Final Pit Post

This is the last post on the current tech issue. I’m trying to remind myself that I have much to be thankful for:

1. The guy that I spend three hours on the phone with today (Monday) at least told me his name—Vanuatu. Oops…nope, that’s the name of an island group in Melanesia (west of Fiji). But his name is something like that.

2. That he was actually polite and didn’t try to tell me that problem was my fault. The first guy tried to imply that. Vanu actually apologized dozens and dozens of times.

3. I finally understand what was wrong with the computer. According to Vanu, it had a “weird” registry issue. Right. That was my first thought too.

4. Vanu took control of the laptop so that he was manipulating it from south India. Kind of cool, but spooky too—cursors and characters dancing across the screen.

5. After three hours on the phone, Vanu and I got to know each other very well. In south India it can get over 130 degrees in the summer. He told me the problem was “global warming.” I thought about disagreeing, but I really, really wanted the computer fixed.

6. And most importantly, after a total of six hours: three Saturday and three today, the computer now works!! I received an email tonight from Microsoft asking me to rate their service. I don’t think I’m going to respond—I have to be nice; I’m a pastor’s wife.

Trust Mr. Bob

Still no modem. I’m going through withdrawals. Though the house is marginally cleaner and I’m making croutons from scratch. My Luddite tendencies are coming back, especially when I consider how long I’ll be on tech support trying to get the modem, router, wireless printer, and computers all communicating happily again. It’s like an ombudsman for the Hatfields and McCoys. It occurred to me that if Osama bin Laden really wanted to bring the US to its knees, all he had to do is have his operatives infiltrate tech support. It should be fairly easy—Pakistan is next-door neighbor to India. And getting hired is easy. They just need to be able to say, “Hi, my name is Bob, and I am happy to assist you today. What is your problem?”

Fifteen minutes into the conversation, “Bob” would say, “Now, Miss Keller, we are going to access your internal hard drive and delete all files that troubling you. Afterwards, everything will be hunky-dory.”

Me: (very giddy) “Oh, thank you, Mr. Bob.” Halfway into the procedure the monitor would flash up the warning, “Are you sure you want to continue with this? It may cause a complete system failure.”

Me: “Uh, Mr. Bob, do I need to backup up my system?”

Mr. Bob: “Oh, no, Miss Keller, that would be waste of your valuable time. Let me assure me that after we finish this, everything will hunky-dunky.”

I would delete the files.

Mr. Bob: “Now after hang up, you will need to reboot the system? You understand?”

Me: “Oh, yes, Mr. Bob. And thank you so much for your help.”

Mr. Bob: “No problem.”
After hanging up and rebooting, the blue screen of death would pop-up. That’s all it would take. Maybe I should be hoping my modem doesn’t arrive, ever. Nah. I trust Mr. Bob.