Tech support is dumb

AndrewAPrice · Post by **AndrewAPrice** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 9:52 pm

My aunt paid call a tech support guy over for 2 hours (at $40 an hour) because her Internet wasn't working.. All he did was update her browser and defragmented her hard disk (which took up most of the 2 hours (how would a fragmented hard drive stop her from using the Internet?)) Then recommended she'd get dial-up because her computer "doesn't support broadband".

I flew 2/3 across the country back to my home city because I have a 3 week break from college. I spent 5 minutes on her computer and noticed some program had blocked port 80 in her firewall for her network card and all I had to do was untick a little box.

How do these people get away with charging $40 an hour when they probably don't even know the difference between a firewall and a virus scanner?

Zacariaz · Post by **Zacariaz** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 10:10 pm

Easy money, all you need to do is making it look and sound complicated.

JackScott · Post by **JackScott** » Sun Aug 19, 2007 12:40 am

You'd think that they would shoot themselves in the foot doing this, because nobody would ring them again after having such a bad experience. I wish it were that way. Unfortunately, there are enough people around for the larger tech support offices for it to not matter at all how they serve the customers, as another will always ring.

I guess the best thing we can do is spread the word about bad tech support. Do you care to name the company involved?

Solar · Post by **Solar** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 2:55 pm

They rip off kids charging $1 for a f**ing mobile ring tone. Why not rip off adults charging $40/h for watching the defrag? (Nice idea, by the way.)

Sorry, just being sarcastic here.

Candy · Post by **Candy** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 3:24 pm

Solar wrote:They rip off kids charging $1 for a f**ing mobile ring tone. Why not rip off adults charging $40/h for watching the defrag? (Nice idea, by the way.)

Sorry, just being sarcastic here.

The saddest part of it all is that you can't convince the people that were thus freed of their money that they paid a fraud, because in their eyes s/he has just as much credibility as you. Makes me sick to my stomach and has led to me not fixing anything for anybody anymore. Screw your wireless network; if you can't be bothered to see the difference between quality and just messing around...

Kevin McGuire · Post by **Kevin McGuire** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 8:40 pm

Even sadder is the stereotype it places on people who really have a passion for these things, and prefer to actually educate people and be helpful rather than sound knowledgeable and in a specific area that concerns me most is employment.

The people who really study this stuff instead of roke learning it and talking terminology while lacking the experience and application of this create a barrier between potential employees and employers in a information technology, scientific, mathematical, or any other highly intellectual field.

I get stereotyped when I talk to people when trying to move into a carrier that I am better suited for, I feel. When I talk about things I have worked with I have actually been stated too that most people just know the terminology which actually makes me sick to even tell someone I know anything about computers, _period_. I can just feel that whatever I say will be critically examined, but not for the content. Instead for whomever can shoot the bull better and convince someone they are right.

I dislike looking like a phony, liar, or anything similar. I value intellectual honestly above all else and find that these types of people just make it a lot harder for companies to find productive and passionate people in these fields.

Also there was a study done once that suggested that character would help you gain a job better than the actual knowledge and skills, odd huh?

If you also do some reading you will find that a lot of employers think that college students are entering into employment with out the expected skills for that field, even though they posses a degree from a college. I think this really puts a bad image across any one who has a real passion and inspiration for working in this fields -- called a stereotype.

Candy · Post by **Candy** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 2:10 pm

Kevin McGuire wrote:Even sadder is the stereotype it places on people who really have a passion for these things, and prefer to actually educate people and be helpful rather than sound knowledgeable and in a specific area that concerns me most is employment.

<zap>

If you also do some reading you will find that a lot of employers think that college students are entering into employment with out the expected skills for that field, even though they posses a degree from a college. I think this really puts a bad image across any one who has a real passion and inspiration for working in this fields -- called a stereotype.

Yep. That's very very true. I have a number of coworkers, a number of ex-students and a number of people I know directly that I would say shouldn't be in the field or at least should be paid a much lower wage because they just plain suck at their job. The problem is, most of these people are quite a bit above me and that prevents me from firing them. Also, I don't get interviews asking me complexish questions about any topic which I would really like to - IE, actually show you can do what you say. I think that should fish out most of the con-artists.

os64dev · Post by **os64dev** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 12:40 am

Yep. That's very very true. I have a number of coworkers, a number of ex-students and a number of people I know directly that I would say shouldn't be in the field or at least should be paid a much lower wage because they just plain suck at their job. The problem is, most of these people are quite a bit above me and that prevents me from firing them. Also, I don't get interviews asking me complexish questions about any topic which I would really like to - IE, actually show you can do what you say. I think that should fish out most of the con-artists.

Hmm, it could be that your are just more intelligent than the average co-worker in the compagny. That would put a whole different light on the subject because it could mean that, though you have an higher intellegence or insight, you are unable to profilate yourself as such and therefore incapable of increasing the productivety of the whole team. Wich would mean that you are the one who is the 'problem'.

This is hypothetical ofcourse but in general it is good to look at a problem with different eyes. Hence the saying "It is all in the eye of the beholder."

