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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

I got a call a short while ago from someone who had a member on the phone who wanted to use our pharmacy as their personal medical support line.
I use medical support in the same way you use technical support.
It’s just like calling your computer’s manufacturer, except this is dealing with your health.
You should get the picture.
If not, pay really close attention to the rest of this.
Anyway, the member’s insurance provider has a step therapy program in place.
That basically means that the insurance company is going to try to get you to try cheaper generics instead of the brand med the doctor originally prescribed to see if that will work first.
They’re playing doctor, which is controversial enought without the freaky implications being thrown in.
They pretty much have no qualms about second-guessing the decisions of the actual doctors if they think it will save them some dough.
In this case, he who pays the piper shouldn’t be calling the tune.
So, this member is being told to take the generic of his med instead of the brand, and wants to call our pharmacy to discuss side effects, and all the jazz that goes along with it.
Well, our pharmacy isn’t an on-call medical helpdesk.
They’ll discuss any side effects members are experiencing from prescriptions in a case where the member wants to switch a generic to a brand, or tell the member how to destroy pills and other medications in the event they’ve been damaged or have expired, but they won’t give members general medical advice.
I told this particular caller to have the member call either their doctor or their local retail pharmacy for medical advice, and that I wasn’t aproving the transfer.
The caller asked what they should say to the member.
How about a paraphrase of what I just told you?
I didn’t realize call scripting was in my job description.
Sometimes I wonder how these people manage to get out the door in the morning, let alone drive a vehicle.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

I still have this really bad cold, and my phone’s been ringing off the hook all day, with lots of stupid people calling.
I really wish I could leave and tell them to just forward the calls to my home number.
People refuse to read their memos, so I’ve been getting calls during my breaks and lunch as well.
They just ring the phone until it won’t ring any more, hang up, and start the process all over again.
I had one person call and let the phone ring for five minutes before one of the Asc Team members went and picked it up and told them I was on break.
The clients are out of the building, so that means tomorrow we get to dress casually again.
Hurray for that.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

Good news!
In two weeks, my sweetheart’s coming to visit me.
Everything suddenly seems so much better.
I’ll have to work out the details next week as to how I’ll be taking the days off.
It’s only two days I’ll need to take off from work, so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal.
He’s only coming down for a weekend, so things shouldn’t be so shaken that the company won’t recover.
If they don’t, Oh well, not my problem.
It’s not like I’m part of the actual cue, and at this point they haven’t made an actual decision as to what I’m going to be officially doing.
They’re just going to have to deal with it either way.
John and Merick are cool though, and it’s not like I miss every other day.
I was eating lunch with Marquis earlier today, and he said he was going out to dinner for some sort of appreciation thing put on by Mr. Frodo and the rest of upper management for the service level people and the TL Admins.
I feel sorry for him.
He has to sit at the same table and endure Mr. Frodo for an extended period of time.
Come to think of it, I feel sorry for all of them.
Shabbat shalom.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

It seems as though the esteemes developers working for the client have come down with a serious case of amnesia, and forgotten everything, (and I do mean everything) I’ve told them over the last eight, (well, I guess now it’s nine) months.
We’re back to defining what the word “focus” means.
Actually it goes beyond explaining.
It’s more like trying to verbally impart a frame of reference, and I mean the entire frame, not just part.
Yet these people refuse to make themselves familiar with the screen reader, (no, testing out certain functions running the screen reader while using the mouse to do everything doesn’t even come close to counting).
It’s like asking a smart person to explain to a retard what it’s like to be smart.
Just doesn’t work.
This is really stressful and frustrating to say the least, because I know where this is going.
It’s going the same way it has for the last nine months.
Round and round and round the hampster wheel.
And maybe if I do a good job, I’ll get a treat.
I hate stupid people.
Really can’t stand them.
I’m tired of dealing with ignorance that’s this pervasive, and yes, ignorance and stupidity are virtually synonymous, and even if they weren’t, no one reading this should expect me to take the time to point out the difference.
And, in case anyone’s wondering, I’m not bitter, I use salt.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

At least I thought we had a sort of semi-solution.
The office harlot came to my desk and asked me to try out the brand new, extraordinarily exciting, just makes me want to wet my pants pilot for the DB_interface.
Supposedly three of the major issues have been fixed, not including the eight thousand pound ton elephant in the room, namely the standardization issue.
Man, I was actually looking forward to something resembling logic.
I’ve got to stop thinking like that!
Note to self: When confused, just repeat under your breath, “No logic, no problem,” until that mantra infuses itself with your soul, or whatever.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

Merick and Mr. Frodo came back here, and asked if I would be willing to handle the inappropriate transfers for the other project as well.
It’s a project that handles calls for a cable company, and apparently they have a huge problem with people submitting emergency orders when they don’t need to be submitted.
Of course, I said I would.
They also used to have anywhere from twenty to thirty-five inappropriate transfers for the current project I’m working on, and now they have twelve.
Go me.
At least things are starting to look up on that front.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

