I really want the real rufus to make himself known he's my hero, although his origional assessment of the problem was flawed the way he handles customers is great, they need to be put in there place.

The world has gone too politically correct if the problem is that the customer is as thick as two short planks we should be able to tell them straight, instead of wasting our time.

I think El Reg should email Rufus some IT job vacancies, maybe he could work on the Helldesk?

I don't know, reading the emails purporting to be from Rufus in the main story, then reading Rufus' email to El Reg, they don't seem to come from the same person. What we need is the email equivalent of a handwriting expert to prove the fact.

I think it was unfair for the boss to ask Rufus to find the real culprit. That's not Rufus' job, that's more of a managers/supervisors job and in any case what good will it do.

The right way to do it, would have been to let everyone know that the Boss is aware of what has happened and would like to just remind them what the correct response should have been. Then maybe some spill about how he wouldn't want to "introduce monitoring", etc, etc and "would like to trust the employees" as a thinly veiled threat.

I'm sure Rufus will be okay, it might be the best thing that has ever happened to him. It was obvious he was not happy there.

"The world has gone too politically correct if the problem is that the customer is as thick as two short planks we should be able to tell them straight, instead of wasting our time."

Yeah well from comments I've read relating to Rufus' flaying of his customer - the majority of support guys seem to think that *everyone* who contacts tech support is "wasting their time".

Sorry fellas, but when you've blown good money on a product which turns out to be a pile of crap that either doesn't function as its documentation says or more likely simply doesn't function correctly - there's gonna be a certain level of frustration.

Rufus' comment about the customer not being paid and therefore not having to respect the support person has got it from a pretty selfish angle. He's ignoring that the customer has actually had to pay (indirectly) the support guy so when you get treated like an ignorant asshole by the support guy its natural to forget to maintain a polite demeanour a bit don't you think?

Sure you're gonna get clueless idiots ringing helpdesks, but some of you guys have got into the mindset that *everyone* who rings the helpdesk is a clueless idiot.

The other thing is that the support guy has usually been hired by the company to enforce the company's fuck-the-customer policies. One of the few times I've actually lost my temper on a call to a supplier helpdesk, was the result of refusal to help because I called a day or two outside their 14 day window (www.scan.co.uk in this case) - which they start at the intial date of shipping even though the company sent my stuff to totally the wrong address and it took over a week to get it delivered to me in the first place.

In a capitalist society - companies priorities are to get the consumer to buy their product. What the consumer does with it after that is often not considered. If the product goes wrong, a lot of companies want you to buy another one - supporting you is a cost which eats into their profits. Therefore they often give their support people very little scope to help the customer - which is not the support guys fault but he is by definition the representative of the company who decides on those policies.

Footnote:

Everyone probably missed my point by now - I do NOT defend those who think its ok to physically or verbally have a go at people they are dealing with - whether thats customers or customer service staff.

I think that while what the original person did was understandable, he should not have put someone else's name in. That's just plain dastardly.

When you're working as an employee, your time is already paid for. Who cares if you have to deal with idiots? You get paid the same if you're working the Helldesk at Cambridge or Wal-Mart.

Insulting customers doesn't make you a hero, it makes you bad at your job. When you take your car to a mechanic, do you like him to treat you like a moron, because you don't know the intricacies of how your engine works? Same diff.

You get paid for performing the tasks you agreed to when you were hired. If the tasks are not to your liking, perhaps you should have taken a different job?