More Customer Service Hell

I haven't posted much on here about my customer service experiences - don't let that lead you to believe there haven't been some doozies - cuz there have.

And here's one to prove it:

Some people make me want to kill everyone within a 3 mile radius.

This l"user" calls and tells me that his laptop is telling him that he has a wireless network connection but he can't get anywhere - he obviously isn't running VPN.

So I tell him that he has to have VPN running (I have to interrupt him, b/c he's busy telling me how our wireless network is screwed up), and ask him if he has VPN installed.

He tells me "Yes, I'm all set up for wireless, I already told you that my computer shows a connection." So I explain to him, that yes, his computer will show a connection, but without VPN software installed and running, he won't be able to get anywhere.

So he says "Well, I came by the Help Desk place and they set it up for me but I still can't connect..." and continues to ramble on about how our network must be screwed up - so I interrupt him again and ask him if he's running it...

He says "It's on my computer." I inform him that it must also be ACTIVELY RUNNING to be able to connect to anything useful. At this point I also put the phone on "mute" and say "STUPID FUCKING ASSHOLE" really loud. I'm not proud of that - wait... yes, I am.

He pauses, says "Oh," and asks me how to "make it run." I ask him if, when he brought his computer to the Help Desk, the student worker there downloaded and installed something, or just set up something called PPTP already in Windows... he tells me PPTP (not outright, he just replies that nothing was downloaded, leading me to infer PPTP).

So I tell him to look and see if there is an icon marked "TAMU" on his desktop... he says "No." So I say, "Ok, go ahead and open up Control Panel, and then Network Connections."

He says "Ok, I'm there." I then say, "On the upper left, is there a link that says 'Switch the category view' or is there one that says 'Switch to classic view'?" (Cuz I'm not taking any chances that this guy will still be in category view and further enrage me). He replies "Neither." I say "Look again, in the upper left corner..." He says "I'm already in the 'Network Places' - and I don't see either." I should have noticed that he said "Places" and not "Connections" but I just figure this guy was actually paying attention when I said "CONTROL PANEL" (not 'desktop fucking icon') and I ask him "What is there?"

He starts listing things, and one of them is "Create a new network connection" - very similar to what should be "Create a new connection" (in Network Connections). So I tell him that that is what we want anyway, and tell him to click it. After a bunch of confusion, I finally determine that this is anything but the "New Connection Wizard." I also determine that this person is not in "Network Connections." I consider screaming, and decide that I'd better mute the phone for a while.

After 10 seconds (or so) of fuming, I pick up the phone, and start talking really slowly... I tell the moron that I am not talking about the "My Network Places" icon on the desktop, but rather the "Network Connections" icon under the "Control Panel". He says, "Oh, that was the problem" about 15 times. Then, the dick is able to follow the directions I had given him previously (without me repeating them) to get exactly where he needed to be... which makes me now believe that this guy just thought he knew of a "shortcut" to get to what I was talking about and ignored what I had said on purpose.

After we get to "Network Connections," I verify that this guy doesn't have a PPTP connection set up at all, and so was lying about having ever come to Help Desk as well. Par for the course at this point. So we set up PPTP. And after connection I reiterate "You will have to run this connection any time you want to use the wireless on campus." and I hang up while he's blabbering on about something else.

See, I still hate the people that call me :)