Sysadmins thrown into customer calls – how do you stay composed?

I’m composed by nature, but it’s easy. When you don’t know something (which is always, always gonna happen on customer calls), say: “I don’t know the answer to that, but will find out and get back to you.”

Easy. Super easy. And then research with the relevant team, FAQ or whatever and actually follow up.

A junior of mine was shadowing me on a customer call once and was flabbergasted that I said, “I don’t know” to half a dozen questions. However, when I’d tried letting her have a crack at answering on another customer call, she couldn’t handle it and threw out tons of fabricated and incorrect responses that I later had to walk back. Or she otherwise flubbed them.

This is infinitely worse than just saying, “I don’t know.”

Because trust me, customers are always going to come up with some wild-ass crap ain’t nobody ever thought of before.

It’s fine to research and answer later. I do it with nearly every customer call and I know a fucking lot about a lot.