Please do the needful.

At my job, my title is: Customer Services Supervisor, Technical Support. In other words, if a customer writes in and demands to be given to a manager, I’m that person. I answer general stuff too, especially when we are busy, but I get a lot of the upset, frustrated, and sometimes even the not-so-smart customers. It’s all good. I can usually calm them down, especially if it’s something they did wrong and not us. And if it’s something we did wrong, I can usually offer them an incentive to calm down and work out the issue. (95% of the time, it’s not our issue. It’s a mistake the customer made, but trying to convince a confused customer of that can be challenging at times).

Days like today get to me. I swear everyone who wrote in woke up with only half their brain. I know these people cannot be THAT dumb, how else would they be able to write a semi-coherent email?? I can’t give specific examples, but.. I tell ya, days like today can sometimes take it out of me.

What’s really fun is the ones that don’t speak English and try to use a translator. One of the last support tickets I responded to tonight was clearly written using a translator. I was able to figure out most of what they wanted. I just had to read the words out of order. Something I’m getting good at. At the end of this customer’s request it said:

“Please do the needful”

Huh? Please do the what? I busted up. Granted, I needed the comic relief by the end of the day.

This isn’t an uncommon phrase, though. That’s why it’s so funny. Every time I see “Please do the needful” I get the giggles.

“Please do the needful” is used a LOT. In fact, we often get perfectly coherent support requests, only to have it end with, “Please do the needful”. Like they think they are using a common English phrase.

All your base are belong to us.