23 Jun 2006
I hadn’t called support for at least six months. I did, yesterday, because our router went on holidays and I’d neglected to keep a local copy of Bigpond clients, etc., and knew they had a super-secret-accessible-without-authentication FTP site I could download one (for the record, it’s 61.9.192.138 under dist/ with anonymous auth) from. Because I wasn’t going to pay a net cafe/couldn’t be bothered walking the 1km to the nearest one, and because I couldn’t find an open AP to steal wireless from(!! and I drove nearly a kilometer trying to, even the usual places were out!).
That was yesterday. Today, I called again because I couldn’t get it un-setup. And got the most completely and utterly clueless technical support person I’ve ever encountered. Not to sound misogynistic or anything, but… well, no male tech has ever come close to this woman’s sheer level of cluelessness. She hadn’t heard about their MAC address locking auth which has been going on since the beginning of time. Obviously, this was an impediment to getting things working when clearly it was a locking problem. She read me an SM server IP address off some sheet she had (which, so she claimed, was the way they did things now… yeah, righto. I’m now connected just fine without any such defined server, thanks) which I entered — of course — to no avail. Then I asked if she knew whether I should be using a SM or a DCE auth server, in light of the fact I’ve been connected for a couple of months without any problems (no joke… when Telstra works, it’s the most spectacular thing in the world. Getting it up and running is often quite a different story.) and she said:
“Uhhh I don’t know… SMTP server? Hmm…”
*josh bangs head against desk*
Some minute and a half later she realises, “Oh, that’s about email, right. Let me check that for you.”
Uhh, yeah, that’s what I wanted you to do three minutes ago. *waits on hold*
“Well, I just spoke with my supervisor and they don’t know either.”
Please, give more support contracts to the Indians. They know more than support-script-monkeys in Australian call centres.
So, next question — can you tell me when I’ve shown up as authenticating/connecting in the last 72 hours?
I know what the answer to this question should be, because they’ve been able to do it before. Hers was “Oh, hang on… oh dear, this is too technical for me.” *Raised eyebrow, before violently ripping limbs from tech-support voodoo doll reserved for this purpose* Realising the irony of her statement, she laughed airily, “And I’m meant to be the support person!” Oh, really? *Starts to warm soldering iron for use in doll’s eyes* Unsurprisingly, she couldn’t figure out what was going on enough to answer my question.
She proceeded to launch into the standard “Oh but you said you were using a router and actually we don’t support those so I’m sorry we’re not really trained in how to use them…” I was tempted to cut her off and start setting it up on another computer now to prove it still wasn’t working, but thought the pain had gone on long enough. So she continued with her “Bad user, you and your stupid non-desktop-solution that uses third-party routers.” Nevermind that these routers feature Telstra-licensed heartbeat software (at least, one would hope so, because bpalogin is GPL’d and router firmware certainly isn’t!). I could see the “contact the manufacturer” recommendation coming — it did — but then she threw out another gem that can’t possibly be ignored. She proceeded to actively recommend a third-party support company to setup my Telstra Bigpond Internet connection, as though they’d somehow be able to fix my (Telstra-induced) MAC locking problems.
At this point I took the doll downstairs, and left it sitting on the gas stove.
Addendum: I have encountered good female techs plenty of times in the past… I’ve just never encountered any male techs this bad. I think it’s probably a result of moronic gender equity corporate policies, whereby they employ useless females to make up the numbers — simply because not many work in the industry, doubtless at least in part because of the “clueless female” flack that some apparently cop. Proud to be a part of the problem. *rolls eyes* It was said in jest, live with it ;-)
22 Jun 2006
Is tomorrow at midday. Yay. I’m so tired and generally over uni right now and think I’m getting sick. Hopefully I won’t be properly sick until after 1.40 tomorrow. Don’t really care what happens then, it’ll be great. Now, after this post, I’m off to get sleep before midnight for the first time in forever, after a vaguely moderately possibly productive session with Tori and one of her friends from college (where else? Except Alex, I hardly know anyone in any of my courses, still! So hopeless…) wherein I discovered how little I know. So tomorrow… pouring over quotes and generally cramming and getting more stressed, but I have to leave here at roughly 11 anyway so it’s not as though I’m exactly going to get a lot done. Whatever. Hopefully it’ll be not-stressful and enjoyable. I’m probably whining about this exam and none of the others because its a subject I actually care about and am annoyed at myself for not having done more for it. The course hasn’t been the most interesting in the world — as in, it’s good, but I can think of other texts/themes/periods I’d rather be studying — but, regardless, it’s still a subject about which I’m generally passionate and not wanting to let go of. I hate finishing subjects because of what happens after them… there’s some kind of attachment, even with non-enjoyable ones, where even months later you’re still contemplating everything you did wrong. Well, where you = me. I speak the good English.
