Hopefully, She Has More Patience With Her Patients

I work in hardware/software support for a company that makes medical equipment and distributes it to hospitals. I get a support ticket on Monday from someone who works in the IT department for a network of regional hospitals. A doctor has shipped him one of our devices (from an hour away), requesting he reach out to us on her behalf to fix it. The ONLY word she included in her email to him was “broken”. That’s it. Literally nothing else.

I request that the IT guy — the only person I’ve actually spoken to at this point — contact the doctor to get some more information.

IT Guy: “Trust me, we will both regret doing that. This doctor is an absolute nightmare to work with.”

Me: “We have no choice. I can’t send a device in for repair with absolutely no information.”

So, he calls her, puts her on speaker, and explains that I have some questions about the device. The doctor immediately starts yelling. I am listening to her secondhand — through the speaker of [IT Guy]’s cell phone, into his work phone’s microphone, and then out through my headset earpiece. Needless to say, her yelling is almost unintelligible. After she stops yelling and I can get a word in:

Me: “Can you tell me what the specific problem is?”

She goes on another tirade, except I hear her say the device isn’t connecting to the software properly. I sigh to myself because I know more problems are going to arise from here.

Me: “Due to it being a connectivity issue, there are several troubleshooting steps we need to take before determining that repair service is needed.”

Doctor: *Swears* “I don’t have time for this.”

And she hangs up. It’s silent for a few seconds.

IT Guy: “A real treat, isn’t she? What can we do from here?”

Me: “Is it at all possible for you to get access to the specific terminal she is using so we can troubleshoot?”

IT Guy: “No, I’m working at the central office for the entire [Hospital] network, an hour away from where [Doctor] is calling from.”

Me: “Then the only option is to send it back to her and tell her to call our support line directly so we can investigate the problem with her.”

IT Guy: “Okay, but that will only make things worse.”

A few days pass, and I’m hoping and praying that I’m not the unfortunate soul to get the call from [Doctor] when she finally calls in. I’m begging the gods to inspire her to submit her ticket via email so I can talk to her that way. But no, bright and early Thursday morning, my very first ticket of the day, I get the phone call from her.

Me: “This is [My Name] from [Medical Company]. How can I help you?”

After a few seconds of silence, she finally speaks in the most b****y, condescending tone you can imagine.

Doctor: “You told me to call you, so I assume you know what this is about.”

Me: “Are you calling regarding an existing ticket?”

I don’t know who I am talking to at this point; we get hundreds of tickets a day.

She then rattles off the ticket number as fast as she possibly can. I have to ask her to repeat it slower. She sighs and repeats the ticket number, except this time, as slow as she can, obviously mocking me. I just ignore that. I pull up the ticket and realize who I’m talking to, and my heart sinks

Me: “Oh, I see it. You were having connectivity issues? If you could just—”

She cuts me off.

Doctor: “How long is this going to take? Calling you for help is always a f****** nightmare.”

Me: “Well, if you’ll let me diagnose the problem, I can get you on your way.”

I remote into her computer to check a few things. The device isn’t showing up in the device manager; it connects via USB.

Me: “Is the device currently plugged in?”

Doctor: “Yes!”

Me: “Can you try a different USB port?”

Doctor: “Do you mean one of the ports on the computer?”

I instantly know what the problem is.

Me: “Are you connecting to a USB hub? If you are, make sure the USB hub is connected to the computer.”

Sure enough, it wasn’t. She has been blowing a gasket over her device not even being plugged in. She plugs the hub in and the device is recognized instantly. Of course, she doesn’t apologize for her behavior or anything. She just said:

Doctor: “It’s working now.”

And with that, she hung up, and I closed the ticket.

And to put the icing on the cake, she gave me a zero-out-of-five satisfaction rating. What a jerk.