Calling, or Curse

I have a special calling. Not an avocation because I don’t love it. Nor is it a true vocation because I don’t get any money from it—in fact, it only gives me suffering and sanctification. My calling is talking to tech support personnel.

I think my phone number must be flagged when I call. The techie doesn’t even tell me his/her name anymore. Nor do they even try to fix my problem. In less than five minutes the tech dude told me the printer had a hardware failure, and they’d be sending me a new printer because it was under warranty. How often does that happen?

See, it has to be a calling. Besides no one I know is on the phone with tech support as much as I am. No one is on the phone even half as much as I am.

Maybe it’s me. After all, I am the person who had to wear copper grounding bracelets—yes, you read that right. Apparently, my personal electricity is a bit “different,” and early computers weren’t shielded well enough.

If you don’t believe me, you could talk to the IT (information technology) people at the publishing house I used to work at about 18 years ago. My office was on the seventh floor, I think we had ten floors—that many people worked at that branch, and the IT people knew me by name. They were always bringing me a new computer. (It got to the point that my boss would send me to another floor when they brought me a new terminal.) They’d pick up my old terminal, which had frozen or printed whimsical characters all over the screen, and take it away for “repairs.” Once the whole computer system for the entire building was shut down—they traced it to my terminal. They had to reboot the entire system from back-up tapes they’d made the night before. Yep, those people knew my name. They probably even had a voodoo doll of me down in the bowels of the basement where their offices were. I knew never to venture down there; I’d never see daylight again.

I guess I have a calling to talk to tech support people. Or, maybe it’s a curse.