What to do when you call your friendly technology helpdesk.

Make sure that when we answer your call you start off with a tone that truly conveys how irritated you are. It really sets us in a happy and eager mood to help you.

Immediately shouting about how we are plotting to put you out of business is also an excellent way to start. That way we know you mean business.

When you call, there is no need to have even the slightest clue what the problem is or how to describe it or how to explain there is even a problem. We can read your computers mind, they teach us that in school.

Assume that we are not only able to fix the problem immediately, but we also wrote the program, built the computer and pretty much control the entire Internet. Hey, that’s why we make the big bucks answering calls right?

Sigh loudly anytime anything takes more then 10 seconds. That way we’ll understand how busy you are and fix the problem faster. After all we love keeping you on the phone to talk with you and actually only save the “quick fixing” if you let us know how busy you are.

Saying “I’m not a computer person” will immediately make us less frustrated and we’ll stop asking all those annoying questions about your problem. Why should we expect you to understand the one tool you use to do your job? Silly us.

If you really only use one program on your computer naturally assume anything we ask you to do will be in that one program. All those other icons, buttons and windows are just there to annoy you

When we ask you a question immediately show extreme irritation. Assume that we obviously don’t believe there is a problem, do not know what we are doing and are trying to get out of fixing the problem.

Offer your opinion on what you think is causing the problem and what you think will fix it. Make sure to give us as many facts as possible, like what you had for lunch and how two years ago you got a funny email.

If you are worried we will ask you to do something you don’t want to do, like reboot your computer or power cycle your router, go ahead and lie when we ask you questions. We don’t really need any information to solve your problem.

September 9, 2010 - Hello

I am currently a Technology Service Representative at a financial company. I know it sounds really exciting, listening to old insurance salesmen who have no idea how to use a computer complain about how poorly the technology I make works. If only I actually had a hand in “making it” then I wouldn’t be answering those horrible calls.

Anyway, I have always wanted to be a writer. When I was a teenager I would spend hours writing poems or stories and would dream of being a great American fiction writer like Stephen King or Anne Rice. I would imagine I had endless amounts of stories and I could weave words into epic tales of adventure that ended in profound meaning.

Unfortunately I wasn’t very good at it, despite what my parents would say, I could never come up with a decent store and most of my thoughts would simply run on forever. But that never stopped me from trying and I spent a great deal of my teenage and young adult time writing.

As I got older however and the real world crept more and more into my daily life I found that I had stopped writing all together. I’m really not sure when I actually stopped I just know that with every day that passes writing seems like those fanciful dreams kids have when they are young, something that can never really be attained.

I guess the point of this dribble is a statement to myself or anyone who cares to read it that I will try to write again. I will write about anything I find interesting, funny, or irritating. I will put to word any fanciful or crazy thing my mind wonders to and I will do so without fear of trolls or ridicule… well some fear but the wine should help with that :)