Look Up In The Sky! Is It A Geek? Is It A Nerd? No, It's A Computer Technician!

For some unexplained reason on Monday afternoon, I lost my Internet connection via a wireless router setup. No matter what I did, I had a little red X on the computer screen icons in the lower right tool bar on my laptop. I called Best Buy's Geek Squad because one of their "Computer Technicians" had set up my wireless arrangement in the first place. After powering cycling the cable modem and the router, still nothing but a little red X. So, I shut everything down and left the laptop dark for three or four hours. Later, I surrendered to my masochistic self and powered up and.... The computer screen icons were flashing normally and there was no red X! Why? I have no idea. I did not call the Geek Squad to cancel the visit by one of their "Computer Technicians." Why? I want the Geek Squad guy to teach me how to restore my Internet connection. It will be an expensive lesson, but I want to know. Like Harry Hurt III, I have been tempted to go in search of someone's throat with a broken beer bottle. If this is (fair & balanced) repressed hostility, so be it.

[x NY Fishwrap]
Sending an S O S for a PC Exorcist
By Harry Hurt III

At high noon on a recent Monday, I leaped up from my desk vowing to commit the most sensational attack of revenge in the history of the personal computer industry. Just 72 hours earlier, I had taken delivery on a Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop loaded with Microsoft Windows Vista. It was already on the blink. I couldn’t open a Word document. I couldn’t run a Google search. I couldn’t even send e-mail. I vowed to shave Michael Dell and Bill Gates with a broken beer bottle.

Thankfully, I heard tires crunching on my gravel driveway. I opened the door of my home office in Sag Harbor, N.Y., and I saw John Charde, 47, the trim, balding proprietor of Computer Professionals, a technical support services firm based in nearby Wainscott. He climbed out of his taxicab-yellow S.U.V. and declared, “I’m here to get out the evil spirits.”

John marched into my office and hunkered over my brand-new Dell. I quickly confessed that when it came to computers, I fell into that vast gray area between being a moron and a complete idiot. I told him that I was on a frantic executive pursuit for a competent local computer guru, and that he was my last shot before I broke that beer bottle.

John nodded sympathetically. “Unfortunately, computers have become more than just machines nowadays,” he said. “When your computer doesn’t work, it’s a major crisis in your life.”

I watched hopefully as John fiddled with the laptop. But after half an hour, he seemed to be almost as frustrated as I was. He asked if I had done anything unusual to the machine since taking it out of the box. I said that another local technician had transferred the files in my five-year-old Toshiba laptop into the Dell. I had subsequently received a message to subscribe to the same Symantec Norton Anti-Virus protection program I’d had on the Toshiba.

John guessed that the problems might have been caused by resubscribing to the antivirus program. He told me he needed to take the computer to his shop to exorcise the evil spirits. I would have to go back to my worn-out old Toshiba, which had a nasty tendency to overheat and shut down without warning.

I now felt like my existential alter ego Sisyphus: every time I pushed a high-tech rock up a hill, it came crashing back down upon me. In the event, I determined to perform some due diligence on the personal computer support services industry by relying on telephone contacts rather than online searches.

One of my first calls was to a longtime industry analyst, Tim Bajarian of Creative Strategies in California. Having consulted for Dell, Microsoft, I.B.M., Hewlett-Packard and Apple, Mr. Bajarian immediately appreciated my plight. “You are not alone,” he said. “Most normal laypeople would do what you did.”

Mr. Bajarian noted that the major computer makers spend untold billions of dollars a year on technical support services for their customers. Although there is no way to systematically track independent service providers, he estimated that private companies and individuals like John Charde generated $300 million in annual revenue. But he added that there had recently been a shift from such mom-and-pop shops to online service providers like support.com.

