I receive a text message.
It reads, “Can you help me set up my wireless broadband?”
My friends know that I like a gadgets, and so far seem completely unaware of my inability to use them properly. For this reason I am often asked technical questions like, What is the Interweb? and How do I rewind an MP3?
I turned up at my friends flat to assist in getting her onto the Interweb, in a wireless manner. It took me about 30 minutes to realise I was going to have to call someone at Talktalk, as I didn’t seem to have the information I needed to configure her wireless router correctly.
“That’s how far I got, aren’t you supposed to know about computacators?”, she said pointedly.
“Yes! Now go and make me some dinner woman!” I responded quietly in my head.
After a short wait I got through to a nice Indian lady and explained my dilemma.
“Ah yes, I will give you router settings, are you ready?”
“Yes”
“VBI zero”
“Sorry, is that VBI 0?”
“V for Victor, B for Baba, I for India, zero”
“Right, am I looking for a setting that is VBI0 or is the ‘VBI’ setting zero? Where does this setting actually go?”
“No, V BEE I, Bee as in Baba”
“That’s what I said, VBI as in Baba”
“No, Baba”
“Oh, you mean Papa? You mean P as in Peter?”
“Yes, B as in Beater”
“You see, now I’m confused, your Baba and Papa sound the same, as do Peter and Beater. Do you mean P as in Penguin?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. One setting complete, what’s up next?”
We continued this little telephone dance for the next fifteen minutes and she gave me various other settings for the router that made no sense to me whatsoever whilst my friend stifled her giggles behind a sofa cushion.
To cut a long story short, by 11pm she had wireless broadband and my reputation as a ‘go to’ technical guy remains intact.
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z · October 11, 2006 at 8:27 am
Now, if she’d said ‘I’ll go for a pee, Bob’ you’d have got it first time. I thought that the reason for the Alpha, Bravo system was that one word doesn’t sound like another.
When I’m in India, people find my heavy accent hard to understand too.
Dancinfairy · October 11, 2006 at 8:44 am
At least it only took you one evening. It took us the grand total of three weeks, 2 days and some hours to finally get ours working!
Oli · October 11, 2006 at 8:46 am
The ISPs state income from technical support lines on their annual reports, its funny reading, unless your a customer.
kaz · October 11, 2006 at 9:02 am
Ah – ‘Penguin’ the new Esperanto of the international call centre.
Ranting Dullard · October 11, 2006 at 9:22 am
Somebody asked me recently if I could do the same for them. I remembered that I didnt actually like them and said no.
TJ · October 11, 2006 at 9:28 am
I don’t mean to piss on your chips but it stopped working the next day and hasn’t worked since.
There’s more lasagne in the freezer – when r u coming round?
Murphy · October 11, 2006 at 9:35 am
You’re a knight of the Interweb, Angry. Well done.
Admin comment by Mr Angry · October 11, 2006 at 10:00 am
z – it’s quite good fun making up your own phonetic alphabet. If India had been overun with Benguins, then next up were perpendicular, and parrallelogram.
Dancinfairy – Yes, I am nothing if not quick. Ahem.
Oli – It was her bill, I could care less..
Kaz – Indeed, I wasn’t sure she’d know what one was.
RD – Ahh, with 20:20 hindsight….
TJ – Accidentally pissing on chips? Coming round for dinner? I don’t think so…
Murphy – Fuck me, I’m stealing that!
Léonie · October 11, 2006 at 10:11 am
Could she not just nick someone else’s wireless?
Léonie · October 11, 2006 at 10:11 am
*awaits reaction with glee*
TJ · October 11, 2006 at 10:42 am
That was no accident!
I always put a special ingredient in your food – call it favouritism!
p.s. leonie – that was the first thing he tried but the flat below has it blocked
Oli · October 11, 2006 at 10:59 am
I was convinced TJ was a bloke till today.
AFC 30K · October 11, 2006 at 12:11 pm
My Brother-in-Law is an IT guru – he logs in to our home pc remotely to fix any problems. A wireless router configure in a matter of minutes. Sometimes I feel that I’m truely blessed
Dr J · October 11, 2006 at 12:31 pm
We’ve just moved house. Plugged the ould router in and good to go in minutes. Honestly Angry what’s the matter with you?
*Definitely not letting on Router already set up by techie friends after previous loss of wirelessness dabacle*
BoyOnTop · October 11, 2006 at 12:33 pm
Never ever call help desks. They will invariably confuse and make worse any situation. The person on the other end of the line likely knows less than you and is just answering off a preconfigured script.
TJ · October 11, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Oli, I’m wounded!
greavsie · October 11, 2006 at 1:18 pm
Swear at it.
I did that with my Broadband connection and it worked (and after banging the mouse up and down on the mousepad of course)
*eats un-pissed on chips*
Oli · October 11, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Sorry TJ!
Angry, just remove all the security settings and it will probably work, its what I did with my parents. Its not your broadband so you dont need to worry about people stealing it =D
Admin comment by Mr Angry · October 11, 2006 at 5:12 pm
Léonie – Hmph. I said HMPH!
Oli – I still remain unconvinced.
AFC – Guru Shmuru, you can fix anything if you play with it long enough.
Dr J – This was new, so I had to use all of my vast technical knowledge.
BoT – Apart from the language issue, she was actually quite helpful (in that she gave the required answers…eventually)
greavsie – I tried that, and a little gentle coaxing. Threats of violence seemed to do the trick (from TJ to me, not me at the router)
Oli – Look, despite what she says, it was working fine when I left it, along with its 32 bit security doobery thingy.
Everyone, why is noone pointing out that TJ obviously broke it?
Ldbug · October 11, 2006 at 5:57 pm
You have a lot more patience than I do when talking to tech support! I currently have a small problem with my computer and I’m putting off calling Dell for as….long…as…possible……….aw hell.
ellie · October 11, 2006 at 9:27 pm
But were your powers of telepathy as potent? ie: did your friend busy herself preparing a meal of her Knight of the Innerweb?
DofF · October 11, 2006 at 10:49 pm
Technology does not like me,
I have bought two MP3 players. The first one i couldnt get working , the second , a creative zen , stopped working for no apparent reason in two weeks,
and now my internet at home keeps cutting out every 3 minuites.