which will mark a return to blogging.
Long time no write, I know. I spent most of the last six weeks of 2007 in a nasty battle with the tech support powers that be. Let's just say that I resent doing tech support's job for them, on my own time, and that it really ate up a lot of my Christmas Spirit, the dulcet tones of Mariah Carey notwithstanding.
Then I opened Christmas Cards, physical and virtual, and was reminded by former students that I really did teach them something along the way. All right, all right, the cockles of my heart are warmed and I will carry on. Maybe I can shame tech support into being useful for a change.
I caught most of a segment on 60 Minutes the other night which proved, tongue in cheek but still definitive proof, that the geeks now do run much of the world. One of the interviewees was the founder of Geek Squad. Said founder commented that he very intentionally puts his workers in the black clip-on ties for two reasons. the first is to remind his troops that they are professionals. The second is to keep them humble. The biggest complaints he hears about tech support people is that they speak a foreign language and that they are arrogant jerks.
The techno-babble doesn't bother me. 99 times out of 100, I find that tech support people are more than happy to explain a term to you - indeed, and pleased to be asked. It's the arrogance that drives me up the proverbial wall.
Example:
lemming: I need help with this.
Tech: This is the link.
lemming: I clicked on that link and I got an error message.
Tech: Click on this link.
lemming: I just did. I told you, I got an error message.
Tech: Cut and paste this link into your browser.
lemming: I just did, for the third time, and I keep getting an error message which says that this site does not exist.
Tech: Well, that's the right link.
lemming: Have you actually tried this link?
Tech: well, not as such, but that's the right link.
The year can only get better!
3 comments:
Hmmmm ... the founder of Geek Squad, eh? I guess I would have thought that "Geek Squad" was pretty much "founded" by marketing pogues at Worst Buy, as a gimmick for their tech-support troops.
Full disclosure: when my son was going to school, he was a tech-support employee of Worst Buy (this was shortly before they rolled out the black clip-on tie deal). They fired him for (passively) refusing to browbeat customers into buying LOTS more memory than they needed for each and every PC brought in for upgrades/repairs. It's one of those charming places where the employees are required to stand in a big circle and applaud when the sales figures for the day are read out. And you don't want to be the first one to stop clapping, either.
Nobody gives capitalism a bad name the way (some) capitalists do ...
I'm glad you're back Lem! Missed ya.
Actually, the Geek Squad was founded by a young man who then later sold the buisness to the big box store. I saw the same 60 minutes...
glad your back lemming! I hope to make blogging a habit too, this year. I always look up to you on the blogsphere!
Post a Comment