“Some fixes can funnel into the system even if your computer is not working, as long it’s turned on and you give the I.P. address,” Mr. Bajarian said, referring to the Internet Protocol address. “Yes, there are issues of trust because you temporarily give online service providers control of your computer. But they’re bonded, and they don’t want to get a reputation for compromising the security of their customers’ computers.”

Last year, Dell changed its marketing tactics after the return of its founder, Michael Dell, from self-imposed retirement. Instead of relying exclusively on a direct-sales model, which allows businesses and consumers to buy directly from the company, Dell also sells products through retail chains like Best Buy and Wal-Mart. Best Buy has Geek Squads that offer technical support.

Since I had ordered my Dell over the phone, I tried to seek technical support the same way. The Dell answering menu kept directing me to seek help online. After nearly an hour, I finally contacted a human, but there was an infuriating language barrier. It sounded as if the customer representative was repeatedly asking if I’d pressed the “cat slap button.” Then I realized she was referring to the “caps lock” button. I asked where she was. “In the Philippines,” she replied.

I called John C. Dvorak, a prominent columnist for PC Magazine and a podcaster on the Podshow network. “I advise everybody to buy a Macintosh because Apple products are the easiest to use,” he said. “If you own a PC, you have to find a local nerd, a kid, maybe a relative. Every family has one unless they’ve just moved here from a foreign country. That’s the only solution.”

Paradoxically, what had moved me to try John Charde, along with the enthusiastic recommendation of a trusted mutual friend, was the fact that he is an adult and a former newspaper reporter. Like Bill Gates, he is also a college dropout. He started tinkering with computers during the green-screen era of the 1990s, and went on to teach basic computer literacy courses. His many satisfied local customers range from midsize insurance companies to self-employed people like me. Perhaps not incidentally, he insists on being referred to as a “computer technician” rather than a geek or a nerd.

“A geek is someone who bites the head off a chicken,” he notes. “A nerd is a socially inept person with faulty eyewear.”

John and his two-man staff spent an entire week working on my Dell. “You fell prey to a cutting-edge disaster by subscribing to Norton Anti-Virus twice,” he informed me over the phone near week’s end. “That caused the computer to spit up a general error message. We all scratched our heads and glared threateningly at the machine for hours. Then we figured out that instead of two or three potential remedies, there were about 25. We decided it was time to cut our losses, and start from scratch.”

John ultimately had to remove the data on the hard drive, wipe it clean, and then reinstall all the data and Vista. The total cost of these surgical procedures was about $800, over half of what I had originally paid for the Dell. But I was so happy to hear the crunch of S.U.V. tires on my driveway when John returned with my newly repaired machine, I told him I didn’t begrudge paying the tab.

John claimed he begrudged having to bill me so much. “We would have made a lot less money off you if you’d come to us and asked what to buy before you decided on the Dell Inspiron 1720,” he said. “I’m not a big fan of new operating systems like Microsoft Windows Vista because you get software bloat. They do some remarkable things. But they also have too many processes going on at the same time, and they often make needless and confusing changes in the way their features are presented.”

In retrospect, John advised, I should have bought a cheaper, simpler computer. “The Microsoft Windows XP you have in your old Toshiba laptop is a much better-known operating system that’s much easier for us to fix,” he said.

At that point, I felt like using that broken beer bottle on my own cheeks instead of on Michael Dell and Bill Gates. But John nipped my self-destructive thoughts in the bud by handing me a more familiar productivity tool that I could use the next time my laptop broke down. It was a ballpoint pen stenciled with his company motto, “Technology. It almost works.”

[Harry Hurt III reported for Texas Monthly prior to joining The New York Times. He is the author of For All Mankind, Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald Trump, Chasing The Dream-A Mid-Life Quest For Fame And Fortune On The Pro Golf Circuit, How To Learn Golf, and Texas Rich: The Hunt Dynasty from the Early Oil Days Through the Silver Crash. Harry Hurt III reports on "Executive Pursuits" (business-related topics) for The Times.]



Copyright © 2008 The New York Times Company

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