Everyone living in the 21st century is familiar with this scenario: you run into a problem with the internet, a database or other software program on your computer, or have an online issue, so you call Technical Support. Then you wait.
After I have explained my problem and there is the usual back and forth – sometimes with the techy logging into my computer to see the same thing I’m seeing – I start getting comments like:
“That’s not supposed to happen”
“I don’t know why that’s happening”
And then there’s my personal favorite: “I’ve never seen that before”!
I had one of those experiences this morning, with the techy making several attempts to correct the software program, eventually calling in her supervisor, and after all these efforts failed, finally giving me a support case number for them to “followup” with me.
But wait! It gets better: I replied to the email I received from customer service following my session – and it BOUNCED BACK!! The message from my old friend mailer-daemon read, “There was a problem delivering your message to support@******** See the technical details below.”
Of course, there were no details below. The rest of the page was blank space.
OY!!
Unfortunately I know just enough about computer programming and HTML to be a menace. But I honestly feel that my experiences are far beyond the norm. Because my questions – more often than not – do not even have answers! I’m always trying to do things that the programmers apparently never thought of, but which would help me enormously to do my job more efficiently. Occasionally, someone will submit my recommendation to their programmers, but I can’t say that any of these suggestions were actually implemented.
From Constant Contact to Vonage to Excel, the experience is the same.
My all-time record was the day last summer when both my cell phone and my business line were responding to incoming calls with the message that my “mailbox was full” (neither was), and my database – after refusing to open at all – sent me a message that the software that I had been using for a full seven years, “has not been activated”!!! Now THAT was a day that will live in infamy!
It has occurred to me that this is the only kind of technical problem that I ever have: the insoluble ones!