tired of tech support?

For all of those whiny consumers who complain about their lackluster tech support experiences, I have a message for you: Your tech support people are tired of you, too! At least, that's how I was feeling the other day when my mother-in-law called asking me for help on setting up her DSL. Honestly, I used to get a sense of self-worth when I helped relatives with their computer problems, but these days I feel like they should just take their problems elsewhere. Hell, it took a week before the phone company could get my DSL to work properly and I know what I am doing. How am I going to help her over the phone? I know - it's rude and selfish of me, but my time is limited and every minute that I spend trying to fix someone else's virus-ridden PC is another minute that I could be spending with my kids.

This recent DSL experience was no different. She explained that she had just installed the software and plugged in the DSL mode and couldn't get it to work. She had tried calling the DSL provider's tech support but they were unable to resolve the issue, so she called me. She also stated that if I couldn't assist, she would just take it into Best Buy. Please do! Let the "Geek Squad" do their job - at least they get paid for it. She has the money, too.

Walking my mother-in-law through the steps required for troubleshooting her ethernet adapter drivers and internet connection settings is no picnic over the phone. I'd just drive on over and do it myself if she wasn't living nearly 1,000 miles away. It would at least save me the trouble of trying to explain how to differentiate between her regular phoneline and a Cat5E cable. In the end, she didn't have the drivers she needed and she had no way of getting online to download them, so we gave up. She took the PC to Best Buy the next day and they couldn't fix it either. So now I'm talking new computers with her instead. Her PC is still running Win 98 and is likely on it's last leg anyways. As much as our landfills don't need it, this is what those $300 throwaway computers are for. Or she can spend $500 and get a throwaway laptop. Either way, she'll be needing a new one in a year or two.