Lets Get Technical

I'm a mild mannered feller really. A laugh, a joke, a bit of lip and that's it. No rough stuff. No getting stroppy after a few beers. Life's good and I like it that way.

But there's a problem.

And I need technical support.

So I pick up the phone. And that's where the fun starts, because try as I might I just can't keep a lid on it when I get the village idiot on the line. It's a case of light blue touchpaper and stand well back.

I can trace my bad phone attitude back to phone feud with Vodophone over a cellie I didn't want. It was one of those crazy situations caused by the Three Call Centre Stooges. For Larry, Curly and Mo, read Billing, Sales and Tech. All in three different parts of the planet and speaking different corporate languages.

Yes, I sent it back within fourteen days... Yes I have the documentation. Yes they DID credit my account, but not the interest, which is why I still get a bill for late payment. So every month I get 80p added to the bill, and every month I get to listen and listen and listen to that sodding "Get Yourself Connected" song. What's that he's singing for the thirteenth time?

What these phone jockeys don't get is that it's the "Press one for sorrow, two for Joy" recording, followed by the "we value your business but your call will be answered in 40 minutes" stuff that starts the windup. I'm usually fine if the person on the other end eventually is a human being who gives a shit.

Most of the time though I get a speak-your-weight machine who is doing the job by rote and would rather be at home watching Neighbours re-runs instead of helping the public figure stuff out.

Usually the Tech dudes are the most helpful, because half the time they live eat and sleep the stuff they're talking about anyway.

But the bigger companies, well they've got another axe to wield.

And today I met the daddy of them all. Apple.

Now back when I had a bit of money in my pocket I splashed out on some high end film editing software called Final Cut Pro. Tried it and got lost within seconds. Couldn't get the darned thing to do anything the box said it could do. So I put it on one side and thought I'd have a go when life was a little less crazy.

And this week I decided to have another go. Only the supposedly professional grade software crashed when I tried to do the most basic thing. I struggle through the gobbledegook and nothing came close. I want on the net, looked at the online guides the forums the chat sites. Nowt.

So did what I'd do if I'd bought a Hoover and it broke. I rang up the company.

Now I've been a Mac nut since I could walk. Hated everything else and never lose an opportunity to spread the word. I naïvely thought that the people who worked at the Big Mac Corp would be the coolest of the cool.

My bosses have spent a fortune on high end Mac gear and share my enthusiasm for the coolest Yank product this side of Jack D. And they've filled in all the warranties so I expect that they'll cut us a little slack in the old advice department.

I wait a cool and funky twenty minutes to talk to the gurus and what do I get? The Attitude. The Corporate Steve Jobsworth who has his rules. He can't talk to me about my petty little problem because my 90 days expired. Never mind that this stuff costs over a grand for a poxy CD on a computer that cost more than my car. This American hero is playing it right by the book. I need to buy basic advice in the time honoured American way.

The shtick is that this Final Cut Pro is high end and it needs highly paid expensively paid guys to spend twenty minutes trying to tell me I need to buy a 500 quid a year advice plan to be told (as I found out from some 15 year old kid an hour later) that I need to pull my Firewire cable out of the socket before I playback, and THEN I hear the sound I was expecting. Money well spent! Happy Apple!

This is where I turn into the foul mouthed guy they always use in callcenter training tapes. I'm the reason they record the calls. Just so they can all snigger at the way that the crazy Yorkshire guy goes off on one. "I'm sorry sir, but if you continue to use that tone then I may have to terminate the call..." "THEN FUCK RIGHT OFF YOU USELESS WANKER!!!" I nearly say.

But after years of cellphone company fun I know the drill. I start to slow the conversation down to a crawl and see how long I can get before I start swearing at the well-trained well paid well-drilled obstructive little shit on the end of the line.

I met my match at Apple because even their customer care rep was a self-important snob. I'm trying to explain that if a company spends over 7 grand on one computer setup they're going to be a mite hacked off if the software freezes inside two minutes every time it's used. And even more hacked off if the droids banging the phones start saying "More money please" before they'll offer any sort of help. "I'm sorry sire but..."

If a grand's worth of software won't run it is NOT professional grade, and getting cocky about how professional the stuff is, and that "maybe, sir, you are not appreciating the subtleties of this complex, high end product" isn't going to go down too well out here in real life. . I'm appreciating the subtleties all right. I just bought a BMW that won't bloody start and you're charging me for calling a locksmith!

Yesterday I was an Apple Evangelist, saving souls and converting the masses. Today I bit into the core of the rotten pippin and found myself a worm.

I fully appreciate that, yes, I exceeded my 90 days and I forfeited my right to know that I should remove my firewire cable before the thing will work properly. I should pay for that deep wisdom with hard cash. Yes, they were totally right, I'd exceeded the warranty. And I am totally wrong for expecting any kind of help with this useless piece of crap I spent a grand on. Never mind the fact that the CD wasn't taken out of the box for five months. I broke the rules. I should pay for getting a jump start. The customer is, in this case, wrong.

But I happen to believe that somewhere there used to be customer service that wasn't there to make excuses for the system, get me to accept the rules of the game and spend more money. Customer service used to mean more than doing things by the buck.

As for Apple, well I guess I'm now into raspberries...

Blogga