Support personnel across the software services industry are the most harassed lot. Calls can catch them off guard anywhere, anytime of the day. Whether the person is at home with family, in a movie theatre or just chilling in a pub with friends—a distress call from a client can spoil the party. Rain or shine, day or night—the support guy is never off duty. For the client, stuck with a problem, it is a matter of life and death. But for this support personnel, it is not something new.
Staffing the support functions has always been a challenge for IT services companies. For people who join the IT companies with a fond hope of landing in the US next day, it surely is quite demotivating to sit at offshore support with continuously ringing telephone lines. The clients on the other hand complain that the support staff, particularly at odd hours in India, tend to give an interim response to either defer the call or reduce the severity classification and leave the rest to the day-duty staff.
But their job is not completely bereft of fun. In good old days, when e-mails were not so prevalent amongst the Indian banks, a colleague of mine was trying to send the solution steps to a Bank IT staff over fax. It was past midnight and the guy was getting desperate as the fax line was continuously engaged. He called the banker again and told him about the busy fax line. The gentleman responded, “No sir, it is not possible. I am holding it off the cradle to ensure no one calls this line.”
In another case, the support desk received a call on intercom. The person on the other end wanted to know the shortest route to Koramangala. The support guy was perplexed at the query and expressed his ignorance of the city topology. As he kept wondering as to why someone would pose such a query to a complete newbie to the city, the enquirer banged the phone asking him to close the ‘help-desk’ if he could not answer a small question. Only then he realised that his number was marked as ‘Help-Desk’ in the intercom listing, not as ‘Product Help-Desk’.
However, some intense political developments last week have given us a shot in the arm and I have chided my support personnel. When a Supreme Court judge can provide services past midnight, why are you guys in the service industry cribbing about it? And pat came the response, OK sir, but then don’t complain about the interim response to reduce the severity. I had no intention of getting caught in a controversial imbroglio involving the Hon’ble Supreme Court, so I just moved on.
Email: mahesh_r01@yahoo.com