TECH SUPPORT Tales From a SIMPLER Time

A long-forgotten memory of my days doing tech support, which I felt was too good not to share.

Who would have thought that this classic icon would cause such confusion

Today's blog is a little different to my usual photography-related musings and tips.

You see, I was just in the middle of opening up some mail, and one of the items was a brochure from our local city council, promoting their free, kerbside recycling collection programme.

For reasons which will become apparent as you read this blog, this had triggered a long-forgotten tech support memory which I immediately realised was way too good not to share.

So today, I would like to take you back in time, and indulge you with one of my all-time favourite memories from my days as a computer tech support monkey.

It was the summer of ’99, and everyone was about to experience living through a new year, new decade, new century, and a new millennium - all at the same time.

Meanwhile, the global media were having the time of their lives spreading fake news (before it was a thing) about the upcoming calamity that was the Millennium Bug (Spoiler alert - nothing happened).

Thanks to them, everyone got a test run of what it might feel like to prepare for life in a post-apocalyptic world.

Some highlights included installing fallout shelters for protection from all of the planes that would fall out of the sky at the stroke of midnight; as well the imminent self-launch of all the secret nukes, which we were told were controlled by ancient computers that were not going to be made Y2K compliant in time.

This inevitably led to everyone’s favourite pastime of panic-buying, and cleaning out store shelves of non-perishables, such as canned food and toilet paper. What can I say, you can’t beat the classics.

Meanwhile, back on the ground, I was busy getting through my final year of uni, while at the same time trying to support my shameful and bottomless computer upgrading habit.

This was made a little easier by having scored a sweet job working at a local computer store as as a sales person and tech support intern.

Which leads me to the purpose of this blog.

One day, an elderly gentleman came into the store, bringing along with him a computer and printer that he had purchased from us a few weeks prior.

He told us that this was his very first computer, and that he bought it so he could use it to write and print letters, that he would post to his family overseas.

Times were so much simpler back then.

The problem that he was having, however, was that he had only been able to write and post one single letter since he bought the blasted thing.

The way he explained it, was that he opened Microsoft Word, just as he was told by one of our support staff.

Then, he spent the next few hours typing his first letter, which he had printed, placed into an envelope, and sent via the post office.

Meanwhile, a week later, his letter had successfully arrived at its destination, and his family had mailed him a reply.

The issue he was facing, was that after two weeks, he was still unable to write anything back to them, because his computer would not give him a new 'sheet of paper' onto which to write his response.

We looked at one another in respectful silence for a few seconds. Then, as politely and professionally as he could, our manager asked him whether he had gone back into Word, created a new document, and started writing his new letter that way.

The gentleman's response was one for the ages.

He said that he was very environmentally conscious, and that he didn’t want to do it the way we suggested, because that would create needless e-waste.

Instead, he chose the greener alternative, and placed his original letter into the Recycle Bin. However, he has now been waiting for over two weeks for the page to be recycled, so he could write on it again.

He then asked us, if he had instead purchased one of our faster and more expensive machines, would this recycling process take any less time.

I am picturing someone, somewhere at Microsoft’s marketing department, pitching their genius idea, that since Apple called their bin ‘Trash’, this had potentially negative connotations, and that nobody’s work should be considered trash, especially not by their Windows computer.

Instead, they pitched, why don't we call it the ‘Recycle Bin’?

It sounds so much greener and friendlier, and nobody in their right mind could possibly mistake the metaphor and take it too far.

Well, Microsoft Marketing Department of Window 98, may I present to you one such outlier.

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Happy shooting!