Freelance Tech Support Sucks
One of the most entertaining/frustrating things being a member of the Computer Science department is when people in your building find out. Automatically you get calls and texts at all random times during the day about pretty much anything that could have gone wrong with their computers.
Most often people assume you know pretty much anything and everything about computers and all software ever written. I’ve gotten the “I think it’s a virus” or “It just stopped working” calls, usually it is something caused by EBKAC (Error Between Keyboard And Chair). Some users also don’t understand their laptop cannot run for a straight week with everything open and not expect any degradation in performance. I’ve also received calls where their machine degrades in performance for an unknown reason, which is then discovered when you find the hard drive has been filled to the brink with software that doesn’t get used, music, movies, or porn (See EBKAC).
When it comes to calls about “How do I do ‘Action’ in ‘Software Name’?”, I have had some pretty amazed people. I’ve gotten the “You’re a genius!” comments when in reality all I’m doing is this. I have even had people shocked that I knew how to use iTunes and I don’t own an iPod.
Not all calls for help are things that make me lose sleep at night because they weren’t really errors or viruses, I have had times where the machine has completely wrecked the user needed drivers for their hardware because someone else tried to fix it and it just got worse. There are occasions where myself and my colleagues are befuddled as to what the hell just happened to a machine; most recently was a laptop that just stopped loading its BIOS for no reason, except for being 3 years old with extensive use.
But I digress, sure not everyone is studying computers for the undergraduate degree; but people need to learn to take better care of their machines and be more cautions of actions they are unsure of. I also understand why Help Desk & On Call Support is one of the most frustrating jobs ever.
