No Help At All.

At some point during my technical work the other day I encountered a snag, and had to call a help desk.

At first, it wasn't too bad - I had someone who knew what they were talking about and helped me as best they could. When we still couldn't resolve it, they suggested politely that I call the manufacturer of the hardware that was giving me issues.

That turned out to be the phone call from hell.

Not only was the phone connection terribly bad, (there was a echo delay of two or three seconds- after speaking, I could hear myself repeating what was just said.) but it was so obvious that the guy had no clue and was just reading from a script. At one point, I asked him a relevant question, and he ignored it - he just kept reading along. He repeated the same instructions to me three times even though I'd told him I did what he instructed the first time he asked. It's like he wasn't even paying attention.

In the end I hung up on him and fixed it (with a bit of brainstorming from my brother-in-law) myself.

I wish that there was a button you could push that told the techs " I'm a guy with enough knowledge to do this if you point me in the right direction." instead of "Treat me like a retard and pretend I'm not even looking at the monitor." I know they have to assume that you don't know anything, but shouldn't it be obvious after three or four minutes that someone has a clue, and maybe is cable of stuff that's not on the script?

Ah, whatever - the problem's fixed now.

I hope I never have to call that number again.
I think I'll die a little inside if I have to.



Later.