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 Website is Down! is a short movie based on tech support horror stories. (Movie may have NSFW language and imagery)
posted by achmorrison on Jun 24, 2008 - 42 comments

This is the Fish calling from Microsoft Support Santro. No, not that fish.
posted by GernBlandston on Aug 18, 2006 - 28 comments

Stupid Computer Tricks. Photo array of one computer service employee's favorite customer problems. Don't miss the intense AOL user, the sealed floppy, the floating hard drive, and the extreme case mod.
posted by brain_drain on Dec 9, 2005 - 21 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

AskTheTechGirl.com : Because not everyone gets off on calling India for tech support
via something positive, who also has a funny comic thread on this
posted by qDot on Jul 1, 2004 - 6 comments

A collective "I told you so" from all the layed-off American tech workers. Dell to Stop Using Indian Call Center for Corporate Customers. Apparently, there was a high volume of complaints about thick accents and scripted responses. You don't say? You mean explaining complex technical issues to end users over a phone are further complicated by mixing in large dialect and enunciation differences?
posted by Espoo2 on Nov 24, 2003 - 40 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

Elocution lessons are helping staff working at call centres in India neutralise their accents and make their sales pitch more effective
call-center workers, computer programmers, these and other positions are being transferred to countries like India. We all know why. Only one reason, they call it Tight labor markets.

This is great news for India, but what exactly will the current call-center workers, programmers and other white collar workers in US do if their jobs will be gone to India ?
Are you worried that your position will one day be replaced by someone on the other side of the world working for 1/3 of your salary ?
posted by bureaustyle on Apr 15, 2003 - 43 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

Humorous experiance of a lady with Microsoft Technical Support Staff in relation to Klez worm.
posted by arnab on May 1, 2002 - 8 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

Microsoft Tech Support vs. The Psychic Friends Network - so who gives better support for MS Access?
posted by paladin on Apr 27, 2001 - 9 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

New to computers? Confused by that message telling you to "hit any key"? Get professional help here. Now, aren't you glad you bought a Compaq?
posted by kindall on Feb 26, 2001 - 4 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