More confessions of a Tech Support Rep.

I am sitting here waiting for my shift to end. I get a call from a lady who is in an outage area. What is funny is there is a message on the line they call in that there is an outage. You would think they would hear that message and go, "Ah! Internet is down. I will try later." They still wait for a tech to get on the line, only to be told, "There is an outage, I am not sure when it will be back up."

Tonight, this lady asks me, "I am not sure if you ever heard of the this thing called the XBOX?" I only have 2 boys. My oldest lives for Xbox live. It makes me wonder if this lady thought I lived under a rock or something.

Another guy calls in and asks if the outage is still going on. I politely told him it was. He tells me, "I am able to get on and it has been working." I asked him if there was still a message on the phone stating there was an outage. He tells me the message was still there. I guess perhaps he thought if I said it was working, he would be good to go and be able to get online. If the message says its down still, what makes you think I am going to tell you any differently? This guy then wants to know why he can get online during the outage. I was ready to reply with something sarcastic like, "It is all that porn you are looking at sir!" I tell him, I am not sure because I have no technical information as to why he is able to get online. I explain perhaps they might be getting close to resolving the issue. He then tells me, "You are too expensive and you are going to lose customers!!" I could only hope that happens. It would make my life much easier in dealing with clueless people who are not very technically literate who want to whine and complain about their internet.

I was sick this weekend.

I went to East Texas to see some family, which was nice. I came home Sunday and was sick as a dog. I had some sort of 24 hour bug. I was running a fever, had chills, and felt nauseous. I still felt bad Monday, left work early and crashed for about an hour before going to my second job. I got to my second job and realized I was not going to make it the whole shift. I got a chance to go home since I was sick.

I came home, took a hot shower since I still had chills and passed out. I woke up in the middle of the night sweating because I had put a blanket on me because I had been cold earlier. I drank some Gatorade G2 and passed back out. The next day, I am fine.

I have been trying to take some stuff I bought at the Vitamin Shoppe to help me get whatever bad stuff I had in my system out. I love it when on the bottle or container it says, "Great Tasting" or "Tastes Great". You know this is a sign that it probably tastes nasty. I end up buying this stuff called Greens Today (www.greenstoday.com ). This stuff has 7 serving and is a powder that you mix to water or juice. I get back to work and mix it up in bottle with water. I start drinking it and this stuff tastes like I am drinking water mixed with grass clippings. It is really bad. This stuff says it has "Strawberry" flavoring to it. There is no Strawberry in this. Its gritty and tastes like tea that is really strong. I am tempted to mix it with some juice to see if its any better.

I love the line on the back of the container, "Blend, Shake and Enjoy". You apparently can give this to kids too. My kids will not drink anything green, nor anything that tastes as rancid as this. I should go send the company my review of their "wonder drink".

Shopping a Big Lots the other day

I am at Big Lots with my boys and I over hear this guy on a cell phone. This guy was dressed like he worked construction. He was on a cell phone and I over heard him telling the person he was talking to that he was "Panhandling" at night and working during the day. I am all for people trying to get ahead in life working a second or third job to make ends meet. I was totally amazed that this guy bragged that he was doing this to make extra money.

I am always willing to go out of my way to help someone out. I am just amazed this guy was bragging that he was sitting on a street corner with a sign trying to get people to feel sorry for him so he can make an extra buck. I guess those stories you hear about these folks who put on dirty clothes, get out of their Mercedes-Benz to go beg for some money because its tax free are pretty much true.

On weekend, I saw one homeless person go eat and another took his street corner. There were 4 of them on each corner. It was like a job to them. It much have been shift change. One of the homeless guys was directing the other homeless people to their corner and one went on break.

On the Dudley and Bob show (KLBJ FM 93.7), a homeless man called it and admitted to Dale Dudley that "panhandling" was a pretty good job for him. He was making all of his money tax free, he had a place to stay with a little place to make food and made about $1600 a month doing that. He also was very proud that he had beat the system and making it on his own.

I guess I will have to start looking at homeless standing on street corner's in a different light now. I am still going to do what I can to help the less fortunate; but, in my mind, I will always wonder if I am getting duped or not by someone who is trying to make an extra buck by "appearing" like they are homeless.