IJMC - Better, Or Worse?
After that last one, tech support rants may not be any more comforting.
At least if you're not in the industry. Of course, if you aren't in the
industry, and you read through this, maybe you'll better understand what
it's like on the other end of those tech support phone calls. And if you
don't, please, please, turn the computer off and just step away. -dave
Sound at all familiar??
1. Don't write anything down. We can play back the error
messages from here.
2. When a tech says he's coming right over, go for coffee.
It's nothing to us to remember 481 screen saver passwords.
3. When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to
leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, baby
pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, bowling trophies
and Popsicle art. We don't have a life, and we find it
deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours.
4. When you call the help desk, state what you want, not
what's keeping you from getting it. We don't need to know
that you can't get into your mail because your computer
won't power on at all.
5. Don't put your phone extension in your emails to the help desk.
We need to keep an eye on the address book performance.
6. When tech support sends you an email with high
importance, delete it at once. We're just testing the
public groups.
7. When a tech is eating lunch in his cube, walk right in
and spill your guts right out. We exist only to serve.
8. When a tech is having a smoke outside, ask him a computer
question. The only reason why we smoke at all is to ferret
out those clients who don't have email or a telephone line.
9. Send urgent email all in uppercase. The mail server
picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.
10. When you call a tech's direct line, press 5 to skip the
bilingual greeting that says he's out of town for a week,
record your message and wait exactly 24 hours before you
send an email straight to the director because no one ever
returned your call. After all, you're entitled to common courtesy.
11. When the photocopier doesn't work, call computer support.
There's electronics in it.
12. When you're getting a NO DIAL TONE message at home,
call computer support. We can fix your line from here.
13. When you have a dozen CGA monitors to get rid of,
call computer support. We're collectors.
14. When something's wrong with your home PC, dump it on
a tech's chair with no name, no phone number and no
description of the problem. We love a puzzle.
15. If you hate your mouse, get some other pointing device
and discard the manual. We know all the keyboard accelerators.
16. When a tech tells you that computer monitors don't have
cartridges in them, argue. We love a good argument.
17. When you get a message about insufficient disk space,
delete everything in the Windows directory.
It's nothing but trouble anyway.
18. When you get a message about a hard disk controller
failure, and then you reboot and it looks okay, don't call
tech support. We'd much rather troubleshoot it when it's
dead as a doornail.
19. When you have a tech on the phone walking you through
changing a setting, read the paper. We don't actually
mean for you to do anything.
We just love to hear ourselves talk.
20. When a tech tells you that he'll be there shortly,
reply in a scathing tone of voice:
"And just how many weeks do you mean by shortly?"
That'll get us going.
21. If you have a 14-inch monitor that says VGA on it, set
the display to true color, 1024 x 768. You'll never again
have to worry about people reading confidential files over
your shoulder.
22. When we offer training on the upcoming OS upgrade,
don't bother. We'll be there to hold your hand after it's done.
23. When the printer won't print, re-send the job at least 20 times.
Print jobs frequently get sucked into black holes.
24. When the printer still won't print after 20 tries,
send the job to all 68 printers in the building.
One of them is bound to work.
25. Don't learn the proper name for anything technical.
We know exactly what you mean by "my thingy's outta whack".
26. Don't use online help. Online help is for wimps.
27. If you're taking night classes in computer science,
feel free to go around and update the network drivers
for your all your co-workers.
We're grateful for the overtime money.
28. When a tech makes popcorn, help yourself while he's
checking out your access rights. And we keep chocolate
in the top drawer, too.
29. When you have a tech fixing your computer at a quarter
past noon, eat your lunch in his face.
We function better when slightly dizzy.
30. Don't ever thank us. We're getting paid for this.
31. If you're an intern, feel free to bring in all your
friends from college and have your Daddy complain to
our boss when we won't let them use the scanner.
We had no friends when we were in college; that's why
we're such a bunch of tight-assed little twerps.
32. When a tech asks you whether you've installed any new
software on this computer, lie. It's nobody's business
what you've got on your computer.
33. When a tech finds the AOL shortcuts in your Recycle Bin,
tell him you've never seen those before.
We couldn't tell bullshit if it kicked us in the face.
34. If you have NT, feel free to change the local
administrator's password to "blowjob" and promptly
forget it.
We like installing NT.
35. If the mouse cable keeps knocking down the framed
picture of your dog, lift the computer and stuff the
cable under it. Mouse cables were designed to have
45 lbs. of computer sitting on top of them.
