Seemingly, customer service isn't what it used to be, if you can even find them. Well, no more hiding. Enter
Hard to Find 800 Numbers, an alphabetic list that eliminates the scramble for contact information. Waiting on hold for customer service or tech support is painful enough.
posted by netbros
on Aug 4, 2008 -
30 comments
The latest BOFH, or Bastard Operator From Hell. If you read
The Register you're familiar with him... It's the story of an abusive IT guy basically doing whatever he wants to users and getting away with it.
It's been going on for about 10 years,
all of which is archived, so if that one doesn't tease your fancy, maybe some of those will. If you're not familiar with basic IT stuff some of it may be foreign to you, but once I started reading I couldn't stop. Try a couple years back, 2002 is a good vintage. >clickety<
posted by BlackLeotardFront
on Mar 21, 2005 -
48 comments
Safe Personal Computing. Bruce Schneier,
cited frequently on Metafilter, has a new article on his
blog in which he gives
home users concrete actions they could take to improve security. As the holidays come and I make the rounds to disinfect and repair all my family's computers, I'll be printing this out and sticking copies to their monitors.
posted by sohcahtoa
on Dec 13, 2004 -
73 comments
Life Support is an online help desk for everyday life. It operates like a tech support web site (with tickets, responses, etc.), but the issues are about religion, love, and politics instead of printers and device drivers. I got some interesting and/or entertaining responses to the issues I posted.
posted by oissubke
on Jun 5, 2003 -
15 comments
Tech support war stories compiled by category for your viewing pleasure. Every nuance of hardware and software is represented in this extensive collection. This is why the tier 1 techs wake up screaming at night.
posted by dr_dank
on Aug 12, 2002 -
14 comments
Havening (sic) a lousy day? Whenever the IT industry gets me down, I look to this oldy but goody of a link to help me realize that I don't have it all that bad. Have you ever been on any tier of computer support? This is a classic (albeit somewhat cruel) chronicle of working alongside a useless help-desk drone we'll call George.
posted by machaus
on Apr 30, 2002 -
25 comments
Matt Besser of the
Upright Citizens Brigade has a home phone number one digit away from tech support for a major ISP. Rather than fight it or change the number he's decided have some
fun with his clueless callers. If you've spent as much time doing tech support work as I have this is some good cathartic fun.
This one is my favorite.
(A few dirty words, so probably
NOT work safe. Requires RealPlayer.
posted by jonmc
on Apr 16, 2002 -
31 comments
Bangalore tech support (NY Times, free reg. req.) try to convince callers that they're actually nearby in the US, like one who "conjured up a fictional American life, with parents Bob and Ann, brother Mark and a made-up business degree from the University of Illinois."
posted by paladin
on Mar 21, 2001 -
3 comments
"Ask Maxwell" -- Microsoft's New Support Database Am I the only one who finds something a tad sinister about this thing? He looks a bit odd, and considering it's supposed to be automated support,
this profile of him is damned creepy.
By the way -- the profile states that he/it is an
English major. Uh, Bill? -- wouldn't it have been a smoother move to say that the "guy" was a Comp Sci major?
Geez...
posted by metrocake
on Aug 24, 2000 -
11 comments
Do you *really* want to ask Tech Support a stupid question? I've heard my fair share of silly, stupid questions, and most of the tech support questions I've been asked could have been answered by the user reading the manual. Apparently this tech support guy couldn't take it anymore and stabbed his coworker for asking a question, then was shot by police. Nuts.
posted by mathowie
on Oct 22, 1999 -
1 comment
