I'm one of the people who answers your call or e-mail when you have a
computer or software problem. I've been doing it for years at a range of
organizations. And there's a reason that I sound like a 911 operator when you
call, with that oddly dispassionate demeanor: Some of your calls and e-mails are
real doozies, and if it weren't for the Mute button, I'd have gotten fired years
ago for my laughter or exclamations in response to some of the stuff I hear.
All of us in tech support rely on the Mute button to hide our reactions when one
of those calls comes in, and on IM to chatter about them quietly, for the need
to share as well as to get possible answers from each other. Think about it: I'm
on the phone and can't see what you're calling about, yet I have to figure it
out and then walk you through the fix. Now that takes some skill, focus, and
perhaps obsession!
[ Every week, InfoWorld serves anonymous but true stories of IT shenanigans in
our Off the Record blog. | Follow the craziness of the tech industry in Robert
X. Cringely's Notes from the Field blog three times a week. ]
But I have to admit that even the crazy cases usually reveal some new insight on
how to solve the next person's problem -- or even my own.
After all, even tech support folks like me run into issues: I'm reminded of an
incident from childhood, where my family had just gotten its first PC, a hulking
AT-style machine, and -- budding geek that I was -- I decided to use
autoexec.bat to automate access to apps by pressing numbers in a text menu that
appeared at startup. However, I managed to create two autoexec.bat files in
different directories and cross-link them, so the PCs simply got stuck in an
endless cycle of menu loads. After hours of trying to figure out the problem, I
went to my parents tearfully and told them I broke their computer. "You broke
it, you fix it -- and fast," was the gist of their response, so the next day at
school I told the computer expert there what I had done. "Press and hold Ctrl-C
to abort it," he advised. "That's so simple. Why didn't I know that?" I thought.
That's why today, when even the smartest people have the silliest lapses -- like
not realizing that the power is down in their building and that's why the
computer won't start -- I can share these crazy support stories with humility
and a straight face (at least, as far as you can tell).
"The ball is bouncing ... and exploding!"
I used to work for a tech-support company with many small-business clients. One
client was notorious for an Indian gentleman who would call with extremely naïve
questions and who clearly had little familiarity with computers. If he called at
the end of a shift, support staff tended to save the call for someone on the
next shift to handle.