Customer Support

[firstfrost]

"Hello, Athena Consulting."
"Hello. We are having trouble with our computers in building 16."
"Yes, there was a power outage on campus, a lot of things are down."
"Yes, we noticed that."
"You noticed the power outage? Is the power still out where you are?"
"Yes."
"Well, yes, your computers usually won't work very well when the power is off."
"Oh, okay. Do you know when they'll be working again?"
"I'm sorry, I don't know, but it's not actually a computer problem, it's a power plant problem. I can really only help with computer problems."
"Okay."

In my heart of hearts, I always wanted to believe that these sorts of phone calls were fictitious. And I surely wanted to believe that nobody at MIT would be confounded by the idea that the computer might not work with no power. Okay, okay, I know your laptop might be on, but still, you ought to be able to imagine that there's some possible relation!

I am sorely disappointed.

Comments

[countertorque.livejournal.com]

Going to MIT does not make you smart :)

Good job on playing that one straight, btw. It must have been difficult.

[twe.livejournal.com]

Going to MIT does not make you smart :)

What he said. :)

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Well, it's *supposed* to.

And I require of people admitted to MIT that they prove willing to *try* to be smart, which is why people who think UNIX is too hard drive me so crazy.

[twe.livejournal.com]

Well, there are lots of different kinds of smart, including smart-on-paper, and one kind doesn't necessarily imply another.

And you certainly don't have to be smart to work at MIT. Perhaps it wasn't a student of prof, but just some random employee?

[mijven.livejournal.com]

Woe. On the bright side, I'm laughing now where I wasn't five minutes ago. :)

[ironrat.livejournal.com]

Perhaps a mitigating factor was that there was a weird combination of what was working and what was not working. Some places had partial lighting (Building 16, in particuarl, looked mostly okay when I walked through it) or power to computers. So I can see the line of thinking that might make it less bad than you think.

Can one rely on nothing in this world?!

[tirinian.livejournal.com]

Mitigating explanations, rather than biting mockery?
Are you feeling ok?

Re: Can one rely on nothing in this world?!

[ironrat.livejournal.com]

If you want biting mockery, I can certainly provide to you.

Re: Can one rely on nothing in this world?!

[rifmeister.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we also had a weird mix of things working. For about 45 minutes, our computers were on, but we couldn't really login or network (maybe AFS problems).

I almost called you twice, firstfrost. Once early on, on the theory that they might've told the people in I/S what was happening, so you might know when the power was coming back. And again when the computers were on but didn't seem to be doing anything useful. Then I got too lazy. Then the computers worked again.

Too Helpful

[baronet.livejournal.com]

Maybe the problem is that you are too often useful and informative. People have come to expect you to know everything. Need to know where Bin Ladin is hiding? Maybe Athena Consulting knows. The caller may have hoped that you'd know what was going on (because you were tied into 'the system', or just because you're a goddess) and could relay that information to him. The caller may have known that there were power problems and computer problems on campus, and was hoping that you could tell them what did and didn't work, and when things would be better.

Maybe if your department had a reputation for being surly and unhelpful, then you wouldn't get so many pesky user calls?

no mitigating factors

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

There's no excuse. We have to accept that sometimes, people are just stupid.

We lost power at the Museum of Science, too. So you may have gotten an idiotic phone call, but I had to help herd 900 13-year-olds into the lobby.

Connection timed

[mjperson.livejournal.com]

Very appropriate choice of music...