Shoot. Self.
I was sitting around yesterday thinking about everything I have going on in my life. You know, all of the things that eat away at my day.Between the wife, the daughter, working, blogging, and playing video games, there's roughly 17 minutes of my day that aren't accounted for.
Some day in the future, I hope to sleep again.
Anyway, having decided I just had WAY too much free time, I decided to get a second job.
Or a third if you include the blogging.
Fourth if you include the fact that I'm a registered sex machine.
Seriously. There's a certificate and everything.
It's laminated.
And what would my new job be? Firefighter? Experimental jet pilot? Mild-mannered news reporter?
Tech support.
Yes, Tech Support.
No, I don't know why I do this to myself.
No, I don't know why I hate myself.
You're probably thinking that they're paying me an ungodly amount of money. That is the only possible reason to put myself through that kind of torment.
Not so much.
My boss isn't actually paying me.
Half of you are confused. The other half know exactly where this is going because it's happened to them too.
This is how my first call went.
[GM]Dave>> Tech Support. Dave speaking.
[GM]Dave>> How can I help you today?
Susan>> There's something wrong with my computer.
[GM]Dave>> Uh huh.
[GM]Dave>> Can you tell me what kind of computer you're using?
Susan>> You're right there.
Susan>> You can see it.
[GM]Dave>> Uh huh.
[GM]Dave>> Have you contacted your system administrator?
Susan>> THAT'S YOU.
[GM]Dave>> Okay...
[GM]Dave>> What seems to be the problem?
Susan>> Why are we pretending we're on the phone?
[GM]Dave>> I didn't catch that, ma'am.
[GM]Dave>> Could you speak directly into the phone?
Susan>> ...
Susan>> Fine. Whatever.
Susan>> It's acting funny.
[GM]Dave>> Is it performing unwanted actions?
[GM]Dave>> Or is it doing impressions?
Susan>> You know what I mean.
[GM]Dave>> Please be more clear, ma'am.
[GM]Dave>> What exactly is it doing?
Susan>> Sigh...
Susan>> I'm getting pop-ups.
Susan>> And some programs aren't working.
[GM]Dave>> Okay... Got it...
[GM]Dave>> Let's reboot the system and see if that helps.
Susan>> That didn't work.
Susan>> You just watched me reboot the thing.
Susan>> Rebooting doesn't help.
[GM]Dave>> Okay...
[GM]Dave>> Let's go ahead and shut it down.
Susan>> Are you getting me to reboot it again?
[GM]Dave>> Go ahead and shut it down.
Susan>> I'm seriously going to hurt you if that's it.
[GM]Dave>> Is it shut down yet?
Susan>> You know it is.
Susan>> You're twelve feet away.
[GM]Dave>> Okay... Let's just wait a minute.
Susan>> If you're just doing a reboot...
Susan>> I swear to God, I will punch you in the trachea.
[GM]Dave>> Just a minute.
Susan>> I'm not kidding.
[GM]Dave>> Okay, go ahead and start her back up.
Susan>> I hate you.
[GM]Dave>> Did that fix the problem?
Susan>> You know it didn't.
[GM]Dave>> Uh huh, uh huh.
[GM]Dave>> What were you doing when you noticed the problem?
Susan>> I was downloading episodes of Project Runway.
[GM]Dave>> What kind of virus scanner were you using?
Susan>> I have no idea.
Susan>> Did you put one on there?
[GM]Dave>> So... You were visiting random websites.
[GM]Dave>> With no actual virus protection?
Susan>> Only a bunch of Chinese ones.
[GM]Dave>> ... Wow.
Susan>> What do I do?
[GM]Dave>> Do you have Windows?
Susan>> Yeah.
[GM]Dave>> Open the nearest and place the computer outside.
[GM]Dave>> It'll be safe now.
She didn't find that part funny.
You know what I didn't find funny? Spending the next six hours trying to fight off the horde of viruses that she had let gangrape her computer.
Oh, and a rootkit. A rootkit that disabled any and all rootkit removal tools.
You'd think that they would mention that on the download site.
Warning: This program doesn't do shit.
A rootkit removal program that fails to remove a rootkit has failed on a fundamental level.
Hours and hours of work trying to save files and pictures only to have to reformat the entire thing and spend ANOTHER six hours downloading and reinstalling everything.
Along with six virus scanners.
Don't worry, computer. I won't let the bad woman hurt you anymore.
posted by Goblin Smithy @ 6:55 PM
20 Comments:
I feel your pain.
