I just got off the phone with a woman asking about computer classes for the month of January that my place of business offers to the public. Here's, word-for-word, the banter between myself and the caller:
Me: "Computer lab, how may I help you?"
Caller: "Are you offering any 'Basics' classes this month?"
Me: "No we are not. We usually have two sessions every month, the beginning of every month, but this month the instructor focused on classes relating to specific operating systems, and must have decided not to include a basics session or sessions for this month."
Caller: *pause* -- which, by the way, should have just been a long, drawn out sigh. Frustration should be the topic of this post, I'll add.
Caller: "Why aren't you doing the Basics class this month?"
Me: "The instructor must not have wanted to, I don't know. I don't make up what classes are offered, I only sign the people up for them. Plus, I've heard she (the instructor, for you readers) just had surgery, so that might have something to do with it."
Caller: "Oh." *another pause*
"Will you be offering a Basics class for February?"
Me: "I am not sure, but the Basics class is a staple of our workshops, whereas, we tend to hold it every month, usually around the beginning of each month."
Caller: "Can you tell me when those are?"
Me: "New schedules come out every third Wednesday. We won't know until then."
Caller: *longer pause then previous* "You don't know the days for those Basics classes?"
Me: "Nope. I won't see that schedule until you see that schedule when it is ran in the newspaper the third Wednesday in this month."
Caller: *pause* "I'll have to call back then I suppose?"
Me: "Yes, and in fact, let me tell you the exact date in which you can call back."
At this point I checked on a calender of when that schedule would be out.
"It'll be the 19th. On January 19th we will have the February schedule out."
Caller: *pause* "And I can't sign up for a Basics class for next month?"
Me: "I don't know when or if we will be holding a Basics class for next month, nor do I know the times for each session. That schedule hasn't even been made-up or printed. I would advise calling back on the 19th, when we can register you."
Caller: *pause* "O^-kay..."
Me: "You seem confused on the information I've just given you."
Caller: "I am confused. You're saying I 'can't' put my name down for a spot in next month's class?"
Me: "That class hasn't been created..."
Caller: "But you could take my name down and number, and once it's 'created' move me into the class."
Me: "So how are you supposed to know when to come in?"
Caller: *pause* "I give you my number..."
Me: "Fair enough, but that's not our policy. The sign-up policy for our classes states that you, the patron, must call us when the schedules are released to the public. Every third Wednesday of every month, a new schedule comes out. That is when you can call and schedule an appointment."
Caller: *pause* "I'll call back on the 19th. Thank you..."
What did she want me to say!? Christ, I fucking told you, Jan-UARY nine-teenth, the February classes are released to the public. I don't have that schedule in front of me, and I'm not aware of what is being offered February or the coming months in the future. If I could predict the future, I'd probably join President Obama and his strong-breath abilities, and we would go fight crime together. Call back January 19th, or after that date for the February classes. A lot like next month, if you were to show further interest in what we offer to the public, you'd call in around the middle of the month of February (just my assumption) j.m.a.
People like to hear yes, get their way, or walk all over whoever they are dealing with, most often because the chaos they create in their own lives embitters them or has pushed them over that brink between a sane person and a bat-shit crazy person.
Another load of crap! Are you the type of person who prints out an important document which lists your bank account number and social security number, along with other extremely viable personal information, then you wait to pick it up at the printer at a public place where anyone can print their documents retaining to some importance? Well, you're a moron.
Patron: "I just printed some statements from my bank, and it said it would be three pages, but looking at what's left at the printer, I only got two sheets, and I'm missing the first sheet...which has my social security number and bank account number on it."
Previous to her coming up to my desk, I watched her click her mouse on the print screen, and the printer ran off her copies, as it did copies for other patrons printing the same time as she did. Two patrons came up to the printer to retrieve their shit; I was answering a patron's question while also taking money for other people's prints. There was a fifteen minute delay wherein she could have picked up her papers. COULD + HAVE. I would have printed off such an important thing as a bank statement at home, but in a public place, let's say I didn't have a printer at home, I would have timed it where, once I hit print on the print screen at the public place, I'd get my ass out of my chair and over to the printer to avoid the dilemma she just put herself in.
Me: "Scheisse...is there any way you could print off the first page again?"
Remember, I was in the middle of doing shit, busy work, and her complaining was falling on deaf ears -- ears that were dead to the world around them on a head with a brain in it that was fed up at this point by other people's chaos.
Patron: "It has my personal information on it...and I don't know where that sheet went..."
Me: "I see your point...check the recycle just in case it was stuffed in there by someone else; matter of fact, check the trash cans as well. If whoever picked it up on accident realizes that wasn't one of their prints, they could have trashed it."
She checks. It doesn't seem to be in those two locations.
Patron: "You know, the guy on computer N picked up the sheets at the printer right before I went up there to get mine. I'll check with him."
Me: "Good idea. I was in the middle of something and couldn't tell who picked up what."
She checks with him, and he's oblivious to her request. She bugs me a third time.
Patron: "He says he doesn't have it, but I know he has to have it, he picked up the sheets that wore up at the printer."
Me: "Well, you did exactly what I would have done, which was ask him if he may have taken the page. I can't really do anything else. I can't search him -- that's not appropriate."
Oh course, by now she's pissed at me because I wouldn't do anything. I couldn't. I can't lay a finger on these people, or reach in their pockets, and really, what's the point of asking him to empty his pockets. It's a privacy issue nonetheless, he doesn't have to cooperate.
Again, to reiterate, what should she have done? After pressing print, and hearing the printer warm up and gather the essential materials, ink, strength to poop out said ink on the page, whip the gremlins to stir them around to work the moving parts, to feed the paper through the machine and get you your print, this brod should've gotten off her ass, and strolled on over to the printer. I mean, a bank statement -- important fucking shit!
What adds to my definition of frustration is that this person was not the only person who had a problem with retrieving their printouts after printing them. It's not my job to sit at my desk and monitor whether the correct person picks up their printouts, or simply walks out of here with someone else's. Be fucking responsible for your own things. Didn't Sesame Street do a segment on that vary topic? Not frustration because I'd bet Oscar the Grouch would have a thing or two to do with that, considering he lives in a dumpster, but responsibility for your property. Be responsible. Act like you have a brain. Use common sense...wait, THAT is what's missing, huh?
