Ahh, computers. They drive us batty at times but we love them anyway. Many of us now carry a computer of sorts around in our hand or stuck in a pocket or attached to our belts. That phone that does it all from surfing the net to taking photos of ourselves. So many of them that a new word is in our vocabulary - selfies.
And sometimes that computer breaks or starts acting squirrely and we have absoluting no idea of why. A new update? Driver problems? Operator trouble? That's probably the one the tech helpers groan about the most and the reason one of the software companies is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press Return Key." They get a the flood of calls asking where that "Any" key is.
Dealing with people is probably the biggest problem you face, especially if you are in business. Yes, and that is also true if you are a housewife, architect or engineer. ~Dale Carnegie
Trouble is, it's not only the tech support guy dealing with people. The poor schmucks with the computer problems have to deal with the tech guy too. Of course, after listening to a half hour of how much some recorder values your business and a human being might be with you very soon and then getting music that no one in their right mind would ever intentionally listen to piped directly into your ear, you're ready to talk to any person, even somebody named Bhuzti. It doesn't even matter if it's obvious from Bhuzti's first hello that he's talked to one too many idiots already before you hit the jackpot and got connected with him. You feel lucky for about one minute and then the tech guy insults you by asking if you have the computer plugged in. While we might not know a control panel from a game of solitaire, most all of us do know how to plug something in. After we assure Bhuzti that we have the device plugged in, things generally go downhill from there.
I actually talked to Bhuzti a couple of weeks ago. I was trying to help my sister get her wireless router to work. She has tech phobia and so I stepped up to bat for her. Stayed on hold for at least those thirty minutes. Heard their plea over and over that if I'd just go on-line to their website all my problems would surely be solved quickly and easily. But I'd chased down that trail without success before and was stubborn. I was determined to hold for that human they said might someday help me.
I was about to give up when Bhuzti came on line and of course asked me that plug question followed up with the information that these routers were very easy to install and all you had to was plug them in. When I very politely told him I had done exactly what the instructions said and the router would not work, he suggested with some insistence that I should "stay calm and be optimistic." At that point he made me very nervous by wanting my phone number to call me back. In one minute he promised. I gave him the number and hung up, sure that would be the last I ever heard of Bhuzti. But he surprised me by called right back in that minute with of course, the instruction to "stay calm and be optimistic."
By the time I unplugged and plugged in again and set and reset (after a frantic search for a paper clip that he said we'd need when a pen point would have worked just as well) and chasing all around the computer to this screen and that screen turning this and that off and on more than once, the router was still not working and I think Mr. Bhuzti was beginning to need to follow his own advice about being optimistic.
To make a long story short - oh, sorry, I guess it's too late for that. Anyway, after another round of ons and offs, our optimism was rewarded and the router finally was working. I felt like reaching through the phone line all the way to India to give Bhuzti a hug - calmly of course. We'd succeeded. My sister could surf to her heart's content without being wired to her modem. But success was shortlived. When I saw her the next day, the router was no longer connecting to the internet. She didn't want me to come and use up her phone minutes talking to Bhuzti or whichever lucky tech guy we got next. Instead she packed the thing up and took it back to the store. Calmly, but without any optimism at all. I'm sure it was the computer's fault.
To err is human - and to blame it on a computer is even more so. ~Robert Orben
Still, Bhuzti's advice wasn't so bad. Stay calm and be optimistic. I think that will be my by-words this year. With Mom. With my work in progress. With my computer.
How about you? Do you dread having to call the tech guys? Or how about the phone company? With them you have to choose this option or that option and the last time I tried to connect with them, one of the options just cut me off completely and I had to start over. I think they hope you'll get so discouraged you'll give up. But they don't know I've gotten Bhuzti's words to live by now. Stay calm and be optimistic!!
