Forum Discussion
Lying Supervisors?
I installed Office365 and every time I try to use Word it freezes. It freezes when I try to type, print, or save. Twelve days of calling and online chatting, Tier 1 (3 attempts), Tier 2 (3 attempts), and Tier 3 (1 attempt so far - I think). Each person has managed to extend the freeze time from 120 seconds to All. Day. Long. I can't do any work.
My other problem is that I have been flat-out lied to by nearly every person I've contacted at Tier 2 and beyond. I've been promised callbacks by Tech Support workers and supervisors, and here's what happens: I get a call, pick up on the first ring and tech support asks for me, then hangs up as soon as I respond. I've had supervisors - 3 or 4, to be precise - at Tier 2 get on the phone to promise me that my case has been escalated to Tier 3 and that I will get a call THAT DAY. Or WITHIN 24 HOURS. They insist that this will happen. They seriously PROMISE that this will happen. I've got the audio recordings of the calls. I've got the chat logs. It turns out that they're always lying. The calls never come, and no one will give me an updated case number.
I'm going to go ahead and be That Guy: is this a cultural thing? Or are they lying because they know that they can't be identified and held accountable ? Is it both? Finally, will someone EVER call me back and try to fix the problem with Word365 freezing for hours after just a few seconds?
- A few questions: What build of Office are you running? Do you have any Add-ins installed? Is it only Word or other office apps? What version/build of Windows are you running?
I appreciate your attempts to be useful, but if all these Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 people have this information and dove in and tried these tactics, but mucked up my pc even worse than it's ever been, what can you suggest that hasn't been tried by these people? These Tier 2 and Tier 3 people - after talking over me, being condescending, lying to me, etc. - then tried to tell me that my 3rd party software programs - such as System Mechanic - were the cause of Microsoft Word not working. Which is a load of crap, because it's working just fine on the other computers in the building with identical software except for mine and my husband's. Office365 is a disappointing money grab, and the customer service is so bad it makes Comcast look amazing.
- My apologies for my previous post causing you more distress. I presumed by posting in this Community that you were looking for help. There is a wealth of experience within this Community and some very helpful people who have helped me on numerous occasions. I can understand your frustration with support, sometimes, they are not the most helpful as they seem to read from cribsheets (well at least initial support seem too). I hope this suggestion doesn't send you off the edge, but as you have spent so much time on this issue and have a non-working Office, I would suggest uninstalling System Mechanics, as just the logic of this software scanning your files, to me, does make me think that this could be causing issues. You have mentioned other machines in your office running this software and not having issues, but all machines are different, as in the components, software etc... to me something is locking files. To me troubleshooting is going through and ruling out. One other area to look at, have you any other software on your machine that carries out similar functions as System Mechanics i.e. software that was pre-installed when you purchased your machine as this could be causing conflicts. I hope you do solve the problem, and if you do post the solution on here for others to find.
Putting the support issues aside, I think I would do two things:
1. Replace Normal.dot (the normal template) in the \Roaming\Templates folder under your AppData folder. Normal.dot corruptions cause a lot of problems.
2. If that doesn't work, remove the Office applications completely from the PC and reinstall. The Office removal tool is helpful here (https://www.custompcreview.com/articles/use-microsoft-office-removal-tool-completely-uninstall-office/).
TR
As I said, multiple Tier 1, multiple Tier 2, and multiple Tier 3 personnel have tried to fix the problem. As of today - May 21, 2018 - all their "help" has resulted in a pc that is now extremely slow. It is an agony to wait for this thing to start up now, and opening Word is a real chore. And I'm fairly certain that all these people who took over my PC did the things you suggested. They suck.
- 1.) Those things were previously tried, and made the problem much worse, as I said. 2.) There’s no “putting aside” of the other issue: if your culture is to train or condone lying from customer service, then your product and your business culture are equally **bleep**ty. By way of the latest example, I wasted another full day of trying to get back to tier 3 support. And when I (finally!) did so, that person promised that I’d receive an email confirming a follow-up. It’s been 3 days; no email. So this dude is added to the list of liars. And my pc is still frozen, except now the freeze has extended to startup (8 hours straight), and the start menu (1 hour and counting). So when Microsoft employees sell a crappy product, repeatedly lie about communication, repeatedly fail to fix their software, and then you suggest that we put that issue aside, I start wondering if Microsoft is some sort of skeezoid factory.
