I am offering tech support to a new customer of our ISP who has never used the Internet before.

Me: “Remember when I explained what a tab was, and what a browser was?”

Caller: “Yes.”

Me: “Okay. I need you to open another tab.”

Caller: “And what will that do?”

Me: “It will open another window so you can look at the Internet on two separate tabs.”

Caller: “No! That will download a new Internet! I can’t afford two Internets!”

That was a fun explanation.

Related:
Sooo Not Ready For The Internet, Part 9
Sooo Not Ready For The Internet, Part 8
Sooo Not Ready For The Internet, Part 7
Sooo Not Ready For The Internet, Part 6
Sooo Not Ready For The Internet, Part 5

I moved to New Zealand about ten years ago. When we first came, we needed Wi-Fi ASAP, so I got the first Wi-Fi provider and new phone plan I could find.

I settled into my new home. After a while, inflation became even bigger, and [Wi-Fi Provider Company] was raising their prices. Up to this point, I never really worried about or considered my bill; I just paid it, and it was done. But then, I get this ridiculous bill sent to me. I watch my bill for a few months and use the least amount of data, etc., that I can. My bill is still ridiculously high.

So, I start researching better options and come across a great phone plan and Wi-Fi provider. I go to the mall where they have a store and set up an account with them and everything. Since my old supplier has a store a few meters away, I go to them to cancel my account.

Worker #1: “Hello, can I help you?”

Me: “Yes, please. I just came in here to cancel my plan and account. I’ve moved to a new provider.”

Worker #1: “Oh, yes. You can easily do that over the phone; it’ll save so much time. But we can do it in-store now if you like.”

I have dinner plans, so I decide to go home and do it over the phone. I don’t really know why it would be easier over the phone, but this guy seems nice enough to take his word on it.

I call the next day, asking to cancel my plan and delete my account. I don’t get the same guy that talked to me in the store (but that is totally fine).

Worker #2: “Ma’am, you’re going to have to come into the store in order to do that. We need to be able to identify you in order to shut down any accounts.”

Me: “But another employee said I could do it over the phone. Apparently, it’s faster?”

Worker #2: “Yeah, we can do it over the phone. But we still need you to come into the store and give us your number and ID so we know it’s your account.”

Me: “Okay, I’ll just come down, then.”

And I end the call. I get yet another worker when I come in. I explain what I want to do.

Worker #3: “I’m just a trainee, and I’m not allowed to do that. My manager just went to lunch, but you could wait for about ten minutes until she comes back. Or you could just do it on the phone.”

Me: “I was told I have to come into the store to do it. I’ll just wait for your manager.”

Bear in mind, I’m speaking really nicely to these people, but at this point, I’m just annoyed and want to get it over and done with.

I wait for the manager. When she comes back, I tell her what I want. 

Manager: “Unfortunately, you have to do that online or over the phone. There’s nothing I can do here.”

Me: “But several of your colleagues have said otherwise.”

Manager: “I’ll have a talk with them, but that’s just how it works.”

I take my leave and call from my car. Another worker answers and tells me I have to be IN-STORE for this. I tell him that I’ll come in AGAIN. I walk back into the store, and the manager sees me and asks me if she can help me.

Me: “I have been told I can easily close my account over the phone several times. When I’ve tried doing just that, they’ve said I need to be in the store. I was just in my car and called after you said it has to be done over the phone. Guess what they said?! I HAVE TO BE IN THE STORE!”

I don’t really shout but I show my irritation clearly on my face.

Manager: “Who did you talk to? I’m sorry about the inconvenience. I’ll have to talk to them. But you need to do it over the phone.”

Me: “You know what? I’m just not going to pay my bill anymore. I’m on a new plan and provider, so I’ll be fine.”

I left.

For about three months, I still got a bill, even though I hadn’t used them at all. Eventually, I got an email saying my account had been deleted because I hadn’t been paying my bill, and if I wanted to set it up again, I would have to do it in-store. In my mind, I joked, “No, it can also be done over the phone, right? HAHA!”

Me: “Thank you for calling [ISP]. This is [My Name]; how can I help you?”

Caller: “I do not have an operating system!”

Me: “Can you click ‘start’ on your computer?”

Caller: “I’ve done that. Now what?”

Me: “Congratulations, you now have an operating system!”

Caller: *Profusely* “Oh, thank you! Thank you!“

In 2010, I am renting a house with a bunch of other guys in their twenties. Our landlord lives in the guest house in the backyard garage, and she also keeps the wireless router there.