36. If the space bar on your keyboard doesn't work, blame it on
the mail upgrade. Keyboards are actually very happy with
half a pound of muffin crumbs and nail clippings in them.
37. When you receive the new Yanni CD for your birthday,
shove it into any slot on the front of your computer.
We like getting physical with 5.25 floppy drives.
38. When you get a message saying "Are you sure?", click on
that Yes button as fast as you can. Hell, if you weren't
sure, you wouldn't be doing it, would you?
39. When you find a tech on the phone with his bank,
sit uninvited on the corner of his desk and stare
at him until he hangs up.
We don't have any money to speak of anyway.
40. Feel perfectly free to say things like "I don't know
nothing about that computer crap". We don't mind at
all hearing our area of professional expertise referred
to as crap.
41. When you need to change the toner cartridge, call tech
support. Changing a toner cartridge is an extremely
complex task, and Hewlett-Packard recommends that it
be performed only by a professional engineer with a
master's degree in nuclear physics.
42. When you can't find someone in the government directory,
call tech support. Due to budget restrictions, we double as 411.
43. When you have a lock to pick on an old file cabinet,
call tech support. We love to hack.
44. When something's the matter with your computer, ask your
secretary to call the help desk. We enjoy the challenge
of having to deal with a third party who doesn't know
jack shit about the problem.
45. When you receive a 30-meg movie file, send it to everyone
as a mail attachment.
We got lots of disk space on that mail server.
46. Don't even think of breaking large print jobs down into
smaller chunks. Somebody else might get a chance to squeeze
a memo into the queue.
47. When your eyes fall on the family pictures on a tech's desk,
exclaim in a flabbergasted tone of voice: "YOU have a child?!?"
We need to be reminded of how lucky we were to ever have gotten laid.
48. When a tech gets on the elevator pushing 15,000 kilograms worth
of computer equipment on a cart, ask in a very loud voice:
"Good grief, you take the elevator to go DOWN one floor?!?"
That's another one that cracks us up no end.
49. When the Finance folks are printing a 100-page spreadsheet
on the LaserJet, send your black and white print job to
the color printer. We get the black toner for free.
50. When you lose your car keys, send an email to the entire department.
People out in Yellowknife like to keep abreast of what's going on.
51. When you bump into a tech at the grocery store on a Saturday,
ask a computer question. We don't do weekends.
52. When you see a tech having a beer with a member of the
opposite sex on a Friday night, walk right up to them and
ask a computer question. We don't do dating; the reason
why we have that horny look on our faces is because we're
discussing the new Intel processor.
53. Don't bother to tell us when you move computers around
on your own. Computer names are just a cosmetic feature
in NT 4.0; they won't be doing anything useful until the
next major release.
54. When you can't access some shared directory on your boss's
machine, just tell us that you've lost your X: drive.
We know all that shit by heart.
55. If you need to buy a computer for your daughter in college,
feel free to pick our brains while we're taking a leak.
We're good at talking shop with our dicks in our hands.
56. If your son is a student in computer science, have him
come in on the weekends and do his projects on your office
computer. We'll be there for you when his illegal copy of
Visual Basic 6.0 makes your Access 95 database flip out.
57. When you bring your own personal home PC for repair at
the office, leave the documentation at home. We'll find
the jumper settings on the Internet.
58. We're aware of that problem with computers just sitting
there and not doing anything. We're confident that with
the next service pack they'll be able to dance the jig.
59. The correct location to store important files is the
Recycle Bin. It's just like a real office, where you
keep your tax receipts in the blue can under your desk.
60. If you curse every morning when you start to type your
password and the Virus Shield splash screen pops up in
your face, disable the Virus Shield.
Again, this is just like real life: if you don't like
condoms, just don't use them, that's all.
61. If you hate PCs, get on the Internet and download one of
those desktop enhancements that make your computer look
just like a Mac, down to the sad faces replacing verbose
error messages. We find it refreshing to troubleshoot
the nuances in that sad little face instead of some cold
forbidding hexadecimal integer.
62. When you detect a French accent in a tech's voice, switch
to French. We don't mind that your level of fluency is
that of a mildly retarded 4-year-old; you don't make a
whole lot of sense in your own mother tongue either.
63. We don't really believe that you're a bunch of ungrateful
twits. It hurts our feelings that you could even think
such a thing. We wish to express our deepest gratitude
to the hundreds of clueless losers portrayed herein,
without whom none of this would have been remotely possible.
64. Have you ever wondered what Tech Support does while you are on hold?
Think about how long it takes to write a 64 point memo!
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