I’ve spent too much of the past two days dealing with tech support people. Firstly because one of my laptops has died (blown power supply, which I suspect is integral to the motherboard) and secondly because of the totally crappy Microsoft remote access software that one of my client uses. And the reason this has taken too much time is because of the process.

There is no point, any more, in telling a support technician what the problem is, because they are trained to completely disregard anything you say to them, and start from first principles. So in both cases I have gone through the loop of saying, “this is the problem, what do I do?” And then spending half an hour or more on the phone with the technician while he walks me through a bunch of idiot questions which finally leads to him saying, “your problem is,” and me saying, “that’s what I told you in the first place, now what can I do about it?”

Now I’ve done tech support myself, including for people who really did need to be asked whether their computer was plugged in. So I know why this happens. But I’ve been programming microcomputers since these kids were in nappies, and sometimes their condescension gets a little wearing.