How To Keep Your Online Devices In Line

Me: “Thank you for calling [Company] DSL tech support. How can I help you?”

Customer: “My modem bit me.”

Me: “It… bit you?”

Customer: “Yeah, I went to turn it off and it bit me. And now it’s staring at me every time I try to get back in the room.”

(The modem has two red lights on the front that are lit solid when everything is working properly. The customer also sounds like they’re not exactly sober, so I decide that giving them a logical response won’t be much help to them.)

Me: “All right, what you should do is turn the light on in the room, close the door, and go to bed. The modem will stay up all night trying to get to you, but be stuck in the room. By morning it’ll be too exhausted to fight back and you can duct tape it to the desk to keep it in line from now on.”

Customer: “Thank you!” *hangs up*

(The next day, he actually called back to compliment me for solving his problem!)