It's official. The MACHINES have taken over. ABSOLUTELY NO company on Earth is manned by HUMAN BEINGS. You have a problem, go through the infinite maze of button pushing, and maybe -- just maybe (say as the world as we know is ending) -- you might luck up and reach a human voice -- the LAST PERSON ON EARTH (from Outer Mongolia). However, s/he will not understand your language at all, and you will be placed on hold for a moment -- your last thought as you lose your grip on reality will be "I only wanted to get my (cell phone / car / computer / etc.) to work. I guess that was just asking too much...
"They're coming to take me away -- haha..." -- Napoleon XIV (1966) --> They're coming...
Haylee V
Comments
I know what you mean
I had big problems with my internet connection a couple of years ago. No matter what I did, I could not get past the script reading Indian call center. They are setup with the assumption that no one can possibly understand the equipment they are 'given' and everything can be resolbed by switching it off and powering it up again.
In my case, the Router was obviously faulty. The red light on the front told me that. After being accused of being colourblind, I switched suppliers away from the major ISP's to a smaller UK based company.
Now if I have a problem, the phone is answered by someone (not a machine and no option selection) in the UK who actually can resolve the problem. Yes, it costs a little more than the other supplier but... the service is superb.
I do appreciate that not everyone has the option to select their ISP but the principle of looking outside the major players remains and especially finding people/companies with good reputations can pay dividends.
However I hate the endless option selection you get these days. The worst I have had was where with all the repeated disclaimers and liability limiting statements, it took me almost 10 minutes to get to the point where I was put through to a human. Luckily, I was not paying for the call.
Samantha
I wish I had a choice in ISP providers...
No one here, but the cable company provides high speed internet service, and their customer service is rated near the bottom consistently. Typical call, everything goes dead, I get a yellow blinky light on the front of the cable modem showing there is no signal coming from the cable service. I call using my cell phone, go through five minutes of computer "verification", then a couple of more minutes trying to find an operator. Statement to call center: "My Internet service is down. Can you tell me if the outage is scheduled?" Cable company "Let me send a REFRESH signal to your modem." Me: "Please don't, I have a very complicated configuration loaded. The refresh wipes that out. Besides, I just need to know how long the outage will last." Cable company "Let me send that refresh signal again."
GRRRRRR.. once the cable service comes back up, I have to take 30 minutes to reload the port forwarding and DMZ configuration into the modem again, before I can get back to work.
Oh my...
May be the configuration update from your side can be scripted in some programming language? After all it is just few requests over http?
You can *configure* your
You can *configure* your cable modem? The ones from Comcast can't be configured in any useful manner.
That's ok, I just plug *my* router into their modem and do all the fancy config stuff on it.
Also, if the modem is configurable to that extent, surely there's an option to *save* the config to a file on your computer? So that you can then load it back into the modem?
Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks
what gets me these days...
...beyond trying to find a human to talk to to fix your stuff or something like that is that the outsourcing is getting ridicules to the point where you can't apply in person for a job at a growing list of places now. You have to apply online now and send your resume to who knows where even though the place you're trying to get a job at is hurting for people. They're not even allowed to take your resume in person either. It's even worse applying online because most have you fill out this weird personality quiz where you have to hope you fill it out in the way their computer wants or the or you'll have to wait between 3-6 MONTHS before you can retake the quiz again to reapply. And you will never know if you got the quiz right.
It's incredably insulting that the person who shows interest in working for the place in question can't actually apply in person anymore.
And this is progress?
when the computer says No all the time.
For a laugh I took one of these so called aptitude tests around 2008.
It came back saying that I was totally unsuited for a career in IT.
After I'd ROFL'd, I went to the employer with my CV.
They said, you need to take a test 'for suitability'.
I simply replied,
"You have been after someone for this role for more that three months. Do you not think that the test might be stopping you from hiring someone that would do the job really well?"
Their reply was
"Corporate dictates our hiring policy."
"So take me on a trial? If I am no good then no one has lost anything."
"We can't do that. Everyone has to take the test."
The company went bust around a year later.
Two months later their HQ was flattened.
I worked in the IT Industry for 40+ years and much of it writing code and building complex systems. I got 2 patents for Video DAC Compression and gave many talks to interest groups about some highly technical stuff. I have been invited to give a series of talks on a particular aspect of software development at a conference in late September but I declined because the conference is in the USA and I'm not inclined to want to travel especially as very soon, I'll have to check my laptop rather than carry it in handbaggage.
So I was not suited to a career in IT? Really...
Samantha (now retired, really)