THE WORST THING ABOUT HAVING GONE TO SCHOOL FOR "COMPUTERS" IS...

Most folks expect you to know EVERYTHING about them. They also call on you whenever anything goes wrong.

I just hung up from an hour long conversation with my grandmom. With 650 miles between us, we tried her configure old printer so that it works with her new computer.

I love that my grandparents are - considering their age - quite computer savvy.(my grandma emails me on the daily) But despite that fact, there still remains a latent fear that if the wrong button is pushed, they just might blow up the world.

Its especially funny when i talk to my grandfather, because his field is electronics. Seeing him nervous about the computer is kind of amusing.

So...long story short, the printer is still not working. I suck.

Vista is not recognizing the printer, and though i delved deep into my bag of tricks to try to solve the problem, it was to no avail. Unfortunately vista is notoriously finicky when it comes to older hardware.

Spending time on the phone with grandmom reminded me of those nightmarish days when i still was doing the tech support thing. School found me a job through the co op program. I was one of the technical support drones for the end users of PCs manufactured by a large computer corp that has since been swallowed up by another, even greater IT corp.

*cue dreamlike fuzzy sequence*

The call center was an assembly line, with about 50 folks on the floor, talking, plantronics planted firmly on their heads, all looking like little space cadets. Reminiscent of a news ticker, the call que monitor was mounted high on the wall - and at any time you could look up and see how many calls were waiting to be answered, how many calls had been dropped, and how many employees were on the phone @ any given moment.

My first time on the floor i was a wreck. I had sweaty pits, but my hair was fly. I was escorted to my cube(ah the geometric jail cell) and my team leader apprised me that he would be listening in on my phone calls to see how i was doing. Oh. Joy.

I recall the first few calls being issues that were solved relatively easily. Just as i got comfortable I got one call that that through me for a loop. What the issue was i can't remember, but i know that it was something that i was too green to handle.

After about 10 minutes of pathetic troubleshooting(i really had no idea what to do) the lady on the other end of the phone screamed at me:

"Do you even know what you are doing?! I want to talk to your supervisor!"

Her words stung and left me speechless. In typical chick fashion i could feel tears welling up in the back of my eyes. I began apologizing to the lady for my incompetence.

There was a click @ the other end of the line, and i knew that my supervisor had been listening in. Yup. Before i could finish stuttering my words, he was in my cube. He relieved me of the phone call, apologized to the lady for any inconvenience, and escalated the issue to a more senior tech support person.

I knew i was dunzo.

But surprisingly enough, my team lead was really nice and understanding. He explained that every new person gets nervous on the phones, and not to let rude customers affect me. That as i go on, i'll gain more practical knowledge - as opposed to just head knowledge.

Well time went on and i got better at it. A lot better. Most folks i could resolve their issue(s) within a 3 minute period. But the job still sucked. I got out of there as soon as possible.

*End dream sequence*

So now i'm still in IT, but i ain't doing phone support no more. ever.

Regardless, i have family and friends(but mostly family) that call me up whenever they have a computer problem. Like my grandmom. In fact, my mom called me the other day. She was on the web when an alarming window appeared on the screen. The window stated that her PC was infected w/ spy and malware and she needed to run some kind of program. She was ready to freak out until i told her to "relax, its just a pop up. Click the X in the upper right hand corner of the box to close it. DON'T click ok or cancel."

She did that and the "disaster" was averted.

I don't mind being the go-to person, in fact i like to help out when i can. I wish folks would understand that i am not the computer genie though.

It gives me performance anxiety. lol