One day, our Internet goes out. My fellow tenants and I are pretty good with the tech stuff, and we diagnose that the problem is beyond our own network. Something is preventing a signal from reaching our house from the utility line, and after waiting two days hoping the problem will fix itself, we have to call [Internet Provider] customer support to send a guy out and fix it.

He arrives five days later. Our landlord is a very friendly Filipino lady in her early sixties, a loving mother, and the kindest soul on the block. She’s everything an opportunistic commission-driven technician loves. But unfortunately for him, she isn’t a dumba**.

The tech is in the middle of explaining what our problem is and comes up with this harebrained story about how we aren’t getting a signal because our Ethernet cable connecting the router to the modem is “kinked”, causing data to “back up like water in a garden hose”.

Let’s pause and reiterate. A major Internet provider’s technician told us that data was backing up in our Ethernet cable because it was coiled, and backing up… “like water in a garden hose”.

He then gives his whole spiel about how the problem could be fixed by buying one of their new $120 routers and spending an extra fifteen dollars on buying an [Internet Provider]-approved Ethernet cable. The idiot takes the bait, and our landlord springs the trap. She calls the other tenants and me to come to the guest house.

The look on the technician’s face is golden. Upon being surrounded by a bunch of twenty-somethings, many of whom work in software and medical tech, we can see his soul trying to jettison out of his butt in a frantic escape. We all walk in with laptops and net diagnostics open, and we plug the laptop straight into the modem to show there’s no down signal. We access the modem properties and confirm that the modem log shows an external outage starting one week ago.

The technician tries to explain that he’ll simply send a call out to see if they can confirm connectivity or something, but our landlord interrupts him to say that he gave her a completely different explanation. She tries to force him to give us the pitch he gave her, but after he refuses and backtracks, she then tells us every single detail.

Coiled cable. Data backing up. Water in a g**d*** garden hose.

After we share a good derisive laugh at this guy, he disappears outside for about ten minutes to make a phone call. He comes back.

Technician: “All right, they’re looking at it. Give us a call if—”

Nope. We held his a** hostage. We bombarded the technician with questions, demanded explanations, and asked him things about the router and the Ethernet cable he was trying to sell that made it somehow better than the ones we already had. All the while, we were really just holding him down while constantly refreshing our connection. We were deprived of the Internet for a week; we had frustrations to vent.

Fortunately for the technician, he was only apprehended by our questioning for a short while. Before we could get any sort of justifiable reasoning for trying to swindle our dear, sweet landlord, the Internet miraculously fired back to life after just ten minutes.

It didn’t matter, though. After that ordeal, we dumped [Internet Provider] forever. Because of that technician, they didn’t just lose that household, but every household my housemates and I moved out to later in life.

I’ve worked in an ISP call center before, and even though I was in billing, I heard horror stories from the techs when we spent time complaining on our smoke breaks. As a result (and I’m fairly technically inclined to begin with), every time I have any sort of connectivity issue, I write down a detailed log of every single troubleshooting step I take BEFORE even calling. I also know that the only thing worse than a neophyte is someone who “thinks” that they know about any of this stuff.

Right now, I’m unfortunately stuck with the half of a broadband duopoly that is slightly less awful than the only other one that can provide service.

My last two times dealing with their support staff were less than helpful.

The first time, I start reading off my list of things that I’ve already attempted, and the tech minion interrupts me with:

Tech Support #1: “Go to [blah blah blah] [Windows system setting].”

Me: “The only computers connected here run Linux.”

Tech Support #1: “You have to go to [Windows setting].”

Me: “That’s impossible. There are no Windows machines here, and the traceroute I ran shows the connection dropping somewhere outside the local network.”

Tech Support #1: “Go into [Windows setting]…”

Me: *Lying* “Yeah, yeah.”

I pretend that I do everything they ask, and only then does it get escalated to someone competent who actually admits that there’s an outage.

The most recent time, I’m interrupted once again when going through the list of things that I have already done.

Tech Support #2: “Do you have another cable that you can use?”

Me: “I already checked to make sure both ends are plugged in; I’ve knocked out cables before.”

Tech Support #2: “You really need to try it with a different cable.”

Me: “Look, I know that you need to make sure that the thing is plugged in. I checked both ends, and I do have a cable tester. It’s a known-good part.”

Tech Support #2: “We can’t proceed until you use a different cable.”

Me: *Lying again* “There, new cable. Still nothing.”

They continued to interrupt when I went off the list of things that I had already done. My pings stopped at the router, a fact that they seemed to ignore, even after a factory reset that wiped all of my settings. After half an hour, they finally sent someone to replace the piece of crap that I was forced to rent because their service is designed to only work with their crap.

What I wouldn’t give for actual choice in terms of connectivity, where maybe I could deal with people more capable than an Eliza bot.