I have always prided myself on being somewhat technically savvy. Although I am not on the “bleeding edge” when it come to adopting new technology, I get up to speed reasonably fast. More to the point, I will spend the time to understand what is going on under the hood so that I can be my own tech support guy as well as the support person for my lab and family. Which, by the way, I’m glad to do.
Along with the expertise that I have attained comes a certain smugness. I am certainly sympathetic to those who have difficulty integrating technology into their lives. After all, it really isn’t always so intuitive and easy. I appreciate that most people do not find their TVs, computers, iPods, etc. as transparent to operate as I do. That does not preclude me from enjoying some of the “Tech Support Tales” that you can find on the interweb. These are stories, and in some cases transcripts, of actual calls to technical support phone lines. Here’s one example:
Tech Support: “I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop.” Customer: “Ok.”
Tech Support: “Did you get a pop-up menu?”
Customer: “No.”
Tech Support: “Ok. Right click again. Do you see a pop- up menu?”
Customer: “No.”
Tech Support: “Ok, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?”
Customer: “Sure, you told me to write ‘click’ and I wrote ‘click’.”
Tech Support: “Ok, did you type ‘click’ with the keyboard?”
Customer: “I have done something dumb, right?”
I understand completely the customer’s problem in this case, but it doesn’t make any less funny.
So today I was down in my basement to take a ride on my bike. I normally watch something I have TiVoed to help pass the otherwise boring (but very good for me, yes I know) time. As I turned on the TV, I noticed that there was no signal from the cable box coming through. I looked at the front of the cable box and noticed that the power light wasn’t on. I checked the power cord and saw that it was plugged into and outlet that I confirmed was working. I replugged it in and the power light came on briefly and then went out. I rebooted the TiVo box (which is where the cable box is plugged into) just to make sure that there wasn’t something amiss there. Still no signal from the cable. I also tried plugging the cable box directly into the TV, and still didn’t work.
At this point, I called my cable company’s tech support line. I got through right away. I explained the problem, and the conversation went something like this:
Tech Support: “Do you have the remote control for the cable box handy?”
Me: “Yes”
Tech Support: “Can you press the power button on the remote and tell me what happens?”
Me: “D-oh!”
At some level I would like to believe that I have made my life so much easier with technology that I can no longer figure out how anything actually works. Or it could be that I am just stupid.
