As many of you know I make my living as a technical support specialist.  I didn't set out in life to have a career in IT.  It's just something that along the way I developed an aptitude for and things just kind of fell in to place when they needed to and landed me here.

The best part of my job is getting to be the hero every day. It feels good to be the light at the end of the tunnel, the calm in a storm, the voice of experience and knowledge in a crisis. Because as you know, every problem is a crisis. I really do like my job but I've been doing it long enough now to have some stories from the trenches.  Sometimes it is hard.  People are not always at their most gracious and kind when they are completely stressed out from getting an error message like this. And just so you know, when IT people get together to let their hair down, we do talk about you and the stuff you do but don't worry, we don't name names.

Last night my husband was installing a wireless adapter on our DirecTV box.  Cables and flashlight in hand he said "I'm going to do some TSSPEC'ing just like you" and he got on the floor and started to fiddle with cords, etc. He is always hearing me talk about being on the floor tracing cables or rooting around behind equipment in the dust trying to unplug something.  You'll never see me wear a dress to work because I'm always on the floor for something or another. While he was trying to feel for the correct port to plug something in, I went and stood over him and said "Here let me give you the real TSSPEC experience" and I proceeded to barrage him with this….

"This worked yesterday, I don't understand what happened"

"Do you think you're going to be able to get this fixed soon?"

"I was planning on using this today and don't really have a back up plan."

"How did it happen? Is it going to happen again?"

"What if you can't fix it, is there someone you can call to fix it?"

"The directions say to open My Computer but I'm not comfortable taking the computer apart."

"Oh by the way my files aren't backed up so I really need you to fix this."

"It was working until the other day when you installed that printer on the other computer."

"What do you mean do I have a license for this?  Someone burned me this CD."

"While you're here can I ask you about my son's laptop at home?"

"The computer won't turn on but I keep pressing the button on the corner of the monitor."

"I can't believe it's working now.  I swear it wasn't working before you came in the room."

"No I didn't reboot, I didn't save this document before it froze and I don't want to lose it."

"No, I didn't read your email. I'm busy.  You send a lot of email."

"I lost the instructions. Can you send them again?"

"Well I tried to move some cables around myself to see if I could fix it. Still doesn't work."

"It keeps telling me to press any key but I don't know where the any key is."

"When I turn my computer on I smell smoke. Is that normal?"

"Do I need all these cables? Can't we get rid of some of them?"

"When do you think you'll be done?  I kind of need to check my ebay auction."

"I got locked out of email.  Something is obviously wrong because I know my own password."

 

This went on for a few minutes until he said "I don't know how you do it."

 

Oh I do….in my mind I go to my happy place. Ok, so I take a computer along.  Don't judge me!