Pirogoeth · Post by **Pirogoeth** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 8:03 am

Candy wrote:Also, I don't get interviews asking me complexish questions about any topic which I would really like to - IE, actually show you can do what you say. I think that should fish out most of the con-artists.

That's pretty normal. Most companies don't want innovative programmers. As long as you can use m$ visual studio and make more mediocre software that's all they need. They want code monkeys not geniuses, and it's a real shame

Colonel Kernel · Post by **Colonel Kernel** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 9:48 am

The company I work for wants geniuses, but there aren't enough of them around.

Candy · Post by **Candy** » Sat Aug 25, 2007 10:05 am

Colonel Kernel wrote:The company I work for wants geniuses, but there aren't enough of them around.

If you can arrange me a job interview without being required to move to canada, come on up.

Colonel Kernel · Post by **Colonel Kernel** » Sat Aug 25, 2007 12:06 pm

Candy wrote:without being required to move to canada

That's the tricky part. It's a very small company, so we have no overseas presence. Besides, teams work more efficiently when co-located, at least on the scale of projects we typically deal with.

Canada is quite lovely though... at least where we are -- the warm part.

Kevin McGuire · Post by **Kevin McGuire** » Sat Aug 25, 2007 1:38 pm

I am no genius, but just curious about your company.

What information is there about the company you work for?

Colonel Kernel · Post by **Colonel Kernel** » Sat Aug 25, 2007 2:07 pm

Kevin McGuire wrote:I am no genius, but just curious about your company.

What information is there about the company you work for?

Check your messages -- I just sent you something.

earlz · Post by **earlz** » Sat Aug 25, 2007 11:50 pm

wow...tech support really does annoy me now..

I was trying to customize a (commercial) flash template for a friend, and due to their obscure design methods, couldn't find a good method for getting things to work right...so I went to tech support and got a guy that was basically an idiot...the funny part, is that later, I went to the place again and asked a similar question, and got the exact same guy, with the exact same first response...

in short, never buy anything from http://www.templatehelp.com/

here is the conversation I had with him....(with some editing at the end)

Connecting. Please wait.
Please send your inquiry and give it several minutes for the operator to respond.
21:03:55 <Earlz> I am having a problem getting the plans menu to work so that when you click on them. This is in flash, and the ID is 13573
21:04:26 <Norman> Could You please be a little more specific?
21:06:40 <Earlz> for the red plan buttons, I am trying to make it so you can click on them, and it will take you to the appropriate page. I tried using a simple on(release) type thing on the buttons actionscript(it had none to begin with) but when I add that, it makes it so that the animation doesn't happen when you roll your mouse over it.
21:07:31 <Norman> One minute please
21:11:24 <Norman> All the menu buttons in your flash header already contain the script needed for redirecting them to the corresponding .html pages. To see how they work you will be able only after publishing your flash movie
21:11:25 <Norman> (see tutorial: http://info.template-help.com/after_sal ... cle25.html)
21:11:25 <Norman> and uploading your customized template to your web server
21:11:25 <Norman> (see http://info.template-help.com/after_sal ... icle8.html)
21:15:30 <Earlz> no...I put it on my server now, and the buttons show up as buttons(the mouse cursor changes) but when I click, they don't do anything
21:16:12 <Norman> Please give me the link to your site installed
21:16:56 <Earlz> hang on....
21:20:28 <Earlz> http://earlz.biz.tm/header_flash7.swf the top button(basic plan) is the unmodified button, while the other two are where I added the on(release) code
21:24:36 <Norman> You have not even uploaded the html pages
21:25:10 <Earlz> yes, I know, but why would that matter for what I am trying to do?
21:26:14 <Norman> Why have you enlarged the header?
21:27:02 <Earlz> it isn't enlarged, most browsers zoom in on the flash files so that it uses all screen space (or at least firefox does)
21:28:00 <Earlz> (they only do that when it is not embedded into an html page)
21:28:14 <Norman> After publishing your .swf movie you are supposed to copy the .swf movie and paste it to the folder 'site_flash\flash' to replace the original file there. To see your site on the web you should upload all the content of folder 'site_flash'(not the folder itself, but only the files and the folders it contains) to the public folder on your FTP account.
21:30:51 <Earlz> this is temporary, I am working on this for a friend and do not have access to his server, so I put it on mine. My problem doesn't have anything to do with the it not being in a special folder, and external files not being there...
21:32:34 <Norman> If you want to see the html pages ;loading correctly, you should upload all the necessary files for that (see the instruction above)
21:33:58 <Earlz> ok, I know that when I click the top navigation links, it produces a 404 error, but when I click on the plan buttons, absolutely nothign happens, it doesn't try to load any page, it just does nothing...now how do I fix that?
21:36:09 <Norman> You will be getting the error constantly the way you uploaded the part of the template to the server
21:38:27 <Earlz> ok....you clearly are not qualified to help me. If you are new, please ask your supervisor to train you more or something. if you are not new, then you should be fired, or talked to or something.... I know I get the frikkin error but I want to be able to get that error rather than nothing happen.....I'll try this again and maybe I'll get someone who knows what hte crap they are doing...