An agent just called me to ask if she could transfer a member to the pharmacists because she didn’t know how to explain why a generic birth control had been dispensed instead of the brand, and the prescription was written tG, which means “trade written/generic dispensed.”
Trade is a nice word for brand.
In other words, the doctor allowed for the generic to be dispensed, but because this idiot didn’t want to do her job, or didn’t know how, she wanted to pass it off to the pharmacists.
How about you actually use your sources and read a tiny bit before you make a stupid assumption like that?
Or, how about you make sure your IQ is above room temperature before you come to work and start talking to people so you can explain things properly.
This isn’t rocket science, and if you made it through training, you shouldn’t be having problems like this.
Between the fellons and the retards, this company’s gone past the dogs.
The dogs won’t even touch it.
They just turn their noses up at it and go, “no thanks.”
I don’t think you even have to breathe to get a job here.
All you have to do is blink.
We should just staff this place with golden retrievers.
They’ve got more brains, and they’d probably actually get the job done.
Oh, and they’re cleaner and cuter.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

The DA’s office is refusing to return my phone calls.
I called last Friday, after our conversation Thursday, then again on Monday, gave them Tuesday and Wednesday with no phone calls, and called again today.
I got voice mail every time.
They have until the end of business today.
If I don’t hear anything by then, then the media’s getting dragged into this.
I’m tired of all of this.
Someone’s going to be made an example of.
All of this is very stressful, and I shouldn’t have to allow my life to be complicated because some fucktard can’t do their job, or rather, doesn’t want to.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

This post isn’t going to provide very many updates on the current Arab-instigated war on Israel.
There are plenty of places to find those.
This post is just for my own personal reflections.
Today begins the period in the Jewish calendar known as the Three Weeks, or Bein Ha-Metzorim, (”Between the Straits”).
It’s a mournful period, beginning with the fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz, and ending with the fast of the Ninth of Av.
During this period, Jewish tradition records a number of tragic occurences, including the breaking of the original tablets on which the Torah was written, the incident of the Golden Calf, the condemnation to wander in the desert for forty years, the destruction of Jerusalem and both Temples, numerous pograms.
The current flare-up of violence against Israel just adds to it.
I think most Jews are doubly mournful at this point, unless they’re just some sort of self-loathing idiot who thinks this is deserved.
And the international community just keeps piling on.
When will these people get it?
Probably never.
To hell with them anyway.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

I’m sitting here watching Star Trek The Next Generation.
They’ve started rerunning the series from the beginning.
I forgot how much of a jerk Captain Picard was in the early episodes.
He’s a lot like Mr. Frodo, except the captain changes, becomes friendlier, and even somewhat epmathetic in the later episodes.
This is the one where the ship starts acting weird, systems failing, with those two weird alien delegations that kill their own food and have a live animal supply stored on the ship.
It’s back on now, so better go see what happens.
This is one I haven’t seen.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

I have misgivings about calling maintenance to come out here to fix the air conditioner.
Maybe it’s just me, but I seem to have a little more mistrust for just about everyone as of late, or at least since the robbery.
I’m not taking the time off to deal with this, which means that maintenance will be coming in here without me here.
I’ll have to remind them to make sure they lock up when they leave, because the last time they were in here they didn’t.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

This is not cool at all.
It looks like I’m going to have to call maintenance to have them call the contracted company that deals with the heating and air so they can come out and fix a leak.
Damn it!
This air conditioner/heater has to be fixed at least once every three months, or at least once every season.
Completely uncalled-for.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

Today hasn’t been bad, although I’ll be glad to leave all the same.
I have a really bad headache.
I’ve actually gotten a few calls today, most of which ended up being non-transfers for stupid reasons.
One person called to ask if they could transfer the member to the pharmacists because the member wanted a credit on their account.
Um, no, that’s why there’s a billing department.
Pharmacists handle consultations, hence their being called consultation pharmacists.
The next one had a member on the phone who got their meds from another mail order provider, but wanted to speak to the client’s pharmacists because she used to have mail order service with the client, and felt comfortable speaking to the client’s pharmacists.
What a load of crap.
That’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard in a while, and I couldn’t believe an agent, who’s worked on this project for a while, didn’t know enough to say no.
That one didn’t get transferred either.
The last one was a call for a member who had a question about storing their meds, and I let that one through, since it seemed like a consultation question.
I’ll go ahead and save my documentation, so it’ll be there for my superiors to look at.
I can tell this is going to be fun.
I get to make fun of the retards again.
Ain’t life grand.

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Originally published at customerservant.com. You can comment here or there.

This post is going to sound really anal to any of my readers who don’t work in customer service, but I have to post it.
There’s a girl sitting next to me who seems to be laboring under the mistaken assumption that she should treat the calls as if they’re friendly conversations had with coworkers in the break room.
That really irks me.
I was pissed at her yesterday because she idiotically told some caller from Swansborrough exactly where we are, giving everything but the street address.
She’s used inside jargon with customers, which we’re not supposed to do, advised customers she’d release the call if they consinued to cuss her out, and other idioticies that just aren’t allowed.
Funny thing is, I can pretty much guarantee the quality team made it very clear what is and isn’t allowed during calls.
everyone’s here to do a job, and they might as well do it right, or not do it at all.
There’s no reason to just be an idiot, unless you can’t help it.
Then again, this place has a history of hiring people who act like they have IQs below room temperature.