Had a lovely holiday-at-home over the long weekend. Trang and I borrowed some of Jason’s DVD collection and spent the weekend relaxing and watching DVDs. Very relaxing indeed, and lots of quality time, too. Highly recommended.

I’ve lost some of the benefit of that relaxation this morning, though. Notes for the sadistic among you: If you ever really want to torture support staff, report problems in the following way:

  • Say ‘My computer’s not working’, then stop. Support people are all psychic, so you don’t need to tell them what in particular is not working, or indeed if your computer has turned into a hamster and is hiding under the desk. They’re paid enough, they should already know what the problem is.
  • When asked about the error, say something along the lines of ‘%some_program% gave me an error message.’ Make sure to have clicked ‘OK’ or similar on the error message, without reading it, so that when you’re asked about it, you can say ‘I can’t remember’.
  • Remember also not to make any effort to duplicate the problem. All problems are equally important, regardless of if they can be reproduced before the heat death of the universe or not.
  • Most importantly, don’t reboot your computer or restart the program in question. Then complain when the support person tells you to do just that that’s all they ever tell you to do.

OK, I’ve vented, feel a bit better now.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to this weekend as well – I’m attempting to book in Friday as Computer Game day, which is going well so far. Here’s hoping I manage it.