I have, for some reason, turned into the tech support guy for my entire extended family.
Thankfully you were on Tech Support that day and not on Game Master. I'd hate to see what would happen if Susan asked to see the Complaints Manager...
I'm tech support for my extended family too, which usually isn't that bad since I like computers and I like my family. The problem, though, is that my grandfather is very trusting about the websites he visits and things he downloads. After a few hours of work a found over 200 viruses and a rootkit or two, and it was mostly usuable again.
Though that computer really jsut needed to be dunked in holy water for a while and then dried out and burned.
I feel your pain [GM] Dave, I truly do, I'm a network admin, except, you know, I get paid.
Anyway, I'm sure you probably already know about this but Malwarebytes (http://www.malwarebytes.org/) is a pretty good tool. It can usually detect and remove a good number of things.
Rootkits are tricky, some simply can't be removed without a format / reinstall cycle, and even with the ones you can remove some damage system files.
Read: Commitcourser
Read: (any)toolbar
Read: My sister is retarded
The sad part is, all this happend AFTER she moved out of the house and was just comming over to look stuff online. After that incident, I created seprate accounts for all the computers and I have the only admin acsess. My parrents don't install things, and I probly couldn't trust them anymore than her...
I also force everyone on my network to use firefox. Might not help as much as people may think it does, but it makes me feal alot better...
As long as we (Read: I) are complaining, since when is "any" an HTML tag? blogger is also retarded. Not everything in greater than-less that brackets are HTML!
No, but there are such things as custom tags, and HTML parsers need to recognize those too.
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LMFAO @ Dyamalos for calling the one computer in his parent's house (where he lives) his "network".
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...
And, Dave, I work for Verizon Wireless... and every time I sell an air card / netbook / MiFi to someone, they think I'm they're tech support for life. I had a man and his wife come in the other day, and they had somehow firewalled the air card and the program it uses from their computer.
Needless to say... I told them that since it wasn't an issue with Verizon services, I wasn't able to help them.
Though I could have.
However, I don't get paid for that shit.
I found a great thing, to stop being tech support for family (and local neighbours) :
"I'm sorry, i was good some time ago, but technology has changed a lot, i'm really not aware of new stuff, did you buy your PC 6 years ago or more ?"
Answer is always no.
"Then i can't help you, sorry".
Damn it works great, just try it.
My mother is the family tech support guru. I'm the second-generation tech support guru that only goes to my mother for problems I haven't learned how to solve yet, and then only if I can't find the solution on Google.
Ironically she learned to be a tech support guru by CALLING TECH SUPPORT and then REMEMBERING THE SOLUTIONS THEY TOLD HER (back before Google, that is). But apparently this is too hard for my family.
I want to see that laminated certificate!
I so knew where that was going...
Unpaid tech support for my in-laws here. That included presenting me with a computer case with a hard drive in and asking if I can fix it.
No CD rom, No driver disks, no WORKING harddrive. Please Fix as my tax return stuff is on there and I don't have a back-up
I want to be able to feed people to Jormy, I really do.
@ Kasha
That "certificate" may be laminated, but I think he's refering to something that looks more like a rolled up scroll than a card.....IF you get my meaning.
Hmm...I think I might try that new laminate that just came out.....or use a balloon....
Both of the PCs in my house are running Microsoft Security Essentials (what the heck, it's free, and from what I heard pretty decent), that and I told everyone to use Chrome.
So far no one has keyloggered my MMO passwords yet. >.>
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To Abe:
Yes, because obviously since I only talked of the computer my sister used I only have one computer.
Also, this was years ago, but the time frame didn't seem to matter to the story...
Think before you sound retarded.
Oh wait, too late.
See what I did there?
Eat a bardiche.
"[GM]Dave>> Do you have Windows?
Susan>> Yeah.
[GM]Dave>> Open the nearest and place the computer outside.
[GM]Dave>> It'll be safe now."
A bit late, but I just had to say that windows line was classic. It's being able to come up with lines like that on a regular basis that makes me jealous of you, Dave. Once every few weeks I may come out with a line like that, but that's it.
I love to write, anything, comedy, drama, fantasy, etc. I really do. So why is it always like pulling teeth...? :(
I have Windows, too! But I run it in its own partition on my Mac.
Whenever I have to use it on the web, I feel so ... vulnerable. You and Susan both have my sympathy.
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