[Francis]

The thing I love about calling tech support - about ANYTHING - is that 10 times out of 10, the mindless drone on the phone knows next to nothing about the subject, and it takes an excruciating half hour or so to walk through all the steps they make you shuffle through, which you've already done AND THAT'S WHY YOU'RE CALLING THEM. Then you're put on hold for 20 minutes while they read through the manual looking for a clue, or sit and pick their nose or god knows what.

After listening to the same scratchy smooth jazz hold music crap for another 20, a new person gets on the line and asks for all the same information, which you provide again, ignoring the throbbing in your temples. The new person is more efficient, realizing they don't know what the problem is in a shorter amount of time, so you're able to get back to the scratchy smooth jazz in like ten minutes instead of 20.

You're transferred to a new guy, apparently in the "tech support department" (what?? who was I talking to for the last 45 minutes??) who only can talk while you are talking, so conversational efficiency once again plummets to the level of caveman like grunting. Conveying information to this guy requires shouting over him, repeating each line 2-3 times. Now you've got a dull pain in the chest, your voice is hoarse and you're seeing flashes of yellow and white lights in your field of vision. Your ear is hot and moist from having an overheated cell phone mashed against it for almost an hour, and you're aware of a subtle screaming noise that you realize is yourself as you're put on hold again.

If you were a completely sociopathic, psychotic sadist with a gift for negative reinforcement, you could not INVENT a more enraging, excruciating experience.

I'm still on hold, and all I'm trying to do is fucking deactivate Photoshop CS2. How hard is this?
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Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[eyewoo]

Go to the Photoshop users forum... (this URL is for Windows)
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/[email protected]@.ee6b366

Leave a message with your frustration.... also leave a question. I've always found it a pretty good source for stuff i needed to know...
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HonePie.com
tumblr blog
digtal art

[neff]

Most time, every average art-forum-user will be able to solve your problems more efficent than some idiot on "tech support"

and to your problem:
You should reinstall windows.
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[Jimmyjimjim]

To the defense of Tech-Support employees:

They deal with an UNBELIEVABLE amount of morons that SWEAR they are doing everything correctly when in reality are just frustrated and have a lack of patience.

One of my jobs as a graphic designer for a TV Station I used to work for was updating the website. This meant that any and all questions regarding "Why can't I get to your site?" were fielded to me from the receptionist. Just doing that was an eye-opener for me.

One call in particular I got was from some lady that swore that the site was down. I went to the site, no problems. What follows in an abbrieviated approximate transcript. The actual call was longer.

ME: "Maam, I'm on the site right now. There shouldn't be any problem."
HER: "Well, it won't open for me, are you sure it not just that you can see it because you're in the TV station?"
ME: "Well, it doesn't work that way. I'm on the internet right now and I can see it fine. Are you sure you're going to 'www.upn31.com?"
HER: "Yeah, it won't open."
ME: "Are you connected to the internet?"
HER: "Yes"
ME: "And you're in Internet Explorer?"
HER: "Yes"
ME: "And you're typing in the address bar- http://www.upn31.com?"
Her: "Yes"
ME: "You're sure you're connected to the internet?"
HER: "Yes."
ME: "Can you get to any other websites?"
HER: "Yes"
ME: "I gotta tell you, I really don't know why you can't see it."
HER: "Well, are you sure the site isn't down for people outside the TV Station? How can you tell it isn't?"
ME: "The site isn't stored here, maam. The servers are off-site. If I can get to it, it's up."
HER: "Well, it IS down. I can get to Microsoft Word fine, so I know it's not my internet."
ME: "Microsoft Word?!?"
HER: "Yeah, it works fine."
ME: "Microsoft Word isn't a website. It's a program."
HER: "It is?"

So basically, she had Windows 95 running on an old machine she inherited. She was going to the search tab and putting in the website address and couldn't figure out why she couldn't get to it. Because she could start her programs, she thought she was on the internet. To compound the problem, when I finally got through to her as to why it wasn't working, I came to find out that she didn't even have an internet service. She was plugging the phone cable into the back of the computer and thought she was magically connected.

I wanted to tell her to get rid of the computer because she obviously wasn't smart enough to use one.

So cut Tech-Support some slack. They deal with tons of idiots like that every day.

[Sumaleth]

Not a support thing, but I had a guy call me at my home number last year and tell me it probably wasn't a good idea for me to be giving away art secrets.

??

I eventually worked out that he was talking about my art-links site. Even after I explained it, he didn't seem to understand that all I did was link to them. Unless he was joking around or something.

Creepy having some random guy call me about the website though.
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Art Links Archive -- Artists and Tutorials

[Jimmyjimjim]

[Mikko K]

You didn't give him any custom brushes did ya?

seriously, that's scary!

[gLitterbug]

You should watch your back Suma, or the art secret preservation cult will fuck you up. Probably going to look like an accident.

Seriously though, that's the creepiest thing ever.

[Awetopsy]

Right now Im trying to deal with the product support for an mp3 player I bought at a closing down "theSource by Circuit City" store. I bought the unit brand new and it didnt work out of the box. Centrios support has stopped responding to my emails and when they were responding they kept trying to defer me to "theSource" support or telling me that they no longer support that particular mp3 player. I have been emailing them for more than 1 month now.

I will never buy a centrios product ever again. Ever.

(edit) sorry dont mean to hijack the thread but needed to vent a little and this thread made me think of it.