One down, 4 to go. I'm currently under the second phase of our training as a customer support engineer (the 'engineer' in our title really bothers me.) So far so good! Most of the other trainees doesn't even make it through the first phase, so for us, this is already an achievement. And I mean a major achievement. We felt that we've been through hell and back during this week. We've trained for 5 days and I'm already tired to last for the year. Yes, it's that difficult. We've just received our grades this evening and this is what I got:

Exam 1 - 25.20%
Exam 2 - 12.75%
Panel Interview - 20.60%
Overall - 6.45%
Total - 65.00%
Passing is 60%

Which means - I barely made it.

I met a new friend early this evening. Her name is Monina and like us, she's new to the company. She's on her third week already but what really bothered me is that she doesn't look new at all. She's really good at this customer support thing. In fact, she even told me that she started taking actual calls during their third day. The THIRD DAY and she's already at ease taking with foreigners! I'm on my fifth day and my belly still circumvents whenever I hear those little telephone boxes ring. And to think that the calls for me were only test calls! During one of my test calls, Anifa, the girl with the American accent, pretended to be the customer. I greeted her with the usual "Thank you for calling customer support, this is Neil... how may I help you?" and she replied with "Yes, I have an account with y'all." She said it in a deep American voice - not like the ones we hear on movies. Of course, with the help of the slow 'telephone quality' bit-rate, and the interference on the line, what I could make out of what she said was: "AYAVANACAWNTWIDYOL." And I was like:

"Come again?"
"AYAVANACAWNTWIDYOL."
"What?"
"AYAVANACAWNTWIDYOL."
"I'm sorry, but the line seems noisy so I'll have to ask you to speak louder ma'am."
"AYAVANACAWNTWIDYOL."

I was really nervous and I really couldn't stop myself from laughing at my mistake. I made her repeat what she said three times and that was only the first sentence that came out her mouth. Imagine what more when they start babbling about their inquiries or complaints.

"I HAVE AN ACCOUNT." She finally said clearly.

Like Corrine said, it sounded like "I have an account with AOL" and that makes it completely different of course - they must've dialed the wrong number (AOL is our rival ISP.)

Anyway, I'm glad we're through with that. Starting tomorrow, we will be focusing on technical issues. Maybe I'll do better at that - besides, when doing tech support, you'll need to be direct and straight to the point. Unlike in the billing support, a conversation might turn out like this:

ME: "May I know your e-mail address so that I can run some tests on your account?"
THEM: "Sure, that's L for Lima, O for Oscar, oh my, that reminds me, my dog's name is Oscar and I haven't fed him yet. I wonder what's wrong with me, I keep on forgetting a lot of important stuff lately, is it because I'm getting old or is it... blah blah blah..."
ME: *yawn*
THEM: "T, for tango, I repeat that's L-O-U-T, lout at pkfamily.com. My father gave me this nickname and I have been stuck with it ever since.... yada yada yada...."

As an SOP, we should not just cut off our customer while they're talking as a form of respect. We have to try to divert the conversation back on track. We can't just say: "Okay, I only asked for your e-mail account - will you stop it with that stupid story-telling!" Instead we have to go something like this:

"Oh that's a really nice nickname, your father can really choose great names, and your dog seems nice too. Anyway, is there something wrong with your account?"

Meanwhile, at tech support, a conversation would probably sound like this:

ME: "Just right click on the Internet Explorer..."
THEM: "Right click what?"
ME: "Right click on the blue icon on your desktop that spells the letter 'e.'"
THEM: "oh that..."
ME: 'Then choose, properties and then click on the connections tab... blah blah..."

which is a lot easier than having to entertain the caller.

I'm really sleepy now. I have to go work again tomorrow. I really miss updating my site. I'm really sorry that I couldn't do it everyday.