Sunday, October 05, 2003
The Idiot Test
I had a wonderful conversation with a tech from SBC yesterday. After I told him that I couldn't connect to the internet through my DSL, and that the problem was on their end (I'd watch my modem ping a webpage and then never hear anything back), he proceeded to walk me through the eighty fucking million idiot steps that his script told him to have me walk through.
Modem plugged in? Are you fucking kidding me? Do you think I didn't check before I called?
Hey, here's an idea, if I already told you I was watching my modem ping away and nothing comes back, don't bother asking me to open my CMD window and type /ping www.yahoo.com. Because it won't work.
So instead of wasting twenty fucking minutes of my life talking to a tech who barely speaks any english, maybe you could have just told me what you did at the end of the phone call twenty minutes sooner; that it was in fact your problem, and that you'd have someone look into it.
This whole encounter got me to thinking: There's standardized aptitude tests for education and job placement, so where's the aptitude test for computer use? I could take a one-time test online that would be stored in some sort of credit-bureau-type thing, and then the SBC tech could just look it up and realize that I do in fact know my armpit from my asshole when it comes to using computers. I'm no genius, but I think I can figure out that my router is in fact working fine before I call, thankyouverymuch.
This would totally separate the pleebs from the rest of us who actually know what they're doing, and would save me a whole helluva lot of wasted time on the phone with idiot tech service reps.
