Sept. 11, 2009

Guh... calling tech support. You know exactly what I'm talking about already, I can hear your groans. Automated phone menu services alone are enough to drive anyone to the brink of aggravated insanity. And that, my dear friend, was just the beginning of my mission tonight.

Objective: fix cell phone.

How I love my cell phone. I love it so much I've given it a name. I don't refer to my cell phone as "my cell phone," I refer to it by its given name, one I arduously laboured over for two days straight before coming up with a fitting one. I call him Noodles. Noodles is a huge stress-reliever for me thanks to his data plan... emails, web browsing... lovely. Dragging my laptop around the country used to be a necessary pain in the arse, but since I adopted Noodles, I can go anywhere without my laptop and not feel like a limb's been cut off.

And yes, my laptop has a name too ;)

But Noodles has always had a flaw. A flaw I've never really had the time or ambition or patience to fix. And why? 'Cause it meant calling tech support.

First, you have to go through the push-button menu. "For English, press 1..." Then you go through the voice recognition server. "Say what you'd like us to help you with: for example, for bill payment, say 'bill payment'..." After several unsucessful tries ("I'm sorry, I didn't understand that. Please state your command again") I generally find myself screaming, "speak to somebody!!!!!" Half an hour of your life gets wasted that you'll never get back, and then you have to wait on hold for another half/full hour before speaking to someone who typically wastes even more of your time not helping you at all while the divot in your forehead becomes deeper and deeper from smacking it against the corner of your coffee table out of frustration in the process.

Unless you get Scott from Moncton. Scott, I love you.

"Holly, here's the screen you should be seeing. Press this. Now find this. Now choose this menu. Go to this url, go to the bottom the page, download this application, now wait as it loads."

Clear, simplified, even-a-monkey-with-a-blowtorch-could-do-it step-by-step instructions. My computer skills are quite good, but even if I'd never seen a computer before in my life, Scott could have walked me through the entire process with finesse. But what made him the most outstanding wasn't his tech expertise. It was his humanity.

While waiting endlessly for programs and updates to upload and install, Scott and I shared many laughs about seemingly stupid things. His funniest tech support missions. How working the overnight shift affects grocery shopping habits. The inpenetrable fortress of boxes currently accumulating in my living room. And holy crap, did I ever learn some neat facts about Star Trek I can't wait to share with my fanatical Star Trek-loving friends. There's a lot you can learn about a person when you're on the phone with them for two hours while waiting for applications to load. Normally, being on the phone for that long with tech support (or anyone for that matter) is as painful as trying to figure out stereo instructions written in hieroglyphics. But Scott from Moncton made it a joy.

While re-configuring Noodles (now with a/v recording software!!) after wishing Scott good night, I noticed my web browser icon had disappeared. So I called back tech support, whisked through the push-button menu, handled the voice recognition server, and was put through to a very cut-and-dry Grant. Who was definitely no Scott. Grant was knowledgeable. Grant instructed me through the process. Grant got Noodles' browser back up. But Grant was definitely no Scott.

Corporate call centres can be a huge source of stress, annoyance and resulting bruised foreheads for many. We all have to suffer it from time to time. So if you have to go through it, two pieces of advice for you:

1) Call after midnight. Most call centres nowadays are 24 hours. After midnight, you'll almost never have to wait on hold for longer than 30 seconds.

2) Hope you get Scott from Moncton to chat with during the otherwise excruciatingly long process. And if you're lucky enough to get him, ask him about animated graphics and give him an enthusiastic "you rock" from me.

Holl

August 20, 2009

Is it just me, or has the music industry hit a bit of a lull as of late? As a self-proclaimed music junkie, I'm constantly jacked about some new album release, waiting with anticipation for at least one (but usually three) new albums every week. New Music Tuesday has always been such an exciting day to look forward to... until lately. Sadly, over the last few months, I really haven't found much to get excited about.

Except for one album. And this one's so stellar, it'll likely be blaring from my stereo speakers repeatedly for months. Apologies in advance to my neighbours.

If you haven't heard of MuteMath, you should. Or you probably already have and just don't realize it. Twilight? Transformers? MuteMath. Being featured on two major motion picture soundtracks is really starting to do this New Orleans band some justice in terms of reach. It was '04 when I first caught wind of them, blaring their first-ever EP "Reset" over the airwaves from my dj booth at a small indie rock radio station in Winnipeg. I've been a huge fan from the first note heard ("you had me at cello"). Two albums later, we now have "Armistice," released just two days ago. And it's SOLID. And beautiful. And highly creative, in a way that's distinctly, uniquely them. What a perfect oasis in a nasty (perceived?) music drought.

This clip didn't make the album, but you gotta love the resulting beauty of their inventiveness.