Stolen Humor

The following is stolen from an online magazine, The Spark, I think. Best line "you will not be allowed to talk to him."

In the days before the geek squads
11/01/2006
(Matt note: I'm knee deep editing the restaurant guide, and you probably just want to skip to Holly's column about being married, so here's one from the column vaults. And as they used to say on summer TV -- it's new to you, anyway.)

I used to remember people's addresses and telephone numbers. Now I have the Blackberry. I used to leave my house to go shopping. Now I have the Internet. As soon as they invent a device with a sense of humor, I'll have no reason to use my brain anymore.

Computers run our lives. But unless you have a degree in computer science, you probably have no idea how they work. Gerbils on treadmills could be powering the thing, for all you know.
So how does it make sense that the computer is the only appliance in the house where, when something goes wrong, you have to dial an 800 number to get people who will try to diagnose your problem over the telephone and tell you how to fix it yourself?

Can you imagine if plumbing worked this way? "You say it's leaking? OK, so just where is the leak? Is it a slow leak, or a fast leak? OK, unscrew the whatzits to the right of the widget. How much water is coming out now? Hold on a minute, let me talk to my supervisor. Try the backstroke."

My problems started Monday night when we tried to install the new version of a popular Internet program on our computer. The installation went perfectly. Everything else on the computer immediately stopped working.

I called the technical help line. It is important to remember that there is someone on the other end of the technical help line who can solve all of your problems. You will not be allowed to talk to him.
Instead, you get a guy named John whose job it is to tell you, over and over again, to restart your computer.

Now, I understand where these tech folks are coming from. There are entire Web sites, designed by disgruntled techies, devoted to the people who call tech support in the middle of the night because they can't find the ANY key. Telling these people to restart the computer is like the plumber suggesting you start working on the problems with your toilet by flushing.
For some people, that's helpful advice.

I got past John, and the next techie couldn't understand why I was bothering him.

"So the installation worked properly?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Then what's the problem?"

"Everything else stopped working."

"So that sounds like there's a problem with the rest of the computer."

"But it started right after I loaded your software! I have a cable modem and ..."

"Oh, you have a cable modem? You need to be talking to our high-speed people. Hold on."

The high-speed people told me to restart my computer and then said I would have to call the tech support folks who run my cable connection.

The cable tech support folks told me to restart my computer and then told me that the problem was beyond their ability to fix over the telephone because the people who know what they're doing leave at 11 p.m. I don't blame them. If I knew what I was doing, I wouldn't be on the telephone after 11 p.m. either.

Two hours later, I gave up. One last time, on a whim, I restarted my computer.

It did nothing. But at least I know how to flush.