So I work on two different banking software programs, the banks are our clients they call us whenever they have a problem. However, sometimes a bank uses a third party IT company. Most of the time these guys are ok, they can be a bit annoying at times but for the most part are courteous and cooperative. A few years ago my company actually bought one of these third party companies, so we’re still separate groups but now under the same umbrella.
At first, things didn’t go real well, most of the reps we dealt with weren’t very knowledgeable and tended to not be cooperative, which is a bad look when the client sees two members of the same company battling each other. But eventually that group was turned over, and most of the reps they have now are pretty good, except for a couple. This is the story of my (hopefully) last encounter with one of these asshole reps, we’ll call him Shawn.
Shawn has managed to piss off every member of my team multiple times over the last year or so, I’ve gone to my boss a couple times about him, but he always managed to fly under the radar because we didn’t have to deal with him very often.
I work with several groups, so occasionally I will get calls from them as well. One of the reps from this other group was named Jennifer, she was very good at her job and always pleasant to deal with. I’ve heard her deal with complete idiots on the phone, and she always kept her cool, except when she dealt with Shawn.
Shawn is one of those people that’s so difficult to deal with that you actually think he may have some kind of condition, it’s that bad. He speaks in an incredibly monotone tone of voice, there is never any emotion and he seems to really dislike following instructions. So much so that if you tell him to do something, he will never do it, I’ve literally given him instructions before only for him to call another department and dump the issue on them while completely stonewalling anyone that tries to get information on the issue.
So one day, my phone rings and it’s Shawn on the other end. Now unbeknownst to me, Jennifer is already working on this issue since the problem is with her software and not mine, and the call went as such:
Rick: Support this is Rick
Shawn: Rick this Shawn with Slownet…I’m calling on behalf of unnamed bank…they’re having an issue with installing your software…I’m going to get you onto the machine.
Jennifer: Wait, oh hi Rick!
R: Hey Jennifer
J: Hang on one second Rick, Shawn did you install this program like I asked?
S: …well…no…I called Rick.
J: Rick I am very sorry to have wasted your time, I appreciate your willingness to help but as I specifically stated to Shawn, the issue is not with your software.
R: Ok no problem, thanks.
This is the only time I ever heard her get angry, so I messaged her when the call ended, turns out as soon as I hung up she screamed at Shawn for a good 10 minutes, to which is his response was “Ma’am please stop yelling on a recorded line…”
So that gives you some background on what dealing with Shawn is like. So about two weeks ago, I had to deal with him and it was a nightmare as usual. So much so in fact, that I reached out to someone else in his group that I’ve developed a good relationship with and asked for help to try to circumvent him. Even this other person was angry because of course, he got stonewalled, even going so far as to ask me what the hell was wrong with him. He was so uncooperative that I had to get my supervisor involved and started a chat session with him included, only then did Shawn do a single thing that was asked of him, and he remained completely silent throughout. So keep these last two things in mind, because it leads us to our final encounter.
Fast forward to this monday afternoon, I have been up for 24 hours straight due to tornadoes being in my area (Dallas). Fortunately I didn’t have any real damage in my area, but one of the 3 tornadoes (yes 3) came very close to my area, and there were more storms later in the night that kept me up, partially due to noise and partially due to anxiety from earlier.
Now at this point, I’d like to point something out, I’ve accepted a job offer elsewhere and will be leaving soon. I’m getting ready to put in my notice at this time, and so I had no intentions of getting into a pissing contest with anyone, I’m ready to just finish my time here and move onto the next chapter. Then Shawn called me, and royally pissed me off, as follows:
R: Support this is Rick
S: Hi Rick this is Shawn with slownet…
R: …
S: I have a user from so and so bank having trouble signing in…I’ll remote you on.
R: …ok…
S: I’ll conference in the user…Rob I have Rick from support on the line.
R: Hi Rob, can you tell me what’s goi-
S: He’ll be able to help you…
Rob: Ok great.
R: So tell me what’s-
S: Rick are you on there?
R: Yes. So Rob tell me what seems to be the issue?
Rob: Well I’ve been tryin-
S: Rick do you need me to stay on the call?
R: Hang on Shawn, let’s see what the issue is. Sorry Rob, go ahead.
Rob: Well I’ve been trying to sign in but I get an error message.
R: Ok go ahead and recreate the error please. Ok this will probably be a reinstall.
At this point, I check his admin rights, and he doesn’t have any. Normally I would ask to get an admin logged onto the station, and the IT person would get themselves logged on. But this is Shawn, so he doesn’t want to.
R: Ok can we get a windows admin on here please?
S: I don’t know what you mean by windows admin…
R: I need a windows administrator logged into windows, on this station.
S: Well I don’t know what windows admin means…
Rob: Is that something I can do?
R: No Rob, I just checked your rights and I’m afraid you aren’t an admin. It can be someone from the bank or from slownet, I just need a windows admin logged in here.
S: Rob I’m gonna go ahead and let you go, we’ll try to figure out how to get this problem resolved and I’ll call you back.
Rob: Ok thanks guys, bye.
R: …
S: …
R: …
S: …I don’t know what you mean by windows admin…
R: We’ve done this a thousand times, I don’t know how to be any clearer than saying I need a windows administrator logged onto the station, I can’t reinstall anything without it. (And you’re a god damn IT person, you definitely know what that means, you just don’t want to do your job)
S: Well it would help if you would be a little clearer…you could’ve said you needed a windows administrator from the beginning.
R: That is exactly what I said.
S: …
R: …
S: …
R: …
S: …You must be having a great today.
R: …I’m sorry?
S: I said YOU MUST BE HAVING A REALLY GOOD DAY TODAY (I can hear his shithead grin at this point)
R: …and why do you say that?
S: Because you’re being really short with me and won’t describe what you need.
Cut to another 15 minutes of complete silence, I’ve had with him at this point and decide it’s better to not say anything than say something that will get me in trouble. I’ve had so many problems with him at this point that I’m just going to return the favor and stonewall him for the remainder of my time here.
S: OK I have other calls I need to take so I’ll just let you go, I just sent you a chat…
R: OK.
S: Thanks Rick
R: …(I then hang up absolutely furious)
I immediately messaged my boss and had him call me, I told him exactly what happened and to pull the call and listen to it, that our whole team has had nothing but problems with this guy and I’m never taking another call from him again. My boss and I then had a 20 minute call and went over everything that just happened, and while this call is happening, my boss is also polling other team members about Shawn and none of the responses are good.
I worked on the machine for another half hour and was able to get it working again, Shawn would pester me occasionally via chat and I ignored him until I got it fixed and told him I was done. His response was unusually cheerful and complimentary, he knows he done fucked up.
One important detail here is that I don’t bitch to my boss about things, I only go to him maybe twice a year about an issue, which is far less than our other team members, therefore when I speak up he tends to take it very seriously.
So the following day, my boss has a conference call with me and other team members and we all name off the number of run ins we’ve had with this guy. The call is roughly 30 minutes of us running him down, and this is one of the few times I’ve heard my boss get legitimately angry. He has scheduled a call with Shawn’s supervisor, and is also polling other teams about his conduct as well. I don’t have word on what will happen yet, but I know it won’t be good for Shawn.
I was all set to just take a knee and run out the clock here, but Shawn just had to push me, so maybe I’ll get him canned on my way out.
tldr: Shithead third party IT with a history of being a shithead to everyone pisses me off while I’m in the process of moving to another company, I go bananas and all hell is getting ready to rain down on said shithead.
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