TECH SUPPORT HELL
by Michael Schein
Part One, in which
Our Hero Purchases
a Program to Allay His Fears
I am the proud owner of McAfee Internet Security Suite 6.0. Do I feel more secure? Check out the logo on their installation wizard. You’ll see planet earth encased in what appears to be chicken wire. I’m secure in the knowledge that my hard drive is now safe from poultry.
Where this tale of woe starts, like everything else that’s going to Hell in a handbasket in this county, is with Fear. Fear of viruses, fear of worms. Those creepy little snippets of evil code that could wipe out our checking balance (something we do pretty effectively ourselves each month), or corrupt the poetry I’ve been struggling to give away free all these years. Corrupt the poetry? What does that mean? “My horse must think it queer / That I have mounted a camcorder to his rear / But I have promises to keep / And miles of feed for other creeps / Miles of feed for other creeps.”
So of course when I downloaded the program it didn’t work. Why should it? We don’t expect anything to work at first. In technical language, during configuration it found a suspicious script and had a cow and sent me into an endless loop of trying to reinstall, sending out dire warnings such as “Fatal Error: Suspicious Cow Patty.”
I uninstalled and reinstalled and had the same problem. I cursed a bit. And, on July 8th I made my first feeble, laughable in retrospect, effort to reach out to the wonderful world of Tech Support. I should have taken the hint when my product – the flagship of their product line – didn’t appear in Tech Support’s drop down menu. And when my e-mail bounced back, with the message “Queue Full”. But I didn’t. I e-mailed “Customer Service”. Which, undoubtedly, is a large, well-financed department consisting of a cranky old lady in a broom closet with a dial-up connection to Beijing Google. I waited four days. I heard nothing.
I e-mailed Tech Support again. “Queue Full”. So they don’t read their e-mail. Hey, I’m sure they’ve got better things to do than to read about the problems of whiney customers. McAfee is clearly a well-run company committed to the credo of all well-run companies, namely, sell crap at the highest price that the market will bear, and then when it doesn’t work, get the customer to pay you lots more to “fix” it by understaffing Tech Support to the point where you drive the customer insane and he is begging you to take more money to put him out of his misery.
On July 16th, the afternoon before leaving for a two-week vacation, I invested in a toll call to Customer Service. The unnamed guy was all unctuous and it was perfect. While he didn’t exactly apologize or buy me lunch, he gave me a toll free number for Tech Support and a pin number to get it for nothing. He assured me it was available 24/7. It wasn’t.
I went for a walk. That evening I uninstalled, reinstalled, and entered my loop-de-loop. Then, brimming with confidence, I dialed my toll free number. In certain circles of hell, “24/7” apparently means 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Central Time, Monday through Friday. It was 7 p.m. Pacific Time. I was SOL.
Little did I know that my troubles
had barely begun.
Part Two, in which
Our Hero Hears a
Pin Drop, and Talks to Supervisors
I had a great vacation. We went to Fenway Park and the Witch
Dungeon Museum in Salem. Those
poor innocent tortured “witches” were lucky they didn’t have Tech Support. Does the urge to buy antivirus software
come from the same part of the lizard brain as the urge to burn witches? If so,
then McAfee, Norton, et. al., are profiting off the Cotton Mather in us all.
On July 30th between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Central I called Tech Support. A nice-sounding man with an Indian accent answered, and immediately requested my pin number, which I proudly gave him. “I’m sorry, that pin number is expired.” Apparently, they are only good for 24 hours. Well, wouldn’t it have been funny if they had told me that when they gave it to me? “No worry,” said the nice man, “just call this number and they’ll give you a new pin.” And a gold-plated key to Never-Never Land.
The number was not toll free, but I called it. After wading through menu options, I found a human. I gave her my tale of woe which, from the canned response I received, I deduced was not the only tale of woe in her long and underpaid day. Still, I expected to hear, “I’m so sorry, here’s another pin.” Instead she said, “The free courtesy pin is a one-time offer, so I can’t give you another.” Well, I replied, of course I understand that it is a one-time offer most of the time, but when you don’t tell someone the key information needed to make it useable, then an exception should be made. “The free courtesy pin is a one-time offer, so I can’t give you another.” But you didn’t tell me. One-time offer. But. One-time. But. One. This was not communication; it was Kabuki.
My wife, ever brilliant in these situations, whispered, “ask to speak with her supervisor.” Of course! The bottom rung has no authority. Poor dear! I felt bad for having abused her. She’s probably got three kids under five, an alcoholic husband, and no health insurance. The supervisor, on the other hand, probably has a liberal arts degree and the Exalted Discretion to Do the Right Thing. On to the supervisor!
