I'm not your personal tech support.

[Tigress]

Last night, was a slow night... If you weren't answering the phone.

Had this one chick that kept calling every hour, trying to get a tech to help her with her user accounts. The first time she pulled this crap, she couldn't remember her password on her computer. This time it was to remove a (apparently) non-existant "guest" account off her computer.

Okay, if it's a pretty easy problem to fix and we're feeling generous, we'll tell you how to fix the problem. But if it's going to take more than ten seconds and/or you can't even find the "start" button, we'll tell you to bring your computer in and charge you labor. We're simply too busy to sit on the phone with someone for ten minutes while we have customers lining up and computers waiting to be worked on. We have a tech support line you can call (for a fee) and you can always call the maufacturer.

Finally, the chick asked me why I wasn't helping her. I went with the diplomatic response and said that it's company policy not to give tech support. The real reason is that we're a retail store and our purpose is to make money. And if it's something I can charge you for, I'm not going to tell you how to fix it for free. I don't care if you're "not good with computers" or "not a technical person". It's not my problem that you won't even bother to educate yourself about that $500 peice of machinery you bought.

[greensinestro]

Sounds like the problems I deal with. I work in technical support, but SC's think my duties are expanded to include fixing their computers so they don't have to pay someone else to fix it. My job is to help people who need a DUN set up done, are having problems accessing our web site, are having problems viewing their accounts on-line, etc. I am not a Mr Fix It because you know already it's going to cost you a ton of money to fix whatever you did to your computer. It is not your ISP's fault that you got a virus, that you don't know what happened to your START button, that your computer can't detect the modem. That's why that wonderful instruction booklet provides information on who to contact when crap like this happens.

I have one lady who e-mails me at least twice a week for this crap, and much of the time, she wants information regarding her phone bill. Lady, call customer service for your phone, not me. I am not your personal slave.

[UncleImpy]

I'm tellin ya. Oughtta have a mandatory class. You pass it, you get a little 'Im not a computer idiot' card and you're given a small discount on the computer. Dont have it? you pay full price.

I know I read a story several years ago about the university system in the UK offering a 'computer competency' certification course, where at the end you were given a 'computer license', sort of in the same vein as a driver's license. Anyone on that side of the Big Pond that can confirm it?

[Naaman]

I know I read a story several years ago about the university system in the UK offering a 'computer competency' certification course, where at the end you were given a 'computer license', sort of in the same vein as a driver's license. Anyone on that side of the Big Pond that can confirm it?

Not heard of that one over here

The company I used to work for used to offer a setup and two hour tutorial for a fee though, none of the idiots seemed to take it up though.

Getting back to the OP though we converted to having two helpline numbers, one was a Lo-Call rate (charged local from anywhere in the UK) for warranty\hardware issues and a Premium rate for software\user issues. The number of times we got into arguments concerning "This is not a warranty issue, you need to call the other line", prime candidates being Microsoft Works *snicker* and Mail merge (we'd give them the MS Help # to look up) and the bloody "Somehow my taskbar is at the top of the screen and I'm now incapable of Shift-Dragging"....Grrrrrr