Brain Is Currently Offline

(I am having connectivity issues. I work in tech support myself for a different company, so I am already aware of all the troubleshooting steps prior to the call.)

Agent: “Thank you for calling [company’s name]. How may I assist you?”

Me: “Yes, I was calling because the modem is offline and I wanted to see if it’s an outage, a modem issue or signal issue.”

Agent: “Okay, so you can’t connect to the Internet?”

Me: “No, I can’t because the modem is offline. I wanted to see if there is a network issue since it’s offline.”

Agent: “Do you have a router?”

Me: “Yes, but that doesn’t—”

Agent: “Okay, I will need you to remove the router and plug the modem directly to the computer.”

Me: “That won’t work. The modem is offline. I would like to find out why it’s offline.”

Agent: “I’m sorry, but in order to help you get online, you’ll have to remove the router and plug it in.”

Me: “No, I don’t. The modem only has the power and a blink receive light. It’s unable to get the receive signal from the network which means it’s a signal issue, modem issue or outage. Did you even check my modem in the system?”

Agent: *silence*

Me: “So, can you tell me why my modem is offline?”

Agent: *pauses for a moment*

Me: “…Hello?”

Agent: “Have you removed the router yet?”

Me: “Check my modem or get me a supervisor.”

Agent: *huffs* “Hold on…”

(The agent reluctantly puts me on hold to check. The kicker? When she returned five minutes later, she confirmed it was a network outage after all.)