Sending a message all ‘round the world is accomplished in short order,
But first one has to master some tricks to cross the techie-geek border.
The afore said call is easy enough, all you do is press this key,
But nothing works, until you are pressed to unravel its mystery.
Read the manual thoroughly, we’re admonished at the start,
But the manual’s written succinctly, and it’s hard to get to the heart
Of the matter; that is, firmly planting one’s feat in square one, to
Piece together ounces of knowledge, when we need it by the ton.
The first page says, “Install the battery” by placing the “down side up”.
I’ll try that with alacrity, rejoice, then sip from wisdom’s cup.
But I struggle and struggle for half an hour and only then do I find
That I’m holding the damn piece upside down. That clearly blows my mind.
And so it goes page after page, learning what buttons to push
In a race with exhausted patience, that is rapidly turning to mush.
Soon, I’ll be able to take this device and it’ll do what I want it to do.
Now where is the On/Off switch discussed? I think it was Section 2.
But try as I might, following jot and tittle, I can not get it to work.
I feel inept and depressed and at wit’s end.... a technological jerk.
A phone number’s provided, for those, who have heard no “technical click”.
In order to get 7/24 service from an outsourced Indian Sikh.
I told my guru I did as was told, where page 8 says “Type: star nine”
“Before that”, he opines, “if you type a seven, all will be quite fine.”
I did and it worked: My query? “How would I know about the seven?”
“Experience.”, said he, “A fact you must know.” Help us all, you geeks in Heaven!
Copyright © 2013 by Frank Koerner
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My helper has the notorious habit (that I learned in trying to help fellow workers with their computers) of only learning enough to do the very basic things. For example, she has an iPhone. It took her several months to learn how to take pictures and even to send mail from her phone––I helped her with that. She likes to push buttons wildly and that gets her into a lot of trouble. She got a text message (she knows how to do that––another helper showed her) from that other helper that said she had a voice message. Try as she would, she couldn't get that voice message. Finally, her brother showed her.
I got a new phone recently (desktop) and started through the manual. At some point I just gave up and didn't finish even though I still do not know all the wiz bangs the phone provides. Maybe I'll get back to the manual later, maybe not.
There is an exponential trend here. People are now probably down to about 10% of the functionality of devices they buy. Soon it will be about 5%. In the meantime, help lines are growing and being outsourced to India (soon to poor Chinese farmers). These geniuses will read through the manual and solve our problems for us.
As an aside, I canceled a credit card that wanted to charge me usury rates. After I talked to the Indian with a heavy accent, they required me to go through two other call centers with polite, but long-winded spiels until I could get the deed done.
Ron