Not entirely PC
I don’t know what it’s like now, but working on an IT helpline in 1992 it was wimin that were nightmare customers. Obviously we didn’t speak to the people who weren’t having problems so it was a self selecting group, but Christ on a bike they were hard fucking work. Unable to follow simple instructions, nervous / angry or alternating between the two and just generally not able to cope with a keyboard that did more than type.

Wimin “It’s not working”
Support “OK, what isn’t working”
Wimin “THE COMPUTER!” – already angry-
Support “OK, what is it on the computer that isn’t working”
Wimin “EVERYTHING!” – shouting-
Support “Right, I just need you to answer a few questions…”
Wimin “CAN’T YOU JUST FIX IT” – screaming down the phone-

After about an hour I’d finally work out that after 2 years of using a PC they’d suddenly started to double click with the right button, or their keyboard was dirty so they were using the one still plugged into a neighboring PC. And then get pissy when you told them what the problem was.

There were a few loonies among men we supported, but they where mostly happier to work with you to resolve the problem and face the realization they’d done something a bit silly without getting shitty.

In my next job I was a project manager moving companies to new buildings and the like. Moving a team of men is a piece of piss. Have a couple of meetings, agree the desk layout, give them a tour of the new office, sort out the infrastructure as per the plan, place the desks, they arrive sit down and start working.

A move works just the same with a group of wimin, right up to when they arrive on the first day. Then it starts. “I can’t sit here I’ve got my back to Judy you’ll have to move everything round”…not a sniff of recognition that this may be a little awkward. Soon to be followed with there’s a draft, the sun’s in my eyes, it’s too dark, it’s too bright, hot, cold, dry, humid, something’s giving me a rash, I’m getting bitten by something, I’m getting a headache, this chair’s making my legs go numb, I think that plant is poisonous, there’s something wrong with the water, the toilette’s too low / high, the colour of the walls in the lift gives me panic attacks*…and on and on and on. To save my sanity I soon learnt to build more time and budget into a plan for moving teams that were predominantly female.

So there you have it. If you want challenging customers choose are job where they are mainly not men.



*I wish I was making these up.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Mon 8 Sep 2008, 17:42, 1 reply)

I feel your pain
Viz the female facilities manager who demanded "Real cherry veneer, but in a different colour"
Cherry veneer is cherry veneer coloured you dimwit!

Or the Head of a large horticultural research operation who sent a snotty letter because "Her office is smaller than her paygrade demands". Read the drawings we sent you on numerous occasions you stuck up cow! BTW her office was 1/2 a square metre smaller than she thought she should get because SHE demanded we box-in a pipe!

There were plenty more. I resigned to get into a different job but not before I took on a 5-floor renovation for TWO female designers. Passed that particular poisoned chalice to a hated colleague. He never forgave me.
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Mon 8 Sep 2008, 18:37, closed)