Umm, doesn't matter how crappy the pay is. For the first year of your first job, you smile, say "yes sir, may I have another, sir," and deal with it. If you can't stick out your first job for a year, nobody will want you. After your first year, renegotiate, but don't hesitate to hedge your bets and start looking at other jobs. As to the user's word, ignore them at all costs, and if you get a hesitant or unsatisfactory answer, then ask them again in that calm "I know you're an idiot, but I know you can answer the question" tone (without sounding blatantly insulting), until you get a straight answer. I was on the phone with one of our users the other day, and they were complaining about their home router not working properly (we support home equipment here). When I asked her about resetting the router, she goes "I already did that" in a snippy tone (she's a PITA who is too big for her briches). Knowing how she is, I replied in the above tone, as below: Me: "When did you do that, and what effect did it have?" Her: "I did that last time I called." Me: "And when was that?" Her: "A couple months ago." Me: "Ah..." Suddenly she was 'busy' and had to go, even though she called about it. Being careful about how to leave the conversation so that she couldn't say that I didn't try, I just said "Well, I need you to go ahead and reset the router before you call back, that way you don't need to hang on the phone while we wait for that." She hasn't called back since, and she certainly didn't say anything bad about me.