News - Gadget Helpline staff prefer dealing with women

[HEXUS]

Men may not be quite the tech-sperts they believe themselves to be, according to a new survey by Gadget Helpline.

Read more.

[Salazaar]

In other news, 90% of men polled bothered to read the manual and would rather have their toenails pulled than pay for the privilege of picking up the phone and speaking to some wage monkey who is trained no further than to read out a 'solution' from his stock answer book.

Funny how statistics can prove whatever you like. A percentage of men who call the gadget line may be inept, but they're the ones who've admitted defeat and actually asked for help. Everyone knows 'real' men would rather bleed from the finger nails before asking for help with gadgets (or maps, DIY, operation of heavy vehicles)

[dshepsman]

In other news, 90% of men polled bothered to read the manual and would rather have their toenails pulled than pay for the privilege of picking up the phone and speaking to some wage monkey who is trained no further than to read out a 'solution' from his stock answer book.

Funny how statistics can prove whatever you like. A percentage of men who call the gadget line may be inept, but they're the ones who've admitted defeat and actually asked for help. Everyone knows 'real' men would rather bleed from the finger nails before asking for help with gadgets (or maps, DIY, operation of heavy vehicles)

or just ask the good people at Hexus??

[Phage]

"Gadget helpline prefers dealing with women"
So do I. fnar fnar

[Funkstar]

"Gadget helpline prefers dealing with women"
So do I. fnar fnar

Same.

And having women deal with me is good too

[Saracen]

Likewise, 12 per cent of men had made the typically ‘dumb blonde' mistake of not checking whether their problem device was turned on or plugged in, compared to just seven per cent of women who made that basic error.

To protect the guilty, I shall refrain from names in the following anecdote.

Some years ago, I was having lunch in the dining room of a computer multinational when a friend, an engineer, was in. He was grinning. I inquired what he was finding so amusing, and he related his last callout.

A large, well-known (household name) company had had a problem with a terminal (this was pre-PC days). After reading the manual provided by their in-house tech support, and failing to resolve the issue, they reported it to tech support. Tech support went through their routines, also failing to resolve the issue, so they escalated it to 2nd line support, which was provided by the IT department of the high street bank that was the parent company. They failed to resolve the issue either, so they called on their manufacturer support and my friend was sent to the branch. He quickly diagnosed the problem, plugged the mains plug into the wall socket, booted the terminal and left. That cost them bank a nice large callout fee as we weren't responsible for customer stupidity. It later transpired that the cleaner had unplugged the machine to use her hoover ..... killing the overnight transaction upload in the process, I might add. Nobody (except my friend) spotted the obvious.

But I ask you, if a machine it totally, utterly and completely lifeless, what's the first thing common sense would suggest you check? Yeah, precisely. But it wasn't in their manual, and neither the branch nor two levels of tech support thought to ask.

[Singh400]

There is a gadget helpline?