So, when you hear a "chirping noise" coming from somewhere in your house, do you immediately suspect a piece of technology and call tech support?? Apparently, some people do.
I had a sweet older couple call (older as in 80's) me one day for some tech support. She had been hearing this beeping or chirping noise coming from a black box near her TV. Okay, there's a few things that could be. After question upon question as well as many attempts at trying to get this lovely woman to DESCRIBE the box she suspected the noise was coming from, I had weeded out any of my company's equipment. It wasn't her equipment's battery back-up, it wasn't her computer (they didn't own one), and the box she suspected it to be didn't have any lights on it -- our company doesn't send out anything that doesn't look like a miniature disco for your livingroom. So what the hell could it be??
That's when someone who'd overheard my conversation, stopped near me, listened for a few more minutes and then promptly pointed at a nearby smoke detector.
EUREKA!! Well, it wasn't an epiphany, but that's about the time that my sweet older lady must haved started hearing the noise again and walked closer to the source, because I heard it too!! And I'll be dipped if it wasn't the sound a smoke detector, low on batteries, makes!! I asked her if she had them in her home and when the last time she'd changed the batteries in it was. AHA!! Her turn to have an epiphany. She hadn't thought of that! So here I am troubleshooting her smoke detector. Fun, fun. /sigh
Speaking of the non-tech savvy... I did have a great lady the other day who called to have me help her connect to her wireless internet. Her "geek", yes, she had one of her own, had come over and helped her connect up her modem and router already. She just didn't know how to connect when she had no connection. So we checked the hookup of the modem and it's fine, and come to the realization that she needs to run the setup CD that came with the router that will give her the network name and the password she needs to connect as well as prepare the router for her connection. And that's when it happens.... dead silence on the other end of the call. Did I lose her? Is she looking for the CD? And then I hear:
"Well, where do I put it?"
What?? It's a computer CD! Where do you normally put computer CD's?? As a friend suggested, I SHOULD have told her to "find the cup holder on her computer". But, as a Tech Support agent, I had to bite my tongue and hold back the real answer that sprung to mind and tell her "in the CD drive of your computer, ma'am." As if it wasn't the logical conclusion. Ah well... such is the lot of my job.
Lately, I've fielded more and more calls from people who have no clue how to operate a universal remote. If ya wanna operate your TV, ya press the TV button before you do anything. Same thing if you want to watch cable or a DVD! If you own a U-NI-VER-SAL remote, it's universally good for any device you program it to use. Hence the name. Or is that just crazy of me to assume?? Crazy, right? That's what I thought.
I get more waste of time calls like that, than I get legitimate calls about actual problems. Now, there are certain things that are out of my scope of support and when I tell you that, it's not MY problem that you can't stand the fact that I can't wave my Magic Tech Wand (I'm working on trademarking that) and connect it up. Don't yell at me! I'm giving you options, one which costs and one which doesn't, and not just leaving you swinging in the breeze. OR you have a third option: read the damn manual! Most manuals give you the instructions on how to hook your printer up to any network including how to do so with many different operating systems. And they're usually step-by-step! WITH PICTURES!! Even a monkey could hook the printer up, you just have to be smarter than the monkey.
And YOU called ME, right? You called me for a reason. Because I have a job to do to repair whatever it is you called in about that's broken. LET ME DO MY JOB! Don't get a step ahead of me, don't be a step behind me, and definitely do NOT go ahead on your own and do something that could make your services irrepairable! (Is that a word? It is now!) If you push a button that I didn't tell you to push and mess things up even worse than they already are? Guess what?? You're getting a tech which you'll have to wait at LEAST 24 hours for when I could have had your service up and running in a few moments. You called me to do a job, let me do it? I'm not getting paid to sit and listen to you postulate about - What if's? - now am I? What if I push this red button?? Ummmm.... there's a reason it's RED. Red means stop. Red, means danger. Red BUTTONS usually mean - DON'T FREAKIN' PUSH ME!! But, no, you ask and before I can give you the answer, you've already pushed it and POOF. Why did all the lights go off? Uh, cuz ya pushed the red button, didn't you? /hangs head and shakes it
Stop and thinkabout this, dear readers, before you call your friendly (yet frustrated) neighborhood Tech Support agent.
Until next time!
Lis
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