h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I work in tech support. Oh the humanity.

Emergency Room doctors see people on what is potentially the worst day of their lives. Policemen see people at their worst. In Tech Support, we speak to people at their dumbest.

Here are some rules to make getting good tech support easy, so even if you such at teh interweb you'll be able to talk to a techie.

1: Be at the computer that isn't working. No matter how good we are, tech support people are not trained to work via telepathy, remote viewing, telekinesis or other psychic mind powers.

2: Know what you're using. If you have no idea what version of Windows you use (and yes, it makes a huge difference) go to Start, Run and type winver in the Open: box. Then click OK. It will tell you. And no matter what you might think you do NOT have ANY of the following:

Windows 99.
Windows XL Home Pro 2000.

3: AOL is NOT an operating system.

4: Do as you are told. Seriously. Only click or type that which you are told to click or type. Don't click or type anything else. And listen to what you're told! If I spell out ipconfig phonetically, letter by letter, PLEASE don't type rpcornflag instead.

5: Get to know your hardware. It's yours so it's reasonable to assume you know what it's called. Do you treat your kitchen appliances this way? If I ask you to find the fridge do you respond "Oh? Which one of the white boxes is that?" No, you do not. Please treat your modem and router with the same respect.

6: It's a modem. Not a Modium.

7: Your internet service may have given you a username and password. Try to remember what they are. If you are asked for a username, provide it. Don't tell us your address, social security number or steam into an intricate description of the issue at hand. We have reasons for everything we ask.

8: No creation of man is perfect. Man makes computers and man makes the internet. Sometimes it breaks. Live with it. You do not have a god-given right to instant planetary communications. So when it breaks, we'll do our best to fix it and you can live without it for a few hours. Go outside. Read a book. Your inability to play online cribbage does not signal an apocalypse.

9: Email is not a transporter like on Star Trek. It is NOT instant. No, it isn't and I can tell you exactly how it works if you have a spare half hour so that you will understand why your ranting seems childish and annoying. Here's a hint: a 35mb digital picture of your gap-toothed grandchild will take forever to send because when it's converted to text so that SMTP can process it, the file doubles or triples in size.

10: Don't pretend to have knowledge that you don't actually have. You sound pathetic when you start mumbling on about subnet masks when the actual problem is that your ethernet cable is unplugged.

11: ...the list actually goes on from here, but it's a tenet of my personal faith that everything should go up to 11.

This list should replace the Ten Commandments!