The following morning was a nine o’clock start for me, which was good because I’d slept through the alarm and didn’t wake until eight thirty. With no time for a shower or breakfast, I dressed as quickly as I could (after a spray of deodorant), cleaned my teeth and then was out the door.

I got to work with just a couple of minutes to spare. That would keep Kevin off my back as he was a bit of a stickler for time keeping and I’d already been late a couple of times this month. He just gave me the look as I walked passed his desk.

“Morning Kev” I grinned

“Hmm” was all he said

“Oh, look who’s back…feeling better?” I smirked at Alex, who was on a call but stuck his middle finger up at me.

“Morning guys” I called out and waved to the rest of the team before sitting down at my desk.

I switched on my computer and loaded all my applications up, as usual, and then put my headset on. I hoped it wasn’t going to be as busy as the day before. I didn’t have long to think about that as a call came in.

“DCWW Service Desk, Nick speaking, how can I help?” I answered in what I hoped was a bright enough voice (I really wasn’t in the mood for work just yet).

“I can’t save my word file to my H drive, I need it done now” said an irate customer on the other end of the line.

“Can I take your name please?” I asked as I got my call logging form open on the desktop.

“Keith Owen…look, how long is this going to take?” he snapped.

“I need to take these details from you otherwise I can’t log a call” I responded. He wasn’t going to intimidate me. “Can you confirm your phone number?”

“Haven’t you already got that? I’m asked every damn time!” he almost yelled.

“It’s for security and also to make sure we have the correct details for you, otherwise how would we contact you?” I replied. This guy was pissing me off.

“Fine…07748 135246, it’s my mobile, it’s easier to get me on that” he rushed the numbers off, which was pathetic really, he was just making it harder.

“OK, now can I have the asset tag of your machine?” I asked

“Why? Look, I’m not being funny but this is taking fucking ages!” he snarled.

By this time we’d been on the phone under two minutes, and it would’ve been quicker if he wasn’t being such a dick.

“If I don’t have your asset number, I can’t connect up to your machine” I responded, keeping my voice nice and calm, even though I was tempted to tell him to shove his word doc up his arse!

“Look, I don’t have time for this…the number is under the laptop…hang on” he grouched.

It was hardly a big deal to turn the laptop over. It’s not as if I was asking him anything difficult.

I hit the mute button and looked across the desk to Brian “got a complete twat on the phone” I told him.

“Is he as bad as John Crisp?” Brian asked. John Crisp was the infamous customer from hell. We all dreaded his calls as he was just a difficult bastard. He refused to be civil and yet expected good customer service! Nine times out of ten he ended up being transferred to Kevin.

“Could be” I groaned and then clicked the mute button to go back to him. He kept me waiting a few more seconds.

“This is such an inconvenience, do you know that?” he huffed and then gave me the asset number.

“OK, I’m just going to connect up to your machine and take a look” I advised and entered his asset into the terminal server remote control agent software. It came up with the message ‘unable to connect’. I tried again just to make sure I’d got the asset right. Still unable to connect.

“Are you connected to the network?” I asked. It was surprising how many idiots we got on the phone complaining they couldn’t get on the network, only to find that their network cable was unplugged.

“No…I’m working from home!” he snarled.

“Well, then you aren’t going to be able to save to your network drive if you aren’t connected to the network” I replied, I resisted the urge to add ‘you idiot’ onto the end.

“Well I’ve done it before” he argued.

“You can’t have” I responded. People like him always thought they knew it all.

“I’m telling you…I have” he yelled.

“If you’re working from home and aren’t connected to the network via a RAS card, then you’ll have to save it to your local documents” I replied.

“But this needs to be done by eleven you idiot” he hissed

“If you’re going to carry on with this abusive behaviour I’m going to just terminate the call” I shrugged. I didn’t have to take that kind of shit from people. If they started getting abusive, as long as we warned them, we could cut them off.

“And then I’ll complain to your superior. What is your name? I bet you don’t even know what you’re fucking doing! Put me through to your manager right now” he barked.

I hit the mute button and shouted over to Kevin.

“Kev, got an awkward customer on the phone wants to talk to my manager” I explained and gave him a run down on the call details after he’d come over to my desk.

Kevin took my headset and put it on. I sat back and folded my arms.

“Mr Owen, this is Kevin Richardson, I’m the service manager for DCWW, I understand you’re trying to save a document to the H drive when you aren’t connected to the network, is that correct?” Kevin asked smoothly.

Obviously I couldn’t hear Keith Owen’s response.

“As Nick has already explained, you need to be connected to the network to be able to do that” he explained. I watched him shaking his head as Keith must’ve been having a rant, and then the idiot must’ve hung up.

“Phew, he was hard work” Kevin took the headset off and handed it back to me “just close the call down, there’s nothing we can do for him”

I typed in a few notes into my call and then closed it down, hoping I wouldn’t have to speak to him again.

“So Alex” I called “recovered from the weekend?”

“Shhh” he warned “msn”

When we needed to talk to each other without anyone else hearing, we opted for msn. It was supposed to be banned (as was Facebook) but we didn’t take any notice and installed it anyway.

I found out that his latest girl was called Roxanne, she was a shop assistant in one of the clothes shops in town and apparently, she was the future Mrs McLean. I’d heard that one before!

By ten thirty I was starving. I’d not had time for breakfast before leaving the house and my stomach was protesting loudly.

“Anyone want anything from the cafeteria? I’m going for toast” I asked

“Yeah, I’ll have a sausage sandwich” called Howie as he opened his wallet.

“Anyone else?” I asked before leaving. No one replied, so I took it as a ‘no’.

Ten minutes later, I was back at my desk with two pieces of toast and a cup of coffee.

“You shouldn’t be eating that when you’re online, what if you get a call? Not a very good image of the company if you answer the phone with a mouthful of toast” Kevin shook his head.

“Yeah, yeah” I muttered. My lunch wasn’t until one o’clock and I couldn’t go without food any longer.

Just after taking a huge bite of toast, the inevitable happened, I got a call. I chewed and swallowed the piece as quick as I could and then greeted the caller. Luckily it was just to unlock an account, so within a couple of minutes, I was munching on my toast once again.

By the afternoon, the phones had gone pretty quiet, so we all messaged each other rude jokes, funny You Tube links, pictures of hot girls and also fitted in a game of Call of Duty (which obviously we weren’t supposed to have on our work computers).

All in all, it wasn’t a bad day!