Feeling Disconnected

This morning my world fell apart. I had no internet connection.

My connection was painfully slow last night and apparently gave up the ghost completely somewhere in the early hours before dawn. I had only a steaming cup of coffee to brace me for the devastating news - "the internet is down".

I made the call I have made many times before to technical support. The most interesting part of these calls is listening to the robo-operator as she promises to check your line for trouble and while doing so, encourages you to try checking their website for online help. The most frustrating part is that it does you no good to scream at the robo-operator about how ridiculous it is to tell someone with no connection to try getting help at the website. The robo-operator will just reply "I'm sorry, I didn't understand you".

Two hours into the call with technical support I still had no internet, but had assured the human operator that I hadn't got up in the middle of the night and made any adjustments or changes to my telephone jacks or satellite installation.

When I got off the line, it still wasn't working and they had to open a ticket - the resolution of which I would be informed. Soon after that, things started working again and I have yet to hear that they have resolved the problem.

I don't think technical support actually does anything, to tell you the truth. I think they tell you to go to plug in numbers and passwords, unplug this, reboot that, until the thing starts working again on its own anyway.

But there's something comforting about taking action and calling technical support. For one thing, it's someone at the company I can whine at while I am waiting for it all to start working again. I get to be slightly disdainful of their constant questions about whether or not the computer is plugged in, and explain to them that they shouldn't treat all customers as if they are idiots.

On second thought, it might be more fun to work it the other way. Maybe one day, just for fun, I will unplug everything and call technical support. Let's see how long it takes them to teach me how to turn the thing on.