Mentalists :)
Ooooo! A fat, juicy, ripe QOTW!

In the many years as in IT Support / Management, I've come across that many "Customers from Hell" (usually colleagues), that writing about them would make my eyes bleed, make you all turn Catholic, and make the big sciency spinny thing do an about turn and go the other way.

However, and this will stay with me for a long, long, lonnnnnnng time!

When you are complaining your computer has gone on the blink - Never mind! Stop looking at all the pr0n sites and downloading shitty viruses!

When you are complaining your internet has stopped working - Never mind! Plug your fucking router back in that your harpy idiot of a wife / husband / thing has unplugged to plug in the Fondue Set!

When you are complaining that your printer isn't working - Never mind! You shouldn't have tried to force in the toner cartridge backwards, spilling toner all over your nice new cream carpet!

Just be relieved that you are not a patient at a lovely hospital, which I cannot name, but rhymes with "Hampton" and some of the "patients" aren't of the most popular variety, but, some of the old "learning disability" lads are in their actually for their own welfare, and it is all they know.

A nice spanky new television system has been installed, with LCD screens, server based freeview thingy, all delivered over IP.

Works nicely, until you have a power surge. Which, as this place is in the middle of nowhere, is kind of prone to power surges due to thunderstorms, and that sort of thing.

And then , you get a "house" which loses virtually its entire telly system for about 4 days due to a bank holiday.

These "customers" have psychological issues that would make most people cringe in horror, and their behaviours can suddenly snap with no indication whatsoever. Think WW3, with their anger being displayed with the equivalent power as a small nuclear bomb.

Therefore, they are contained in this "house". You can't go out for a stroll in the "grounds" (unless you are VERY VERY lucky), and your only other entertainment is a radio, or other "appropriate therapy". Oh, and you can't have a gasper either, cos they've banned that outright.

So, hence forth me, being a dutiful employee of this great nation's NHS, having to go to this "house" to perform resets on a large number of tellys, in which some bedrooms a: Stink like a rotting cadaver, and b: Stink like someones shit in there and left a dead otter under the bed.

But, when eventually you have the tellys all working, and changing channels, volume up, volume down, etc etc etc, you sigh a phew of relief! (As do the regular staff!)

Then, you get mobbed. By the patients. Who then issue to you compliments such as "Thank you Mister!" and "Thank you Sir, you are the best telly man, better than the others!"

Bear in mind what I said earlier. These guys have variable impairments due to their illness. Most have mental ages less than their physical age.

Customers from hell? These guys have the potential to be more than Satan's own Undercover Customers. Some will tell you what they would like to do to your offspring if you even left their remote control out of its exact, marked with a set square, position. And thats the "ladies".

Then again - I'd rather deal with these people than people who think they are God's gift to creation, even though they don't know the basic concept of making sure something is plugged in before accusing you of fucking up their computer.

At least (some of) these poor fuckers have an excuse.
( Tesco Quality 60.825659, -0.788337, Wed 10 Sep 2008, 22:59, Reply)