![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Computers will be the death of me, Part Deux
I am quickly losing patience with computers. Or specifically, my computer.
This new intolerance began when it occurred to me just how many cumulative months I have spent watching a little blue download bar march agonizingly across the screen, moving as stubbornly slowly as a blue-hair Sunday driver on Tuesday. I imagine my life being measured in these little percent increments. There is plenty of time for all manner of such crazy thoughts while I watch the little download bar's maddeningly miniscule progress. Even worse are the download windows that generate a "time remaining" screen. What they fail to mention is that the time remaining is computer time, not human time. In this skewed measurement (not unlike dog years), "8 minutes" could actually translate into "20 minutes" or more. Please don't toy with me so, download screen. A little more truth in advertising, please.
In this same vein, I am rapidly losing my faith in tech support people. I had trouble with some software, software I've been using regularly for a year or more, which suddenly and inexplicably started producing error messages and stopped doing what it was supposed to (my long-time readers will remember said software from the infamous and aptly-named Computers Will Be the Death of Me post). It took over a week of going back and forth on the support message board before we solved the problem. The whole time I just wanted them to come out and admit they had no idea what to tell me, and stop wasting my time. But I did get a free upgrade to a new version that normally would have cost about $60. So it wasn't all bad.
This week my problem is with sending email via AOL. Sending brief (i.e. 15 lines or less) communiques entails about a 2-minute wait after hitting "send." Anything longer and the entire program locks up and has to be manually shut down via the task manager, with needless to say the mail in question refusing to go to its destination, hanging out in my "Waiting to Send" box like an insolent loafer, drinking all my pop and leaving the cap off the toothpaste. I've already had three tech support guys for breakfast. The first's advice was to restart the computer and shut down all applications running in the task manager, of which there were exactly 0...maybe he doesn't understand that applications don't show up in the manager until they are started. The second wanted me to email him my system info. Which sounds promising, until one realizes that the whole reason I contacted him is I CAN'T SEND LONG EMAILS. Brilliant.
At this point I abandoned the online chat route, which frankly is hella annoying anyway. The tech people are obsequious and pandering to the point of being embarrassing. The conversation is peppered with "I'm sorry you are having this inconvenience" and "I am sure we can get this fixed right away. Thank you so much for your patience" and "Is there anything else I can do for you, Oh Glorious AOL User? Perhaps detail your car or balance your checkbook?" I believe in being polite, but Jesus. I don't need someone licking my boots, I just want to send some freakin' email. The third guy on the phone took me through several basic and ultimately ineffective attempted solutions. I could tell his frustration was beginning to match mine when he asked, "What are you trying to send??" as if I was emailing my friend the complete text of the 9/11 Commission's findings or something (which personally, at $24 a month for crappy dial-up access, I think I should be able to if I was really so inclined). He finally mumbled something about having to check with the server people and trying again after 24 hours. Translation: "I have no idea what to tell you." Later today I will probably uninstall the software and reinstall, typically a master problem-solving technique for almost every kind of software.
I wish I could find someone to pay me $17 an hour to sit on my butt and tell people to uninstall and reinstall. I wish even more AOL would work the way it's supposed to or lower their prices accordingly. Yeah, right...
This new intolerance began when it occurred to me just how many cumulative months I have spent watching a little blue download bar march agonizingly across the screen, moving as stubbornly slowly as a blue-hair Sunday driver on Tuesday. I imagine my life being measured in these little percent increments. There is plenty of time for all manner of such crazy thoughts while I watch the little download bar's maddeningly miniscule progress. Even worse are the download windows that generate a "time remaining" screen. What they fail to mention is that the time remaining is computer time, not human time. In this skewed measurement (not unlike dog years), "8 minutes" could actually translate into "20 minutes" or more. Please don't toy with me so, download screen. A little more truth in advertising, please.
In this same vein, I am rapidly losing my faith in tech support people. I had trouble with some software, software I've been using regularly for a year or more, which suddenly and inexplicably started producing error messages and stopped doing what it was supposed to (my long-time readers will remember said software from the infamous and aptly-named Computers Will Be the Death of Me post). It took over a week of going back and forth on the support message board before we solved the problem. The whole time I just wanted them to come out and admit they had no idea what to tell me, and stop wasting my time. But I did get a free upgrade to a new version that normally would have cost about $60. So it wasn't all bad.
This week my problem is with sending email via AOL. Sending brief (i.e. 15 lines or less) communiques entails about a 2-minute wait after hitting "send." Anything longer and the entire program locks up and has to be manually shut down via the task manager, with needless to say the mail in question refusing to go to its destination, hanging out in my "Waiting to Send" box like an insolent loafer, drinking all my pop and leaving the cap off the toothpaste. I've already had three tech support guys for breakfast. The first's advice was to restart the computer and shut down all applications running in the task manager, of which there were exactly 0...maybe he doesn't understand that applications don't show up in the manager until they are started. The second wanted me to email him my system info. Which sounds promising, until one realizes that the whole reason I contacted him is I CAN'T SEND LONG EMAILS. Brilliant.
At this point I abandoned the online chat route, which frankly is hella annoying anyway. The tech people are obsequious and pandering to the point of being embarrassing. The conversation is peppered with "I'm sorry you are having this inconvenience" and "I am sure we can get this fixed right away. Thank you so much for your patience" and "Is there anything else I can do for you, Oh Glorious AOL User? Perhaps detail your car or balance your checkbook?" I believe in being polite, but Jesus. I don't need someone licking my boots, I just want to send some freakin' email. The third guy on the phone took me through several basic and ultimately ineffective attempted solutions. I could tell his frustration was beginning to match mine when he asked, "What are you trying to send??" as if I was emailing my friend the complete text of the 9/11 Commission's findings or something (which personally, at $24 a month for crappy dial-up access, I think I should be able to if I was really so inclined). He finally mumbled something about having to check with the server people and trying again after 24 hours. Translation: "I have no idea what to tell you." Later today I will probably uninstall the software and reinstall, typically a master problem-solving technique for almost every kind of software.
I wish I could find someone to pay me $17 an hour to sit on my butt and tell people to uninstall and reinstall. I wish even more AOL would work the way it's supposed to or lower their prices accordingly. Yeah, right...