Techspertise

I’ve come to regard IT guys with equal parts respect and suspicion. They’re like those expensive heartworm chewables I feed my dog every month; I’m not convinced they actually do anything, but I feel better having them around.

Most recently, I asked a friend of mine in the IT department to explain why my laptop, after only four years of use, suddenly stopped working for good.

“Things break,” he said.

Things break?

MEEEEEEEP. I’m sorry. That answer is unacceptable. 

This man is a professional. He is the cream of the IT crop. I happen to know he has a Ph.Nerd from one of the nation’s top geeknological institutes, and all he has to say about my poor laptop, lying dead on the desk, is things break?

That’s like a doctor saying “People get old and die,” which — oh, nevermind. The point is I expect IT guys to have answers. And if they don’t have answers, I expect them to make them up. It’s CUSTOMARY.

Did I forget to recapacitate my web dongles?

Are my shim-sham receptor chips overfluxed?

Was the tertiary circuit swizzler compromised by a fried podlobster?

Or is it something simple? Like a faulty pixel pack.

I don’t really care what it is. Just tell me it’s something. And tell me it’s something you can fix.

Or better yet! Tell me it’s something I can fix. That’s what the Comcast tech support guys do. They dole out hope in a series of diagnostic steps that have no discernible pattern or relationship to my computer whatsoever. But at least they try.  

— Thank you for calling tech support, my name is Jason. I am probably about 18 years old and riddled with acne. How may I help you?

— Hi, Jason. I am unable to access the Internet this morning.

— OK, Miss O’Brien. Where are you right now?

— I’m upstairs. In our home office.

— Are your upstairs lights off?

— One of them is off. Two of them are on.

— OK, one at a time, go ahead and turn off all of your upstairs lights.

— Done.

— Now tell me what you see.

— The lights are off. 

— Good. That’s a good sign.

— (Yes!)

— Now, Miss O’Brien, do you have a coffee maker in your home office?

— What? Yes, it’s right here.

— Is it on or off?

— It’s on. I’m actually brewing a fresh pot ...

— Unplug it for me.

— OK.

— Once the coffee maker is unplugged, I want you to wait 10 seconds then plug it directly back in to the wall outlet.

— Not a power strip?

— Noooo. It has to be in its own wall outlet. Otherwise we won’t know if there’s such a thing as coffee.

— Right.

— Next, in the reverse order of how you turned them off, slowly turn each of the upstairs lights back on and restart your computer. 

— Last time, the guy told me to close my eyes and count to 30 before restarting. Should I do that now?

— To be on the safe side, yes.

I hover over my laptop as if it were a birthday cake and make a wish. Within seconds, I’m back online and thanking Jason for ... whatever it is he just did.

— No problem, Miss O’Brien. Just glad I was able to help.

— Jason, the feeling is magical. I mean MUTUAL. The feeling is mutual.