I'm The Real Slim Shady

Everything is okay! The past two nights a couple of my best friends from college both phoned me because of what I wrote in the blog. They were worried about me. I still hate my job, but everything is fine. I will get through this, and things will go back to normal.

I do still think that this company is shady. They don’t at all seemed to be concerned with the customers and how their lives are frustrated by the pieces of crap electronics that they sell. I keep being told that I spend too much time on the phone helping people with the problems they are having. I guess they don’t care that in the instruction manual there is a listing for our company, my phone number and then a statement saying “If you have any problems, cal this number.” So I try to help people as best as I can, but sometimes things are out of my control.

A customer called in to say that he had bought a DVD/CD/MP3/radio player from our website. On the website, it had a listing for accessories for the player. One of the accessories listed was a TV antenna that works with the player.

The problem that the customer is having is that the player has a different input than the antenna has output. They cannot be connected together. Even though the website AND the instructions say they can. Because in the instruction manual, the player is listed as having an input that fits a 1/8th inch jack, which the antenna has. But the player has a completely different input that is not in the manual. So the customer asked if there was some way it could be done. I asked Igor and he told me the only way to connect the player to the antenna was if the person cut the antenna wire and bought an input that fit the player and then wired it up himself. I told that to the customer and then the customer asked me,

“Why does your company sell a product that is not compatible with the only other product that can make it work, even though your website and the product say that they are compatible.”

I thought that was a very good question and I did not have an answer for him. I went to one of my bosses and told him about the situation and how there was no real answer for the problem.

He said to me,

“Tell him that there is an adaptor at Radio Shack that can fit into the antenna that makes it compatible with the player.”

“Okay,” I said, “is there an adaptor that fits the antenna?”

“I don’t know”, he replied.

“Then why am I telling him this”, I asked.

“You know, play hot potato, keep it out of your hands”, was his reply.
I was not surprised that this was his answer. They don’t care that they keep selling stuff that they know is going to break, or never works. In the hopes that the customer gives up returning it, or the warranty expires.

I have more to do lately, so the days go by faster, but I keep hoping that something better will come along. Tomorrow, Igor and I get to have a training session with a representative of Emerson Electronics because they are convinced that we do not know how to work their Satellite Navigation system. They are convinced of this because almost half of the ones that we sell are being returned because they are defective. People can’t get them to work. Or if they do, the system can’t display the routes they want to take, or find addresses, or basically do anything that it says it is supposed to do.

I spent some time this morning installing an “Earthquake Detection Device” that they want to sell for $200. It is supposed to warn people when an earthquake is about to happen by sensing ultra-sonic waves that people cannot feel, but go out right before an earthquake. I put this up in my boss’s office to “test” it. So we now wait for an earthquake and see if the device can give us any warning.

I don’t think it matters if it works or not. I expect them to be selling it by summer.