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No Humor Here5.December.2003Here’s some advice to those of you calling your Internet Provider to seek assistance from the resident computer geek; don’t try to be humorous or even remotely human when speaking to them. I’m not certain why, but they do not respond well to warm and fuzzy.Case in point: I am, like so many of you out there, am having difficulty with my Internet connection and e-mail. This is disturbing to me on many levels, not the least being I pay so much money for the goll-darned thing and I need it for my job. It works, it doesn’t work, it works, it doesn’t work, repeat ad nauseaum. So I called them for help. “Thank you for calling What-ever-our-name-is-now-after-12-mergers-and-one-hostile-takeover Internet Service, this is Jason, how may I help you?” This was not delivered with the normal cadence and warmth one associates with someone willing to help you out or even a body with vital signs that would register on a monitor indicating life. “I am about to toss my computer out the window Jason, could you help me not do that?” Silence on the line. Then more silence. I knew by then that I had made the mistake of assuming that the person on the other end of the line had a sense of humor. Mistake number one, NEVER assume that a techie has a well-rounded sense of humor about anything remotely understandable to the layman. Then in his very best monotone Jason said to me “Please tell me what your problem is.” Oh Jason, asking that question is just begging for trouble. Where to start, where to start. I very nearly started to tell him what I thought my problem was, but I reconsidered because I was sure that he wouldn’t have faintest idea on how to fix my credit history or solve that mold and mildew problem in my shower. “Well, Jason, I can’t connect to the Internet and I can’t get my email. The lights on my modem are all on, and then they’re not. They come back on and go back off, disconnecting me from everything.” Not unlike my libido, I thought, but didn’t want to burden Jason with things he couldn’t understand, much less fix. He then asked if my modem was all lit up. I had a seriously great answer for that but played it safe and told him no. Much to my dismay, nothing was lit up. “I’m going to have you try a few things,” droned Jason. I wasn’t up to trying a few things, no matter what they might have been, so I told him to hold on and I would get my husband. He would know how to ‘try things’ that I wouldn’t. Not that I’m unable to learn new tricks, mind you. No, it’s just that my tall blond hubby is more apt to understand the techno-babble that I was sure was coming because he speaks that lingo, albeit with a sense of humor or I wouldn’t have married him. Hubby had as much fun with Jason as I did. After he hung up the phone he said that poor Jason was in desperate need of a personality implant because he didn’t appear to have one. I asked him what Jason had told him to do, certain I was going to hear some maneuvers involving multiple screens, pop 3’s and long strings of numbers. “Jason told me to move the modem box away from the computer,” said my baffled husband. “I would have thought he’d have had a better suggestion than that” “Did it work?” I asked. “Nope” Darn. Jason informed us that we would be graced with a repairman the very next day. We were sad it couldn’t be Jason, since he was such a little ray of sunshine. Hopeful that the in-person techie would come with a personality, we prepared our home for the visit by dusting off things we thought he might want to look at in our house. Were we even close? Oh no. He had to see places we hadn’t dreamed of dusting, much less cleaning up. It’s hard to embarrass me. I’ve given birth to children with strangers standing in the same room with me. Messy doesn’t even faze me. John, our visiting techie, told us that we had a weak signal. That could explain a lot of things. He gave us a signal booster and asked us if there was anything else he could do to help us. I did have a lengthy list of things that I needed help with, but I wasn’t sure that John was the man for the job. “Do you do windows?” I asked with a smile. “Do I do…uh…what?” He said with a puzzled look on his face. “Nevermind” I said. “Ooooh, ha ha” John answered, finally getting it. He gave me a funny look as he packed up his stuff and quickly exited the house. I really wouldn’t have asked him to do the windows. My refrigerator needs a thorough cleaning more than my windows do. Once again, humor fails in the technological environment. |
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editor's note: due to stoopid people who can't behave in public (ie, spammers) we have had to turn off the comment feature on our older columns. We'll try waiting a while and then turning it back on to see if they get bored and go away. In the mean time, we will manually add any REAL comments if you email them to us. The link is below.
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