Rules When Phoning Tech Support

Unwritten rules from that highly over worked, but highly under paid technical support staff of a computer support department near you...

Rule 1

DO NOT call us and complain about a problem with your system and then say you're not in front of your computer when we try and help you. We aren't technological psychics.

Rule 2

DO NOT call us assuming the problem you're experiencing is our fault. If your computer crashes, performs illegal operations, gives you the blue screen of death, or runs away with the toaster to Mexico, you can be certain it wasn't us who caused it.

Rule 3

DO NOT call us and announce to us that you don't know anything about computers. Trust me, we're well aware of that fact. We figured it out the minute you called and announced, "Help, the Internet is broken!" People who know about computers don't call us.

Rule 4

DO NOT call us and act as if you know all about computers and that you're doing us a favour by gracing us with your call. This irritates us more than rule 3. Chiming in with stupid suggestions and comments only increases the already tremendous temptation we face to use you as an unwitting instrument of destruction and really do some damage to your system. Not that you'd notice.

Rule 5

DO NOT (in addition to rule 4) use acronyms you don't know the meaning of. Just admit that you're completely lost and leave the technical stuff to us.

Rule 6

DO NOT call in if you can't speak English. This might seem like a small thing to you, but we find it just a tad annoying when we try to assess your problem and can only understand every fifth word you say. And no, just because those words may be 'computer' or 'broken' doesn't make any difference.

Rule 7

DO NOT call in hoping to get another tech support guy to tell you something different to what the first one did. If one of us tells you your system is screwed, it's screwed. The second guy is going to simply look at the log and tell you the same thing, it's screwed. That is of course unless you really irritate him and then he's going to make sure your computer has the functionality of a house plant.

Rule 8

DO NOT be stoned or drunk when you call us. You wouldn't think this would need to actually be said, but believe me it happens. If you can't control yourself and must call, at least have the common courtesy to offer us some.

Rule 9

DO NOT tell us that this just happened on its own, as if your computer suddenly was inspired to break for no reason. Simply admit what you did to cause this, so we can help you fix it that much faster. Trying to salvage your pride will only make it worse, because we will find out what you did anyway, and then we will REALLY be annoyed at you for wasting our time.

Rule 10

DO NOT expect us to educate you in the most simple aspects of using a computer. If you can't figure out the difference between a right-click and a double-click, then you really shouldn't be using one in the first place. If you insist on doing so anyway, then buy a book. Or you can pay us £30 an hour to teach you, because we won't do it for free.