How to make me want to tear you limb from limb.

Be the WOW Tech Support Lady. Start out by calling the 'System Preferences' tab the "System Perfections", tell me, "Well you're connected to the internet, Macs are usually really good at this," go on to tell me there's nothing you can do saying, "You'll have to call Apple I guess."

Then, end the call with the canned speech including the words, ".....Is there anything else I can do for you today Mrs. Summers?"

Well, now that you mention it, can you tell me why my connection to the internet isn't working?

Comments

[Jenny]

Ummm, I think she meant, ".....Is there anything else I CAN'T do for you today Mrs. Summers?"

Best of luck Melissa. I loathe connectivity issues.

[Julie]

Or better yet, why her company doesn't hire people who actually know anything about Macs?

I get so pissed sometimes--the tech support for the ISP I use always sends me to someone who doesn't even know what a Mac looks like.

[Robin]

Ugh, I hate stoopid customer support.

I don't know if anyone's already suggested this but it's worth a try. I have Comcast and have wireless set up. My PC laptop doesn't have any problems with it but with my Mac I have to put a dollar sign ($) before the password when I enter it. Comcast hasn't been able to explain why (even though they gave me the solution) but that's how it has worked with two routers and in two houses.

Good luck!

[Peggasus]

Fotunately, we Mac owners rarely have problems like this. I can count on one hand with fingers left over how many problems we have had with our 10 or so Macs over the last 20 years, including ones we used for business.

I recently got a new iMac for my downstairs desk, and my connection was spotty for the first day, and kept telling me I 'was not connected to the internet.' I unplugged the connector from the wireless router and plugged it directly into the other Mac (upstairs) to make sure it was working. It was. I then unplugged the power source for 30 seconds, reconnected it all, restarted the new one once or twice (it resets the ISPs or something), and have had no problem since.

But yeah, tech help generally knows shit about Mac issues. Bastards.

[jenB]

Call Jon Armstrong, he is some kind of Mac Superhero. Also, quite handsome. Not that you need more handsome in your life. :-)

[Matthew M. F. Miller]

Comcast offers similar customer service. I actually had a rep tell me, "Look sir, we're not trying to point fingers here, but this is not Comcast's fault." Mind you this was after I spent 3-1/2 hours on the line with them.

Customer service is dead, and that's the price we pay for not shopping local. Crikey...

[Collette Rand]

In an eerily familiar situation, someone once asked my husband if there was anything "else" they could help him with. His response was that he/she would have had to have helped him in the first place.

[Joy]

I've got one...I recently called Charter Cable to insist they credit our bill since in the first three weeks after they installed us, we only had one week of actual service. (Don't ask...I'll only get more riled up.) After time spent on hold, looking up the account, etc., he said, yes, they can credit the account, but because MY name wasn't on the account--only my husband's was--he couldn't do it for me. My husband would have to call in himself and repeat the process.

And then? "Is there anything else I can do to help you today?" I couldn't resist answering, "Obviously not."

[Heather]

oh dear lord, this computer thing rocks when it's working but sucks hardcore when it falls apart. I've been getting "fatal error" messages and having windows tell me that my "system has recovered" from some sort of heinous damage, etc., etc. and do I want to send an error report? Will that help me, or you, dear windows? I spent 2 hours last night backing up files in preparation for the hell mouth of complete and final system failure opening up.

[Jessica]

I HATE when they say "Is there anything else I can do for you" when they have COMPLETELY FAILED to help you in any way whatsoever. I usually command them to give me the winning Lotto numbers for my trouble. They laugh nervously, and I enjoy that...

[Katherine]

I hate it when they say "Is there anything else I can help you with?" after they've done nothing to fix the problem... but also after you've told them that both you and your partner work in IT and they've asked you to check if everything is plugged in properly. They don't send out hardware that is supported on Linux, and they say they can't support us unless we plug in the original modem they supplied (three years ago, which my partner took to pieces after we got the wireless modem/router). By the time we get to "Is there anything else I can help you with?" I've normally given up and slammed the phone down.

Best of luck with your connection problems.

[A Mommy Story]

Time Warner is like that here. Nothing like being told, "We see no problems that we are responsible for that could cause a slowdown. It must be your modem." Uh, the modem belongs to TW, moron.

I was once asked that end question and replied in frustration, "No, nothing else, thanks. You've already given me more than enough to realize you're useless."

[CinAA]

While I cannot tell you why your connection to the internet isn't working, I can tell you that last night, when my husband hooked up our new router from AT&T (allegedly it will give us a much faster connection, yeah right) but could not get the Airport working even though there was supposedly a strong signal, I was able to say, "Hey, this blog I read? A woman in Royal Oak is having the same problem!" I'm sure you can guess how pleased he was at my helpful comment, which came at about 11:30 p.m.

Still not working this morning, either.

[Pete Dunn]

Was her name Nancy or Jennifer in contrast to her thick Indian accent, by chance?

[She]

It sounds like a DNS issue if you can connect but you can't access. If you haven't done this, call back and ask them to escalate you to the next tier of support. I've have to do this with Vonage - the 1st tier sucks!

[Molly]

Why is it the IT help people never seem to know anything about actual technology? My favorite was a couple years ago when I was trying to get our Road Runner to work. After hours on the phone without success the Time Warner guy told me that I probably needed a new computer because he didn't think a Dell was able to connect to the Internet.

[Chicago Chick]

Seriously? I swear that they find quality first level tech support people by having them answer this series of questions:
1. Do you like to irritate people?
2. How do you spell PC?

Ugh! Sorry they were as usefull as tits on a bull.