Seriously, though. I had a nightmare about having just not bothered going to my Business exam in January this year (the exam was, what, November 9?) — which was very nearly true, I hadn’t studied much and left the exam early and was thinking IN the exam of how much I was completely bored by it and wanting to be somewhere else (where I was going after the exam) — and then I realised (still in the dream) that I didn’t actually give a crap because I already had my UAI. Whatever. Not that the UAI meant much. I’m in Arts and not even sure I want to be in Arts anymore. This is all completely ridiculous, by the way. As if I could do anything else. I’d decided two years ago that anything involving numbers was out… so that basically means I’m going to be an unemployed homeless person living in Newtown selling hand-written poems, or teach. Well, okay, fine. I lie. There are a few other choices… but even plumbers do more maths than I.
I hate it when people aren’t even trying to derail your entire mode of thinking and succeed anyway. Succeed is the wrong word, I suppose, because there was no intent. Either way. I was happy, damn it. Well… no, I suppose I wasn’t. (Am’n’t?) Just… don’t make me make more decisions. I’m too fickle and generally pathetic for that. So, next semester? Hopefully everything will fly apart, mutate into some completely different shape, just for variety. Hah. Variety, in case you missed it, is a disguise for “I really want everything to be different from how it is now but won’t say that because that’d be too blatant”.
And this post is an exercise in written conversation. I normally write somewhat like I speak (yeah, big words and all, because I’ve fooled myself into thinking I have a somewhat-effective command of language… which works completely until you come across someone more arrogant than yourself and more self-deluded in their own brilliance, whereby it becomes wholly evident to myself that I know nothing, as, clearly, do they. Only their illusion is stronger to outsiders not already in this massive joke that is the farcical mask we don daily. Hmm, ironic that I worked so many big words into that.) but I cannot speak normally. So what’s this? This is doubting and chatty and… it feels like a phone call I haven’t had for a while, actually, only with a little more teenage angst. I’m still entitled to another year and a half of that, note. How odd. I had not associated myself with that (age group) for at least that same period of time again now, but it does make a lot of sense. Or, at least, it’s a convenient excuse.
Hey, look at me, I’m not meant to be intelligent or informed or to have a clue what’s going on. I’m meant to be taught, not teaching. Spoon feed me some more. There’s this massive reversal… I used to write as though I had some sort of authority, too, and got away with it. This year… what? What? Doubt crept in… actually, I wasn’t even the first to notice it. I got a comment on an essay from ages ago that perplexed me, so (I suppose) I ignored it:
[…] on that matter, there are times when you could be more direct. “It sems clear,” “as it stands,” “such it is that”, and others, express either a self-deprecation which in your case is unnecessary, or — meaninglessness.
By all means, analyse my writing, but please not like that. Doubtless, I will be peppering tomorrow’s exam with similarly superfluous phrases that exist purely to pad and disguise a genuine lack of insight and knowledge of the subject matter at hand. Maybe they’ll give a nice passage for us to dissect. I could have fun with that, I suppose. Oh, I don’t know. There’s not much left to whine about. So I’ll go to sleep now and not have much more to say about it tomorrow. I never say much about exams once they’re past (insert horrific pun here). Passed isn’t good enough. I could not go to this exam (it’s 30%) and pass. I don’t want to pass, I want to be able to think like I used to (capacity for, not subject of). I’m stuck between the real world and uni and one won’t force me to think whilst the other won’t allow me to… my brain only has a certain degree of elasticity; torn between the two it will surely haemorrhage soon enough. And then I shan’t be able to at all. I knew I couldn’t do both! Why did I choose to? How can I now choose not to? Time for holidays is so here. First, to a little island called Sleep…
20 Jun 2006
Crunch. Was pretty rude, there wasn’t even a note left on the car or anything. I think the parking driver would have learnt his/her lesson upon discovering that.
19 Jun 2006
From an article in the Sydney Morning Herald regarding John Marsden’s will comes this:
And if fellow parishioners at St John’s Catholic Church in Campbelltown thought they had heard the last of Mr Marsden they were mistaken, given the money he left for special Masses.
Cardinal George Pell, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, said yesterday that some priests charged nominal fees of $5, $10 or $20 to say prayers for the repose of the soul, while others charged nothing.
Asked yesterday about the $20,000 Mr Marsden had left for this purpose, Dr Pell described it as “a good investment”.
Uhmm, okay. We (Protestants/Catholics) really, really are not on the same page. Or the same book. If Cardinal Pell’s comment is indicative of any kind of official position — and one would hope that it is, for, quite clearly, Protestantism’s failure is that it rejects a central heirarchical (human) authority — we’re probably not even in the same library.
I thought they left all that indulgences/purgatory stuff alone a little while after Luther? Apparently not.
18 Jun 2006
The installer just crashed. This isn’t looking promising. If I disappear for a couple of days, that’s probably why. Chances are study has very little to do with any of it.