TechnoGizmos

PEBKAC – Problems Exists Between Keyboard and Chair

For those…   well PEBKAC-kind of people out there:

PEBKAC is an acronym which stands for “Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair”

Your grandparents would be considered PEBKAC prone.  You yourself may be PEBKAC.  Anyhow, to the point of the blog.  PEBKAC is used commonly in the US by technicians to secretly code a tech support issue where they have deemed YOU, the user, at fault for whatever problem you have with your PC or computer component.  This is just as bad as a tech saying “Hey dumbass, there’s not an “any key”, so stop looking for it!”  or  “There seems to be no problem on our end, let’s go through a diagnostics”  and then he cycles a reboot over and over and over till you just hang up.

 Intel thought it would be funny to actually use this as a secret marketing technique, that will target technies in their own secret language.  So, Intel began running a number of PEBKAC web-based advertisements to promote their vPro platform for the cause!

You’ll find TONS and TONS of articles, blogs, stories, and videocasts of end-users bashing tech support.  From the attitude they use, to the degrading treatment, one wrong word and the tech support deparment from Dell gets thrown to in the fire.  I mean, don’t get to wrong, Dell’s got HORRIBLE tech support.  OMG!  I jumped onboard the bashing train!

Anyhow, below is a number of reasons (some funny, some weird) why tech support treats you the way they do…. They’ve had to put up with these kind of people!

• I work for Iomega tech support. One day, when I was answering the AOL message board questions, I ran across a letter complaining that this person’s zip drive had ejected a zip disk clear across the room and hit her dog in the eye. The dog supposedly lost vision in that eye and wanted Iomega to pay for the vet bill. I wrote back asking for a picture of the injury. I got back a picture of a dog wearing a pirate patch.

• One of my duties as a teacher at a respected university’s computing department is to assess students’ practical laboratory exercises. One day, a student proudly asked me to mark his work, a short programming exercise involving the development of around ten lines of code. Upon inspecting the code listing, it was very difficult not to notice the considerable preamble which was present at the top of the file. It consisted of a lengthy email header which had originated from a friend of the student and was followed by the line: “Here is the stuff you need to pass the exercise.” He didn’t.

• My friend and I were walking to school one day when this guy tried to impress us with his computer knowledge. He launched into this big discussion about how he wrote all these cool programs for nuking people on IRC and that sort of thing. I had a feeling he was lying, so I asked him, “What language did you write them in?” His reply was, “English, of course.”

• While working for a small PC shop, we got all sorts of requests. For one, a system that was brought in with the assurance that they had not opened the case or done anything inside. But after opening the case, we found their screwdriver, which we returned to them with the bill for the now out of warranty replacement of the motherboard.

• Customer: “Hi, I need some help.”
• Tech Support: “That’s what we’re here for. How may I help you?”
• Customer: “I’ve heard of people getting on the Internet and using it to hack into their banks and change account balances, and I was wondering if you could walk me through that.”
• Tech Support: “No sir, that’s strictly illegal. We can’t do that here.”
• Customer: “No, don’t try and pull any fast ones. There’s nothing illegal on the Internet.”
• Tech Support: “Yes there is, sir. You can break the law on the Internet.”
• Customer: “Look, son, don’t you go making up any stories about laws on the Internet. If you don’t know how to do what I want you to, put me on the line with someone who does!”
• Tech Support: “Sir, there is no way anyone here will help you with that or any other illegal activity.”
• Customer: “That’s IT! If you don’t know what you’re doing, I want to talk to your supervisor now!”
• This would be the first and only time I ever heard a supervisor call a customer an idiot over the phone.

Well, this is just a few of thousands of stupid things people have said and done to poor tech support victims of end-user tactics.  What it boils down to, we should all be caring and love our tech support.  Without them, we wouldn’t be able to get through a day without them.  Especially since you never know when one will crack and your life savings are stripped from your bank account 😦

January 17, 2007 - Posted by sfarugger | Technology