technical support I say please and thank you a lot, end the call by telling them they've been very helpful and I appreciate their time. I do that because I know most of their day they get an ear full and probably feel pretty unappreciated.

 

By the way, in my experience Gibson/Epiphone support has been excellent.

[MikeRivers]

I get a couple of e-mails a week from people asking me questions about their Mackie hard disk recorders. By far the most common ones are:about installing the software. It's done via the recorder's floppy disk drive.

 

So first: "My computer doesn't have a floppy drive, Can you tell me where to buy the floppy disks with the sofware? Mackie doesn't have them."

 

I should go into business selling Mackie HDR installation floppy disks. So I suggest that they ask a few friends if they have a computer with a floppy drive. But you know musicians these days - nobody has any friends. At school? In the office? The library? Then I point them to a web site where they can buy a USB floppy drive for about $15. That usually shuts them up for a while until . . . .

 

"I copied Disk 1 to a floppy, but when I tried to copy Disk 2, it was too big to fit on the floppy." I remind them of the instructions (which are in the ZIP file with the two data files) that those are self-extracting executable files and that they have to run the program on their computer with a floppy disk in the drive and it would create the actuall installation disks with all the files and folders.

 

I usually have to tell them this at least twice, sometimes more, before they beleive that it's actuall what they have to do.

 

[MikeRivers]

And for patience of another sort . .

 

In another forum, there's a discussion about the wisdom of buying or re-using used 2" analog tape. Sometimes it's advertised as "one pass" and the discussion went off about how can there be only one pass. Well, archives and backups for one, that you eventually decide you don't need any longer (some people have common sense).

 

Then the discussion went around the corner to how many passes might be acceptable for re-use. Of course there are those who say they'd never start a project for a paying client on anything but brand new tape. So I suggested that a lightly used tape might have maybe 10 passes but 75-100 passes is probably unacceptable. That's where I get accused of leading a sheltered life. The $400/reel guys say that there may be upwards of 1000 passes over the heads or guides (fast-winding) through the production of a single song.

 

That's something up with which I could not put.

 

Me: Do a couple of rehearsal passes without the tape running (Famous Musicians won't play a note in the studio without the tape running). Load the tape. Press Record. Play back. Done. Two passes. If it's a multitrack recoreding, I will have set up a pretty good mix during the rehearsal passes, tweak it a bit while recording, and then print that as the mix with maybe a couple of small tweaks when listening to the playback.

 

That's how it used to be done, and it still can be done. I don't think Michael Jackson recorded that way, but I'll bet he could.

 

[Anderton]

I'd be okay with it if someone wasn't being a total jerk.

 

Then you'd get to be okay with it a couple times a day

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

I record everything - including "rehearsal passes." Always have - yes, even during the analog era, and even for non-famous musicians. You never know when the magic take will occur, and the last thing you want is for the band or producer to excitedly ask "did you get that!!!????" - and have to sheepishly say... "uh, no, sorry.... I thought it was a warm-up." I can practically guarantee that client won't be using you or your studio ever again.

 

Unless the tape was used for archiving, live recording, backup or some similar single-pass recording task, chances are it will have experienced dozens or even hundreds of passes through the transport. Unless you're the one that used it and therefore know the history, used tape is ALWAYS a gamble IMO.

[Mark L]

I record everything - including "rehearsal passes." Always have - yes' date=' even during the analog era, and even for non-famous musicians. You never know when the magic take will occur, and the last thing you want is for the band or producer to excitedly ask "[i']did you get that!!!????[/i]" - and have to sheepishly say... "uh, no, sorry.... I thought it was a warm-up." I can practically guarantee that client won't be using you or your studio ever again.

 

Unless the tape was used for archiving, live recording, backup or some similar single-pass recording task, chances are it will have experienced dozens or even hundreds of passes through the transport. Unless you're the one that used it and therefore know the history, used tape is ALWAYS a gamble IMO.

 

Wrong thread, Phil

[nat whilk II]

People are pretty tired of having to deal with unwanted complications. I know, in the real world, most things involve at least some minor complications, but still, it gets tiresome.

 

I think people go stupid much of the time out of a smoldering resentment of inconvenience and the discomfort of appearing ignorant.

 

Do you understand ( I mean really understand the details and how it works):

 

1 - your phone bill?

2 - your tax return?

3 - how your health insurance works?

4 - the stipulations of your neighborhood building codes and restrictions?

5 - whether your auto repair guy is ripping you off or not?

6 - how your employer's fringe benefits and retirement options work?

7 - the security risks you take whenever you use the internet?

8 - the basic doctrines of your own religion?

9 - why the Supreme Court exists and how cases are chosen for SCOTUS rulings?

10 - much of anything really, outside your particular narrow areas of expertise?

 

So they are already vaguely p.o'd, suspicious, and resentful just having to call support in the first place.

 

I can sympathize with the guy who asked if the support person had been on the job more than a couple of weeks. We've all clocked plenty of time trying to get info out of untrained support folks.

 

The book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has a lot to say about this vague resentment of technology and other complications in life, and how it breeds impatience and stupidity. Taking the time to slow down and learn, to understand, to work with things as they are instead of how you wish they were - it's a life skill in short supply.

 

nat whilk ii

 

 

 

 

[onelife]

I used to work in IT and my first job was as a tech for a national chain of product/service providers. I was the only tech in my region so, as an inexperienced rookie, I relied heavily on help lines to get me through my day.

 

When I eventually became a senior network engineer I carried a cel phone and was always willing to help those who were in my former position no matter how simple or stupid the question seemed.