Motivation

I got a lot of it recently.

If there are young impressionable children among Tech Support readers, they should take this to heart.

By that, I mean: "Just get the point and follow it for the rest of your life". You know those "Stay in school", "Don't do drugs" motivationals that people hardly adhere to?

They don't do jack shit. For one reason: They're a bad idea wrapped with a stupid design and shipped in a retarded box.

This is why.

>TSG: [ISP name here] at your service, TSG speaking.
>Customer: Hello TSG. I'm not receiving any email.

I send a test email, check their mailbox and voile, it's there.

>TSG: It's fine, your email program is just poorly configured.
>Customer: What's an email program? You mean like opening email?

Did I mention it's pretty much equivalent to using "Internet" as a noun?

>TSG: You know, Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook, freakin' Incredimail.
>Customer: I don't know, I just open the email and my email comes to me, but now there's no email there and I KNOW I should get some.
>TSG: * instructions to reach the web interface for the mail servers *
>Retarded Sea Cucumber: You mean open up the internet?

Long story short, she had to re-ask me every single instruction.

>Customer: What do I do?
After I told her explicitly how to reach the site.

>Customer: Where it says "Address"?
When I told her to type the URL.

>Customer: I can't see it.
When I told her where the address bar is.

You get the point. I hope.

20 minutes later, she manages to type a 10-character URL properly and actually gets to the site.

>Customer: It says here "User name, Password".
>TSG: Then you should probably type in your user name and password.
>Customer: So I should type it?
>TSG: Yes.
>Customer: Login failed.
>TSG: Because you didn't type in the password.
>Customer: I had to do that? You didn't tell me that.
>TSG: See "user name AND password".
>Customer: Oh. Well, not everyone's smart like you.
>TSG: If they were, the world would be a much better place.

There's no need for a poorly designed guilt trip. This is due to several reasons.

First, it doesn't work on me. If I had any consciousness or compassion, I might care a little.

Second, I don't give a damn about your education, you, your problem, how much you're paying, etc. I think I made that point clear enough.

Third, saying that is obvious. You're calling us in the first place. Which could mean two things:

1. You're too dumb to solve your own problems.
2. The problem actually stems from us and needs to get fixed.
   

Point 2 happened some time ago. I'll elaborate on it later. However 90% of the cases are customers' own stupidity.

Prime example:

>TSG: [ISP name here] at your service, TSG speaking.
>Customer: Hello. I can't get any email.

That's just like "not having Internet". I can't get any valuable information other than "Customer is a moron". Quick check in the logs, and...

>TSG: It appears you're not connected to the Internet.
>Customer: I have to be connected to get my email?

Before I started working, calls like that would land in the "There's no way this is real" category. How wrong I was...

>TSG: No, your ELECTRONIC mail magically appears in your mailbox.

Long story short, the solution to the "problem" was connecting them. By that I mean 10-minute instructions to reach their dialer, input their user name/password and click "Connect".


And FINALLY, this isn't a case of superior intelligence. I've had people with alleged Ph.D's call me and ask the same retarded questions as that retarded sea cucumber.

No offense to the actual retarded sea cucumbers was intended in the above sentence.

See where I'm going here?

...

Yes. Using your brains, strain the atlas bone, etc... You know the drill.

Back to the first call. After she finally saw her emails and got convinced it wasn't related to us, she said:

>Customer: Wow, you're really smart and you can give good service.
>TSG: This crap is damn obvious, you should know this but God knows why not.

Paraphrased.

>Customer: Well, we dropped out of high school, so we never learned as much.
>TSG: Oh my dear god.

Not that I care but Jesus H. Christ! I thought it was impossible given our shitty system, but doing that is quite an achievement. Of failure.

>Customer: I bet you think I'm a total idiot now, right?
>TSG: Yes. You're the single most retarded customer I've ever faced and if I could, I'd ban you from getting 100 meters to a computer. In fact, I'd ban you from driving, reproducing and voting. You're a dead branch in human evolution and your faulty genes need to be removed from the gene pool for the greater good of humanity. You're detrimental to our evolution and pose an existential threat to us as a species. Now get off the line so I won't have to see my IQ drop in front of me.

Then I went to the archive room and wiped all new recordings. Then I wiped the logs of recording activities. Then I went to the camera feed room with a stun gun, electromagnet and duct tape. Then I flashed everyone in the call center with my trusty neuralyzer.

In retrospect, I think I could've handled the call better.

Now, what did we learn from this?

If there is anything you, the young impressionable readers of Tech Support should learn is the following immutable truth, the guideline of life: STAY IN YOUR CURRENT EDUCATIONAL FACILITY! FINISH YOUR SCHOOL AND MOVE ON TO THE NEXT TIER! USE YOUR BRAINS!

Or you might end up like the person at the other end of the phone line.