When to Dial 9

[mylittleredgirl]

We've recently tripled the size of my office. As happens when you mass-hire, and when you hire salespeople in general, some are more familiar with basic work skills than others. This true story occurred today! It's long, but illustrated. Ladies and gentlemen, this is my real actual life:

Three of my new hires who started over the last month have complained about problems using the office phones, all due to user error. One of them argued with me about it, though:

Rookie Rep*: "My phone's not working... I can't dial out."
Little Red: "Dial 9 to get an outside line."
Rookie: "Since when do we need to dial 9!?"
LR: "Since always."
Rookie: "But we didn't used to have to last week!"
LR: "... well, you do now."
Rookie: "I'm telling you we didn't used to-"
LR: "DIAL 9!"
Rookie: "We also used to be able to dial 1 before local numbers and it was okay."
LR: "I'm sorry. Change must be very hard for you. This is just how telephones work."
Rookie: "I know what you're going to say... put in a helpticket..."
LR: "... In the summary field, choose 'reality,' sub category 'obvious.'"

*For those of you keeping track at home, this is the same rep who wrote and choreographed his own musical theater piece about being a salesperson, and then performed it in his interview.

Then I sent out an email, and received some responses. I've arranged them so you can read them in order:

Subject: When to Dial 9
From: [Little Red]
To: [entire office]

There has been some confusion on this important issue due to some desk-phone-registration issues too mysterious to go into here. Should you be having problems with your desk phone or the office fax machine, please read and carefully follow the instructions below.

When using a desk phone… dial 9 before the number. Dial 9-1-area code-number if long distance, if it’s local just dial 9-503 (or 971)-number.

When using the fax machine… do not dial 9. Dial 1-area code-number if long distance, just 503/971-number if local.

Graphically speaking, this can be rendered as follows:



Regards,
[Little Red]

---

Subject: RE: When to Dial 9
From: [veteran rep]**
To: [Little Red]

I mean

**again, for those keeping track at home, this is the one who I yell at all the time for calling me "sweetie" and "babycakes" and "go get me a sandwich" and whatnot - which isn't relevant to this story.


---

From: [Little Red]
To: [veteran rep]

That's pretty much exactly what I said.

---

From: [veteran rep]
To: [Little Red]

How does one sit in the office chairs?

---

Subject: RE: When to Dial 9
From: [Little Red]
To: [veteran rep]
cc: [admin friend] [IT guy]

You're welcome.



Regards,
[Little Red]

---

My reps prank each other constantly, every single call day, by soaking every chair in the office with water. Somehow they all still find this hilarious.

Anyway, then IT Guy pings me on the company IM to let me know that he has received 7 helptickets from Rookie Rep in the last 24 hours. Fortunately, none of them are related to not being able to dial 9. However, they resulted in this exchange:

Subject: Helpticket
From: [IT guy]
To: [Rookie]

I need your IP address to remote in and help you.

Click Start, then Run, and type CMD and click OK.

In the black box that appears, type IPCONFIG, press enter, and reply back with your IP address.

---

Subject: Helpticket
From: [Rookie]
To: [IT guy]

How do I find the ip address?

---

Subject: Helpticket
From: [IT guy]
To: [Rookie]

Mostly by reading the last email I sent you.

---

Anyway, then my admin friend pings me to ask who the heck the rep is who doesn't understand phones and might potentially have future problems with chairs. She knows Rookie Rep because he did his new-hire sales training in her office. I looped IT Guy in on the conversation too:

Little Red: It's [Rookie Rep]!! But a rep from the Phoenix training and one from the Philly training also couldn't cope with the dial-9 thing, so it doesn't seem to be a Minneapolis-training-related problem
my admin friend: Maybe you should request that [Trainer] somehow work that into training...
Little Red: No, I'm pretty sure we need to cover that before we hire people, to make sure they're able to cope with the extreme requirements of this position
IT guy: AHAHAHAHAHA
IT guy: YOU RUINED MY CALL!!!
Little Red: ahaha sorry!
IT guy: I forgot to mute!
IT guy: Add that to your directions

I have 7 more new hires starting in my office on Monday. SEVEN. I'm not sure how I'm going to survive.

And I'm not even going to get into the lady who freaked out (twice) over her laptop that "isn't working AT ALL!!!!" because it wasn't plugged in and her battery ran out, or that same lady when she threw out the antenna for her wireless card and said, direct quote, "How was I supposed to know it was part of the card? It didn't say the word 'antenna' anywhere on it!"

Comments

[joyfulfeather.livejournal.com]

I have no idea how you deal with these people! The sad thing is, I have coworkers who have issues with simple things like this, too. They're freaking engineers and they can't understand how to follow instructions to watch a simple video training. I'm amazed the admins haven't shot them all.

[mylittleredgirl.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad they're not responsible for designing anything that goes on a space-going vessel that could theoretically fall back to earth and explode on someone.