This is that awful moment when you have to face the inevitable. It usually occurs after several hours of wrestling with a useless manual and uncooperative on-line help guide. You know the thing, when you want to perform a mail merge the Help cheerfully tells you how to open a file. As a last resort you reach for the phone. Technical support numbers are rarely provided in the manual. Instead you get the details of the main switchboard where - if you're lucky - some harassed receptionist will give you the right number. Otherwise you get some horrendous computerised telephone switching system, which leads to .........
Automation
'You're through to Jurassic-Soft. Please hold the line.' This is followed by ten minutes of Mozart/1960's classics. I've always considered that the person who thought of adding music to queuing systems must have had a particularly nasty streak. Here you are at work, on a deadline, the bloody software won't work and you're being treated to a crackly version of Wait 'Til The Midnight Hour. 'If you know the extension, dial one. If you want customer services, dial two. If you require technical information, dial three.' Quickly, are you a customer requiring service or do you want technical information? Too late. The telephone answering system has hung up on you.
Explanation
finally you get through to a real person. By now the typical punter is close to mental breakdown. It isn't surprising that the soothing tones of the support person bring a wave of hope for relief. This is a technique well known to hostage takers the world over, as the captives come to love and rely on their captors. I've a great respect for technical support personnel, who manage to stay calm in the face of stupidity and hysteria on a grand scale. There must be a course somewhere designed to deal with the awkward and the emotionally immature run by primary teachers, as most tech support lines treat you like a slightly backward but personable seven-year-old. Which leads to .....
Education
'Go to the menu at the top and open File. Now click on Run.' I can see the point. From the position of someone who deals with 80 calls a day, you have to assume that anyone who calls can barely walk and chew gum at the same time, and only managed to get the PC out of the box by divine intervention. However, don't start getting cocky and answering back with 'You mean you'd like me to open the file manager?' The seasoned tech support will always reply with 'OK, click on WINRFLOP.DLL and type in WINKLFOP.DLL, then...' leaving you flustered, with a telephone held precariously under one ear while you type frantically and gasp 'Whoa, hang on!' desperately down the phone. Always remember that they have the upper hand.
Consternation
After being asked to jump through all these hoops, you just can't help that smug note in your voice when it doesn't work. But you've forgotten that this means that you're condemned to another 20 minutes of 'Just a second,' more crackly music and 'Can you go to...' as we jump through another round of hoops. By the fourth circuit, a distinct note of panic comes to the voice and you start to suspect that you're being led by the nose by some teenage hacker on the first day of a work experience scheme.
Escalation
'I'll just put you on hold.' More crackly music. Emotions are mixed, you obviously have a rare problem, one that might be discussed by technical support students in years to come, one to be pored over textbooks, one to tell your children about. 'Hello, can I help you ?' The slightly irritated tone announces the manager who has been pulled away from next year's budgets or an e-mail from the boss asking why the clear-up rate for calls is declining to answer some idiot who can't get the software to work. He or she will ask you the same questions, albeit in more detail. Finally together you will arrive at.....
Termination
Otherwise known in the trade as TLMYOYO or Tough Luck Mate You're On Your Own. You're told firmly but politely that they've run out of ideas for dealing with you and you are therefore Somebody Else's Problem. The normal form for this is to say 'Do you have the file SMEHBTEL.EXE?' Of course you don't ' This is a WINDOWS/hardware/networking problem then.' Roughly translated this means: 'Stop cluttering up our phone lines and ruining our call target for the day and go and annoy someone else.'