Only Generating Contempt

(I work for an IT company that provides 24 hour support for several big buildings. As you can imagine it gets very quiet at night with a lot of down time. The only problem is that the calls come from customers who, putting it kindly, don’t have social skills. I received a call around three am.)

Me: “Welcome to [Company] support desk. You are speaking to [My Name]. How can I help you this morning?”

Customer: “Hi, this is [Location]. None of our computers are working, our servers are all down, and our phone lines. Everything is down and we need it back up and running in the next ten minutes or I will be forced to have you fired.”

Me: *concerned and shocked* “How many computers are affected and how many phones are affected?”

Customer: “ALL OF THEM. About fifty computers and the same amount of phones are not working. You have nine and a half minutes to get it working.”

Me: *now disinterested* “How many people are working in the building right now?”

Customer: “There is me, two security guards, and a couple of men replacing the generators. That’s nine minutes.”

Me: “Sir, silly question but I have to ask this but has the power been turned off to the building by the engineers working on site?”

(The customer started breathing heavily down the phone, leaving the building and walking outside. I could hear the customer start shouting to the engineer to turn on the power while using a curse word every chance he could. I could hear in the distance the workmen stop what they were doing, obvious not liking being called offensive names, and start chasing after the man down the street. The man while out of breath asked for me to call the cops as his life was in danger. I hung up and went back to sleep.)