I asked to speak to the supervisor. My customer service representative put me on hold while she filled out the proper forms and gave me an “incident number.” Finally, I got the supervisor. I gave her the incident number, and she put me on hold while looking up my file. OHMYGOD! A company that thinks chicken wiring the globe is a good idea now has a file on me.
When she came back, I told my pathetic little tale of woe. It turns out that her job was not to right wrongs, but to explain to me, obviously a blithering idiot incapable of properly grasping the significance of this fact, that the free courtesy pin was a ONE-TIME offer, and that because I had had my ONE TIME I could not have another time because that would be TWO TIMES, and TWO is apparently more than and not in any way equal to ONE. However, I could join an online chat room called Tech Support Ladies with Big Knockers. I asked to speak with the supervisor’s supervisor.
Her name was Veronica, like the rich girl in the Archie comics. I envisioned her with long, sleek black hair, cool in her leather chair behind a great big shiny desk in her air-conditioned office high up in a glass building surrounded by chicken wire. I explained the problem. No problem at all. I was given a new pin. I wanted to send her my first born, but by now she’s already well into her teens and in need of substantial college tuition, so maybe not.
Now I was to really talk to Tech Support. Could a solution be far off? Does the Pope shit in the woods? Insanity is contagious.
Part Three, in
which
Our Hero Finally
Gets Through to Bombay or Calcutta
In case you’ve forgotten, it is still July 30th, and I am calling Tech Support for the very first time with a fully functioning pin number. But before you get too excited, you should know that this was to be the first of twelve calls to Tech Support over the next week, and the program would never fully function. There; I’ve given away the ending. But oh, how Satan’s Drool (rock bands, take note) lubricates each precious detail . . .
The Tech Support line was answered by a heavily accented Indian man called “Mark”. Apparently, the Company issues Anglicized names to its outsourced Tech Support people so Americans will feel more comfortable. Just another one of the lies they tell “to serve us better.”
Mark and I did various computer geeky things, like searching for competitors’ components and just generally tidying up around the old hard drive. Then Mark diagnosed my problem: a corrupted scripting engine. Great! That sounded like an appropriately serious but fixable problem for all the trouble I’d had. And, of course, there was a program he could e-mail me to install, after which “you’ll have no more problems.” Then he gave me the key to the executive washroom: my very own case number. With this number, I could call Tech Support again for free until August 2nd. Mark was a Prince among Nerds.
Finally, Mark initiated me to the mystery of the closing questions. McAfee has a script which Tech Support must follow when closing a call. It goes something like this: “Have I done everything possible to address your concerns?” “Have I answered all your questions to your satisfaction?” “Are there any other problems or concerns that you need to bring to my attention?” The questions are completely rhetorical, since it makes no difference how you answer them. “No” “No” and “My foreskin is stuck in my zipper” still lead to “Thank-you for calling McAfee Technical Support, and have a great day!”
I fixed my scripting engine without any clue as to what it is or does, and tried to reinstall. Progress! The suspicious script message was blasted to cyberdust. But I was still thrown into the old loop-de-loop during configuration, and the program was still “unable to execute the specified witches,” so I made
CALL NUMBER TWO. This time, I got an Indian woman named “Angela.” I gave Angela my case file, but here’s the point at which I began, once again, to feel those little nagging doubts one gets when one isn’t sure whether the person with whom you have been discussing world politics for the last half hour is well-informed or simply certifiably paranoid. Angela couldn’t pull up my case file, BECAUSE HER COMPUTER WAS DOWN!!! Yes folks, the Tech Support computer was down. Who did they call? Tech Support Support? Hopefully, not themselves!
Ignoring the creeping dread, I told Angela what Mark had done and how my computer had responded, and she decided to plunge ahead. Wow, Angela was a Whirling Tekkie Dervish. We did a zillion complex modifications that I cannot name, then reinstalled the program and got exactly the same error message. This just stoked her fervor – we dove deep into the registry editor to chuck out this and that detritus that hopefully was not essential to the functioning of anything, and then reinstalled yet again, and presto! It successfully installed. Then shut down, booted up, reconfigured, and YES YES YES it is so good, there was but a single reboot left to go when –
I pause here to remind you that this is only the second call to Tech Support. There were TWELVE such calls. Angela had fixed everything so well that the computer would not boot up at all. Now it was in a loop during the boot up, flashing a scary blue and white DOS SCREEN (aaarrrggghhh??!! DOS??!! remember that gibberish?) for a nanosecond and then reverting back to start. Maybe, I thought, just maybe one of those bits of code we’d been blithely jettisoning for the last half-hour, actually did do something, like start the damn computer. “No, no, not to worry,” said Angela, we’ll just tap F8 and start up in SAFE MODE which we did. No, the problem was not something we threw to the digital winds. We had a corrupted GUARD DOG file. Now that’s scary! Why he’d probably bite off your hand, shit in the bathtub and train the cat to put on lederhosen and lick his privates for him when the in-laws are visiting.
