IT People Piss Me Off

So, my wife is trying to set up our computer so that she can work from home. With all the snow we've been getting, it's probably not a bad idea. Growing up in the frozen Northlands, I don't seem to have too much of a problem driving in the snow, but Hoosiers . . . they're a bit different.

Anyways, she was having some trouble accessing her work computer from our home computer. Not too weird, since most networks don't want to let just any computer log-on and hack into someone's files. Still, she needed to get onto her drives, and so called the (company name deleted) IT support folks.

She kept trying to log on, without success. After describing the issues she was seeing, they told her it sounded like she had a virus. And when the computer rebooted, there were pop-ups, which obviously shouldn't be there . . . . "Yep, sounds like you have a virus. You'll want to remove 'Superantispyware.' It's keeping you from being able to access your H drive."

Now, I don't fault my wife for not having computer skills. But the 'pop-up' that she saw was the splash screen telling the user that Superantispyware was firing up. That's all. It gets replaced by an announcement that there's an update for the program. Wow. No doubt that's a virus.

Dumb-asses.

When I rule the world, one of the laws I will implement is that tech support people must actually know what in the hell they are doing. And if you need to read from a script, you are not only fired, you're wrapped in chains and dropped in the deepest part of the ocean, so that as you sink to 36000 feet below the surface, all that pressure might force the two brain cells together and your last thought will be "Damn, I really shouldn't stuck to that job flipping burgers."

UPDATE 16FEB2010: Yeah, it was my firewall. I have the thing cranked down so tight that nothing is getting in or out without alarms going off. Unfortunately, that means that stuff has trouble, and the firewall says "nope, not gonna happen." Now I just gotta fiddle with the controls to say "Mrs. Workshop's work server is okay, Strange Russian Guy's server is bad." I so wanna call up Mrs. Workshop's tech support people and yell at them. Tell me my computer has a virus. I'll show you a virus . . . .