Tech Support Help Kits Should Include Whiskey

I can handle any tech support a customer can throw at me. I've dug up dirt our own service representatives don't learn until "Tier 2" support status, in half and hour. I've fixed problems with other companies' software, hardware. Hell, I've set up our major competitor's device, just to compare the two. I'm the best there is at what I do, and what I do is completely unintelligible to most grandmothers.

"I'm gonna support the fuck out of this call."
- A Canadian

So when you start disparaging yourself for being an idiot, I'm going to coddle you a little. I have two grandmothers who are not exactly elite hackers. One still occasionally sends me blank New Messages instead of a Forward, but at least she knows what the internet is. The other is somewhat more painful. Believe me, you're fine. Don't worry. There's a learning curve on everything and, frankly, unless you were born after some time in the middle of 1982, you probably have some trouble setting up your VCR. Deal with it. Learn and move on.

Now when you keep interrupting my answers to your questions, with the same question, I'm not going to protest as hard or as convincingly when you next call yourself an imbecile.

When it takes less time to 'fix' something that's not actually a problem just to get rid of you, because you're wasting my time and you smell terrible?

That's when I run to the back for two Asprin and wish I had something stronger than grape Fanta to wash it down with.

Which brings me back to the idea that, under prescribed circumstances, I should be allowed to drink at work.

On Gastronomically Positive Reinforcement

Alright, it's really hard to turn down free food all the time.
I'd moonlight for the right entre.

I know I'm doing a good job at work when the people for whom I'm running tech support ask me if I want anything to eat.

Cake pops, lasagna, coffee, I'm starting to get some serious date offers, here. Septuagenarians taking me out for early-bird specials in return for troubleshooting their devices, enticing me with delicious foods and seducing me with their old world recipes.

They're not even pretending anymore; I've started to get "outcall" requests. "Can I bring you home?" "Can I pay you to come to my house?" What to I look like, people, some kind of common, street-walking customer support representative? If you want a piece of me, you gotta go through my daddy company, and they gotta take their cut.

He Traveled from House to House with His Little Black Bag

That's how small-town doctors used to do it, birthing babies and sewing lacerations in the bedrooms and kitchens of his neighbors. Back in the early '30s, one even performed microsurgery on my grandfather's thumb after an unfortunate wood chopping accident, reattaching severed nerves and arteries with technical prowess decades ahead of his time. A great man, now long gone.

I get the feeling that profession's still alive though.

A friend has made it a point recently to mention often that I seem to have this type of small-town mentality. I know the people in my local diner, who know me, who know my grandparents and parents, because the first time I ate their I was fed formula in my car-seat/baby carrier atop a booth. I recognize the various local indigents and can drive certain roads more by feel and muscle memory than by sight.

And I'm starting to become a small-town tech support.

"Oh, god, Mrs. McInerney's got that bug again? Let me get my antivirus…"

"How did you even manage to pull that out? Were you yanking on it?"

"Oh man, I'm going to need you to boil some water, hand me a dust rag, and get me the longest length of USB cable you can find, stat!" (The water would be for tea.)

Up shot: today I made enough to cover the cost of some new headphones, so that's a plus.

Now if I could just get my family to run two sessions of AdAware in safe mode and call me in the morning….


Screw that, call me after noon.

On Your Calling

When I was in school, all the social studies teachers thought I should be a social studies teacher. All the math teachers wanted me to be a math teacher, the art teachers wanted me to be an art teacher and the English teachers wanted me to be an English teacher.

Now that I'm doing what I want to be doing and what I actually majored in, all anyone ever tells me I should be is "something with computers."

I'm starting to wonder whether or not "Grandson Computer Repair" could undercut Geek Squad's prices and remain profitable.

They train 'em young, now.

Of Family Tech Support

Grandma Computer Problem and How I Fixed It:

• CD tray not ejecting
• Smack it until it works
  
  
• DVD not playing
• Explain that DVD player by TV will not play videos of cousin's wedding just because they are burned to a DVD instead of a CD.
  
• Printer will print from internet but not local programs, gives "Printer is offline" message
• Turn printer on before clicking "print," replace black ink cartridge
  
• Monitor is too big, heavy
• Replace monitor with fancy new widescreen OLED LCD Uncle bought
  
• New monitor is too dark
• Increase brightness
  
• New monitor makes everything "look weird"
• Adjust resolution/aspect ratio to better match 800x600 on her old CRT
  
• Font still too small
• Readjust aspect ratio, increase font/icon size manually, decrease resolution
  
• AOL still too small to read without reading glasses
• "Get computer glasses."
  
• "No!"
• Return swanky OLED LCD monitor, replace with four year old flat-panel with visible individual pixels, hate self

On Tech Support

Whenever I have to deal with tech support I tend to run into three classes of people. The first are the stereotyped guys in India who read from a script and don't realize I'm more tech savvy than anyone short of having a CS degree, who obviously I don't like but i still feel bad for them because it's not their fault their job got outsourced so far away from the clients they have to deal with.

The second type of person is the asshole who actually does reside in The States and simply treats me like an idiot because I have a problem setting my new wireless printer to sync with multiple Macs, one wired desktop and a wireless Laptop running Windows XP with firewalls put in place by AT&T to disallow wireless connectivity and prevent corporate espionage.

You know, child's play.

But happily there's the third class of tech supporter who, much like an athletic supporter, don't override but rather cradle and support you to help you do your job better. I have been raised to cherish, praise and even reward this type of behavior, usually with baked goods.

I had an issue with an iPod accessory this week and after trying what I could think of n exhausting the online technical documentation, I called a help number. Took maybe 5 minutes. Dude on the other line heard my problem, laughed and said, "Well that's not right!" (One of my favorite phrases.) Got some advice, did a soft restart and boom, everything was fixed.

I have not had that experience with my mother's printer. AT&T is an evil, evil company and their software will randomly decide to delete all your added printers. Also, their tech support is in India and you need to go through three levels of management to get approval to ship it out; their are no "tech guys" at your semi-local office branch. They've set back every business they've purchased 20 years in policy and practice and as we continue to say, they are trying to run an internet telecommunications company like a phone company.

I will give up this writing nonsense and go back to school for my MBA, just so I can become powerful enough to buy AT&T and fire every asshole on their board of directors.

On the up-side, my mom seems to value my tech support services for this project at 5/3 my estimated rate, so, awesome.