So, needless to say, while in SAFE MODE (which looks like the ghost in the machine, all white on black) we removed Guard Dog, which is part of McAfee Privacy Service. Woof. Angela e-mailed us a patch, and extended the life of our case until Tuesday. Then she absolutely guaranteed that upon installation of this patch, there would be no further problems. “Thank-you for calling McAfee, and have a great day.”
Angela, how could you? You seemed like such a nice dervish, but you lied to me. Well, to prove there are no hard feelings, I hope you get your computer fixed.
Part Four, in
which
Our Hero Calls
Tech Support Eight More Times,
And You are Spared Some of the Grisly Details, But Not Many
Like an information junkie trying to kick the habit, my wife installed the patch over the weekend, hoping against hope that it would free us from this addiction. The message from the McAfee Security Center (like Homeland Security – a central clearinghouse of fear), was that Privacy Service was “expired”, so our “antiabuse” index was only 1.0 on a scale of 1-10. And I could verify this, because I certainly felt abused. So what did I do? Responding like a typical addict, I sought more abuse. I called Tech Support twice and was put on hold, while they played three bars of an awful muzak phrase over and over ad infinitum until I hung up. I was late for work.
Knowing that precious time was ticking away on my eligibility for free Tech Support, and that I could hardly expect to get the ONE-TIME courtesy extended to me a THIRD TIME because THREE even more greater than ONE than TWO, I called from work. Guess what they sent us? A patch to fix the patch. This reminded me of course of Ferlinghetti’s Coney Island of the Mind, the poem “Johnny Nolan has a patch on his ass,” which contains the phrase “a moment of remembered hysteria.” Was this a sign from McAfee? Is there an evil genius behind the mayhem, monotony and infinite loops?
My diligent wife opened the patch for the patch, and got a brand new error message: “MIS6 DATABASE ISSUE QUICK FIX MPS subscription information already present in database. Quitting . . .” “QUITTING??!!” Why you pansy-ass program, we can’t quit now. We need our FIX!
Call SIX! was also from work. We were told to single click the patch instead of double clicking. While wearing purple panties on our heads. We did it, and got the same error message. So Tech Support advised us to Uninstall Privacy Service, since someone was trying to see our panties. Then we were disconnected, no “great day” or anything.
On August 3rd, our younger daughter’s birthday, I played the Clown by placing call number SEVEN at 6:14 a.m. PDT. Apparently, the greatest minds of Tech Support had been huddling all night analyzing our case, because now the guy said I would have to uninstall ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING and then reinstall it, just like I’d already done four times before. He taught me how to manually search out each of the roughly 250 bits of McAfee doo-doo, instructed to call back when I was done, and then hung up. Hey, what could I expect, HIS time is valuable. “Have a great day.”
Having denuded my computer of doo-doo, I placed call number EIGHT, which went like this: on hold on hold on hold forever screw this I’ve got to get to work. Plus I promised my elder daughter that I would pick her up at 8:40 a.m. But still, I needed my fix. So I made call number NINE at 7:32 a.m. while showering or shaving or something. I was consigned to muzak Hell until 7:59 a.m., when an impeccably polite young fellow (they are all impeccably polite, and they must think Americans are all crass lunatics) (wait a minute, we are all crass lunatics, aren’t we?) named “Louis” answered. I gave Louis my number, and he put me on hold to “review my case.” After another six minutes in muzak Hell we reinstalled everything once again, and it installed successfully! Shut down, reboot – it configured successfully! Shut down, reboot, now for the moment of truth --
At this point we must pause to ponder the question: can computers smell fear? Logically, one would have to say “no”; after all, they lack olfactory glands. But logic has nothing to do with it. Computers clearly know when you absolutely positively have to have them work right now because your daughter is waiting on the street thirty blocks away in the rain expecting you at any minute.
We re-entered 1997, and the screen reverted to DOS. Louis very politely told me not to worry, that if I would just explain the problem we could fix it. I shouted FUCKING DOG! Louis very politely asked me to calm down, and that there was no need to call names. GOD DAMN FUCKING DOG! Louis very politely asked me if I was in danger, was there a dog attacking me, and if so would it be more convenient if I were to call back later. NO IT WOULD NOT BE MORE CONVENIENT BECAUSE THAT IMPLIES THAT IT IS A LITTLE BIT CONVENIENT RIGHT NOW AND IT IS NOT! F8! F8! I shouted. He calmed the raving lunatic American, we entered Safe Mode, and removed Guard Dog again. He promised to e-mail me more patches. HA! HA! Like those will work, I want the real thing, man, I want to mainline McAfee right from the website into my open computer. Louis is very sorry, Sir, but that is between me and McAfee, and if my link has expired, I cannot get any more junk without paying. But – and this is where the delirium takes over – but he says, these patches are different, once I install the first one, then it will definitely train Guard Dog to maim only bad code and stop crapping all over my Start-Up sequence. And I’m desperate, so I believe him. Gotta run! My daughter has pneumonia, and I’ve got to go have a great day.
7:35 p.m. Home from a long day at work. Exhausted. I click on the first patch – it seems to be OK. I click on the second patch. “MIS6 DATABASE ISSUE QUICK FIX SUCKER MPS subscription information already present in database. Quitting . . .” Not only is Privacy Service not working, but Virus Scan is now “disabled” and my antivirus index is at 1.0. So, here it is, thirty-seven days, three e-mails, two calls to customer service, nine calls to Tech Support, five complete uninstall / reinstalls, and endless hours later, and the thing is working worse than after call number two to “Angela”.
I decided to uninstall the whole thing and demand a refund. I wrote a terse letter ending with the words “consumer fraud.” I left it on the counter, and went to bed.
Part Five, in
which
Elves Come Out of
the Woodwork
and at Last Our Hero finds Peace
That night, the elves emerged from the crevices between the baseboards, and, not finding any wooden puppets lying around, they used their magic to smooth off the rough electrons in our circuitry. When I booted up the next morning, August 4th, Virus Scan showed a protection index of “10.0”. I was back to exactly where I’d been post-Angela: the only thing not working was Privacy Service.
OK, I thought, it would be a real pain to start over with some other company which doubtless is just as crummy as McAfee, and we need Virus protection in this creepy new world because we’ve heard rumors that if we don’t have it horrible things might happen to us, and “I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks, I do I do I do I do I do believe in spooks.” So I made call number TEN.
I held for only ten minutes before Tech Support picked up and disconnected me.
Ha-ha! I’m a real pro by now, do they think a little thing like that can get rid of me? I’ll show them. I’ll call and hold forever and hold my breath ‘til I turn blue, so call number ELEVEN had me on hold from 6:55 a.m. to 7:28 a.m. when I finally cracked and bit off the mouthpiece and spit it right through the LED display and tore off all my clothes, smeared peanut butter and pickle relish on my privates and danced the hokey-pokey down Main Street until they came to take me away.
Not really. I calmly went to work, occupied by calm and peaceful thoughts, which were only momentarily interrupted by visions of the CEO of McAfee having Internet Security Suite 6.0 downloaded where the sun don’t shine through a very big modem. The rest of my venom I simply swallowed, applying it to that ever-approaching coronary or stroke that is nature’s way of saying modern life is not healthy.
But I couldn’t concentrate, so I went home early. I had some unfinished business to take care of. I knew, as I dialed it, that call TWELVE was the last one. It was them or me, and it sure as Hell wasn’t going to be me. “Shawn” answered. He took my number. He studied my case. I was waiting – waiting to see the whites of his eyes, waiting ‘til the stars aligned, waiting for Godot, waiting (as Ferlinghetti says) “for a rebirth of wonder,” waiting for just the right moment to uncork my unquenchable indignation, waiting for the stillness to enter and wash my soul, waiting for the next beat of my heart, waiting for the strings of our fundamental particles to vibrate in perfect harmony, just waiting . . .
And then the moment arrived. He wants me to call Norton Tech Support, have them search my registry for Norton components, and then call back and do another complete uninstall/reinstall! He actually says all this. He says it politely. He says it in impeccable English, better than mine. He says it as if it makes sense. He says it as if he believes it. But of course, it is utter madness.
I do not yell at Shawn; there is no point. I simply say this: “I am finished. I am done. I am content. Goodbye.”
He starts to ask me the standard
closing questions, but I cut him off.
We are on a whole ‘nother plane here, buster. Didn’t you read my case file? I’ve transcended the mysteries. I’ve been French-kissed by a corrupted Guard Dog, and had my
registry goosed by Angela on crack.
I’ve let go of the silly old-fashioned idea that what you buy should
actually work. I’ve worn underwear
on my head. I’m ready for
consumption in the Twenty-first Century.
Maybe my wife has left me, maybe I’ve been fired, maybe my daughters
have gone off to live with Bikers or what’s worse, Tech Support Nerds. How would I know? I’m on hold. And the chicken wire I laid around the house is keeping
everyone out, while I’m in safe mode in here, safe from viruses and worms and
all kinds of bad creepy crawly things that have no name. As long as I don’t double click on any
corrupted patches, and I keep this underwear on just right, I’ll be safe, safe
forever, having one endless excruciatingly Great Day.
Return to Other Writings.
© 2006 Michael Schein, all rights reserved.