I am not your customer support bitch!

 Argh! Know what's worse than having technologically incapable relatives? When they all call you to ask for help over the phone.

I've spent a total of two and a half hours over the phone with my mom in the past eighteen hours trying to resolve her printer problems. It took me the first two to weasel the information out of her that the printer was not plugged in to her computer. That's how bad she is about this stuff. She was not capable of telling me that no, it wasn't plugged in. and, this morning, I come to find out that she's been pushing menu buttons on her printer because she thought that the "Photosmart" stuff was a photo printing program, and she didn't want to print photos. Her printer is an HP Photosmart. 

And then, she tells me I'm so good at guiding her through this technical stuff that I should do it for a living. I laughed so hard I thought I would puke. I didn't explain to her that tech support is the number two most hated profession out there. (Telemarketing takes number one, by sole virtue of the cold-calling concept.) People call up tech support specifically to yell at the employee because they're frustrated that they are incapable of making their own printer/fax/computer work. Why on earth would I want to put myself in a position where people call up to vent their explosive tempers on me?!? And, if the customers calling are half as bad as my mom, they won't be able to understand the directions to fix whatever's wrong anyways. *grumblegrumble*


~ciao