I Don't Think It Is A Sin To Lie To Help Desk People

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

So after hearing horror story after horror story about the DSL service provider that I am forced to use (the apartment I am in is contractually obligated to only provide service via this provider), I was not looking forward to hooking up my internet service.  To further complicate things, I do not use a Windows or Apple based PC (I like Ubuntu).  And on top of that, I had a particularly bad first day of work at the new office (oh and have I mentioned in recent blogs about my moving a ton of stuff up a flight of stairs?  I thought I had, just checking).

So, first things first, my package did arrive and was waiting for me when I got into the apartment.  This package contains the DSL modem and a (totally useless to me) CD that works only on Windows based computers.  Everything looked simple, plug this in here, that in there, whammo bammo, we are set.  Uh, no.

I called the provider last night and was told that I could not call this soon to complain about service.  Odd since it was 11 at night and it was supposed to installed that day.  I guess technically they had until midnight.  I was tired so I agreed to call back but was told to leave the modem plugged in just in case it started working (anyone out there buying this?).

I called tonight and one of the questions was what operating system I would be using.  Ubuntu Linux was surprisingly omitted from their list of selections.  I pressed on though and once I reached a real person, was told that they did not support linux and he would transfer me over to paid support.  I pleaded my case that it did not matter what kind of computer I was using, the light that was supposed to be flashing green was flashing red.  No dice.

I hung up and called again and told them I was using a Windows computer.  Now I was never asked to do anything with the computer other than turn it on.  I figured they were going to have me do a real windowsy thing like go into the control panel or something.  All they did was run a check on the line (whatever that means).  Long blog short, in 10 minutes I was up and going (and blogging).

If lying to help desk people is a sin, consider me guilty.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon