Tech Support – Should they Really be Called Techs?

Should ‘Techs’ at tech support really be called techs? How many of you after calling tech support with the question, “I’m having trouble with my [fill in the blank here __________ ]”, actually gotten a satisfied answer?  Ok, I’ll be gracious, maybe 10% of the time?

What we now calls ‘techs’  are really what we used to call ‘slackers’.  A bunch of newly employed kids at tech companies, probably making  minimum wage, with about 1 day of training, answering phones.  If you watch the movie Clerks, the character Randall is a good example of a ‘slacker’.

Our world has become so technologically complex.  We have people, the smart people, the engineers and coders who are just out of Stanford or MIT or Harvard.  They are hired to bang out code for whatever complex piece of software or weird new fancy device or something. These people are insulated by this society of what we call ‘techs’.  I’m sure in that 1 day of orientation before they are put on the phones, techs are instructed to never elevate a support ticket to a more ‘qualified’ tech. Ever.

Because of this structure, it becomes a full time job for someone with a buggy device or piece of software to ever be able to solve any problems.

Glocks and Other Handgun Owners

Every time there is a killing or assassination with a concealed weapon, the gun people start with their rationalizations about ‘people killing people’, plus a smattering of quotes from Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Nathan Hale, Hitler, etc.

Courtesy of acecostanalyzer.com

Q. And why would anyone need an extended magazine* for their Glock? A. Well, what if they didn’t hit their target the first twenty times they fired. You know not everyone who owns a gun is killing people.

No, I guess not, but what I can say with certainty is that everyone who owns a handgun – barring the military and the police – has masturbatory fantasies of  killing someone with his/her gun.  Not killing everyone or anyone, just ‘bad’ people.

Every gun owner that I know has the fantasy of the ‘bad’ person breaking into their home in the middle of the night. We know what happens next: they grab their Glock; confront the perpetrator in the hallway and blow their head clean off.  The hero saves his family from yet another terrible fate of rape and whatnot.

Congresswoman Giffords Shot in Arizona

In this latest gun tragedy in Arizona, the shooter Jared Lee Loughner is obviously mentally ill. Any gun advocate would have the upper hand in an argument about how dangerous this guy was.  But my concern is, this idea of the acceptability of killing ‘bad’ people inherent with gun owners.  The definition of  ‘bad’ people can be wildly stretched out of proportion, especially to the fringe, the extremist and the unstable.  This on top of politicians and opinion reporters who spread fear of apocalyptic outcomes to minor legislative battles.  So to this Jared Lee Loughner, through his clouded haze of instability, Congresswoman Giffords, was one of these ‘bad’ people worthy of execution.

So yes, guns don’t kill people, people kill people.

* See: “high-capacity” ammunition magazine used by the suspect, Jared Lee Loughner.”