[djmcmath]

The trick is that so many stupid people call into tech support that reasonably intelligent questions have to spend a lot of time fighting through the BS to get to useful help. From time to time, my cable connection used to go out, so I'd call in after doing my local network troubleshooting process. You know, ping from here to there, make sure that all of my internal network is still routing like it ought to, then try a ping from the modem out, or run a quick signal strength test. Sure enough, no signal.

So I call tech support and explain that there's no signal on the line. "Ok, sir, are you in front of your computer now?" Sure. "Please reboot your computer." What? "Please reboot your computer." And we're walking through a 30 minute troubleshooting routine to ensure that an average windows user hasn't dorked up their system before we get to what I already knew. Aargh.

The other variation on this one was the night I got struck by lightning. The cable modem no longer powered on. No lights, no nothing. It was just straight-up dead. The tech (ComCast) insisted on trying a firmware update on said unpowered modem numerous times, rather than allowing me to exchange the dead modem for an operational one.