I’ve Got A Ticket To Hide

(We communicate with one of our partners via an Internet portal where the IT support is provided by a separate company. This separate company relocated its office to India and since then its service has been appalling. I’ve been informed by another department that the website isn’t feeding back some data to us, so I send an email with all the details to open an incident ticket. An hour later I get this phone call.)

Me: “Hello, [Company]. [My Name] speaking.”

Caller: “Yes, hello this is [Caller] from [Partner’s IT company]. Can I speak to [Coworker (who does the same job as me)]?”

Me: “He’s not in, but I can help with your query.”

Caller: “Okay, I have an open incident ticket that [Coworker] opened last week; I need permission to close it.”

Me: “Close it? What is the nature of the incident ticket?”

Caller: “It’s [Exact same problem I’ve emailed about]. Can I close the ticket?”

Me: “I’ve just emailed you with that problem; is it fixed?”

Caller: “No, but I now have two tickets, which looks bad. Can I close one of them?”

Me: “So, the problem isn’t solved. You just want the tickets gone?”

Caller: “Yes, that’s correct.”

Me: *dumbfounded* “If I allow you to cancel one ticket does that mean the work will still be done to fix the issue?”

Caller: “I don’t know… Maybe.”

Me: *just wanting the shift over* “Fine, cancel the first ticket but keep mine active. We need this issue fixed!”

Caller: *click*

(They actually just hung up. This was seven months ago and the issue still isn’t fixed along with several others. Every time we open a ticket they call up to cancel it as opposed to fixing the problem. Sadly, we can’t just terminate the relationship.)