Crankypants

Survived two 12-hour days of phone fixing. Never want to see another
phone again. Especially not a filthy, yicky customer phone.

Oh. Working on bouncers. Not only are customers all bald-faced liars,
but they looove to ask for a new phone in the bouncer tickets. Sorry,
guys, but your phone company will only give you a new one free on the
day Hitler and Ghandi both rise from the dead and break-dance on MTV.
They would rather eat your phone, whole, than replace it. Also, your
data. Use a memory card already. Our responsibilties to your data
begin and end with the phrase "shit happens".

And to the lady bitching about pocket-dialing: use a case like
everyone else, already.

Bouncers and Thud

Today, for entirely mysterious reasons, I spent the last part of the
day on bouncers at work.

A bouncer is a phone that comes back to us again; they're categorized
as 30-day, 60-day, or 90-day bouncers. After 90 days, we no longer
care; it's considered a new issue because you've had more than enough
time to drop your phone in the toilet by then.

Bouncers is where the really tricky, intermittent issues come out.
Also, the crazies. And there is something the crazies clearly don't
know about the repair process: We have a 'repair history' button. This
is the 'instantly find out whether a customer is a lying liar who
lies' button, most often, and discovering what's up with a bouncer
often goes like this:

Ticket: "Phone won't turn on ever since it came back..."
History: "...which would be for the last three months, less a few
days, so what've you been using during that time?"
Ticket: "...and this issue keeps happening..."
History: "...and yet the reason the phone was sent in before was to
get the password reset..."
Ticket: "...and this is the fifth time..."
History: "We've had it once."
Ticket: "customer is really upset and would like a replacement"
Service Bulletin: "New model S-whatever released two days ago."
Phone: "Actually, my battery's just dead. Look, I'm on!"

But they won't let me put 'Biological Interface Failure' in the notes.

And the thud: Can we do overtime Saturday? How about today? And
tomorrow? Also if you're less than 100% productivity right now Joe
will throw a fit. I catch the faint whiff of job security, here, and
it gets stronger every time I see the stacks of boxes of phones marked
'Urgent' that are sitting at the back.

Luckily, Joe (the supervisor) told us to 'do what we had to' to make
sure our figures were right at 100%. Okie dokie then! I see a few
phones that suddenly look, through the plastic bags, like level three
jobbies. I'd better fling 'em straight to level three without
bothering to check! And that's my productivity sorted. Which is a good
thing, because after 12 hours of looking at phones in a day, they all
develop pink elephant menu icons.

All By Itself

Customers are still entertainingly odd sometimes. I got one phone that
was so incredibly filthy inside that it set my allergies off badly.

I got another phone in as an out of warranty repair - touchscreen
shattered, came with a handwritten note that the customer DID NOT drop
it it just started cracking all by itself. I might even partly agree
with her: it looks more like some heavy weight was put on it. Darn
those invisible phone-hating elephants, huh?