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The Freakish Episode of the Ants

I recently related a rather freakish episode I had with ants, indirectly. At the time, It was as humorous as it was strange, though I imagine the customer didn’t find it especially funny at the time.

At the time, I was doing technical support for a scanner company. I won’t mention the name, but they were the leading paper-fed and flatbed scanner company, with buyers all over the world. They were well-built and made to last. Nearly all of the problems they had were software related and relatively easy to troubleshoot.

I started out with the company as a software technician, then as a fax technician, and finally as a senior technician. We had a great crew, but if they couldn’t fix a customer’s problems with a scanner, I usually could. That isn’t meant as a brag. The level one technicians did all the hard work and I had the leisure to look the problem over and figure out the probable causes before I even called the customers back.

At this particular time, I was the only senior tech for the company. That says a lot in regard to how good the products were and how great the level one technicians were, considering the millions of our scanners that were in operation. However, if a scanner malfunctioned, and it happens with the best-built tool, I was the only one who could authorize a Return Merchandise Authorization, also known as an RMA. With a standard RMA, the bad scanner was sent back and a replacement was sent to the consumer when the old one is received.

It rarely happened that an RMA needed to be issued, but in the case where it did, I would receive a “hot transfer”. That means that the level one tech would transfer the call directly to me if they thought it warranted an RMA. Normally, I’d simply look over their case notes (the level 1 techs were excellent in writing detailed case notes), then I’d troubleshoot the things that the level one techs didn’t or couldn’t. About 98% of the time, an RMA wasn’t needed.

One day, I got a hot transfer for an RMA. I didn’t have time to read the case notes, so I prepared to do some basic troubleshooting. I started out by asking what was wrong with the scanner, which happened to be the best selling and top of the line scanner that we had. The customer replied that there was nothing wrong with it.

Okay, that was a bit strange. I asked if the scanner was still working. He replied that to the best of his knowledge, it was. I asked if he disliked the scanner and he said that he loved it. According to him, he’d had a half-dozen scanners and it was the best one he’d ever owned.

At that point, I was bewildered, to say the least. I finally asked exactly why he wanted an RMA and a replacement for the scanner. He’d already admitted that the scanner was working and that he was more than pleased with it.

It was then that he told me that he’d taken a three-week vacation, leaving the windows open an inch, so the house wouldn’t be stuffy when he returned. When he got back, he discovered that a nest of fire ants had decided to use the scanner as a new nest. He couldn’t even get near the scanner without being bitten or stung.

Mind you, it isn’t unheard of for this sort of thing to happen and similar things have occurred. Insects have infested computers and computerized equipment before. That is the origin of a “computer bug”, in fact, though the original computer bug was a moth and not a nest of fire ants.

Needless to say, I authorized the RMA and when the man offered to send the other scanner back, I said he could keep it. I called the vice president of operations and explained the situation to him. He laughed so hard that I could almost hear the teardrops rolling down his face. When he finished, he asked for the name, phone number, and address of the gentleman, saying that he would personally make sure that the replacement scanner was sent out, second-day express. He did exactly that, too.

It still qualifies as the strangest RMA that I’ve ever dealt with and one of the most unusual technical support calls I’ve ever had. I can just imagine what the reaction would have been from the engineers if I’d had the man return the ant-infested scanner. I’d probably still be getting death threats. (Actually not because we had terrific engineers, but I can guarantee that they wouldn’t have been happy.)

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What do you think?

Written by Rex Trulove

9 Comments

  1. Good one about as good as the temptations I get thrown my way since I am always to work from home options open. Two different companies one US and one Japanese both offered me at home jobs paying me $3,000 a week. My friend here right away said who are you kidding? and I tend to agree especially if I have to send them my personal information, I don’t really know who they are, and I could get into such a mess that I would never get out of again.

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    • There are some legit work from home jobs, but you are right to be cautious and to do some research before even answering them back. Many are scams. Very few legit ones will offer anywhere near that much money, either. The highest paying online job I ever had paid about $42,000/year, which is quite a bit less than 3K a week. I loved the job, but I also knew the manager and had previously worked with her, interestingly, when I worked as a senior tech for the scanner company.

    • It was certainly one of the strangest and most unexpected support calls I ever had, though I had several that made me chuckle (after the call was ended, not with the customer on the line).

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        • I used to enjoy getting the customers who were the angriest and who would yell into the phone everything they said. First, the louder they got, the quieter I’d get, so they’d have to strain to hear me. Invariably, they would lower their voice without even thinking about it. Then I would very purposely work at getting them to laugh. Once I got them laughing, it was game over. They’d still be frustrated, but no longer angry. At that point, we could usually fix whatever issue they were having.

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          • I used the same model. My last year on the helpdesk I was actually the senior lead person for the entire helpdesk. Not only did I get the worst calls, but I also got the ones no one else could answer.

            I learned to listen for nuance.

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        • I should write about one of the worst calls I ever got. It was from Bruce Willis and he was mostly upset because that didn’t wow me. I treated him the same way I’d treat any other customer and he didn’t like it.

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