FOC's

This started off as a diatribe aginst offshore, telephone based customer service/tech support lines, but Anita, our lovely Chief of Prose and Comms, has told me to make a nice a bit more, and as I struggled to think of something (being a grumpy old blogger is so much easier), it fell into my lap.

One of our printers just went in the direction of a pear, mangling stuff. We tried the help menu, and it told us only that we should be using paper hand rolled on the thighs of Columbian virgins. Or call tech support.

We now entered the world of 0870. And for about 10 minutes we paid god knows what to god knows who to listen to an American lady tell us we were important to them. Then we were in the domain of Trevor, who did not sound like a Trevor.

Sadly the conversation did not go well. We thought we pretty much knew the problem (a roller at one end was obviously not doing its job any more and was skewing the draw down), but this did not seem to get us anywhere near the advice we were seeking, which was how to fix it.

And at the end of a fairly frustrating circular discussion we were told it was not fixable, and to ditch the thing. 

It was a month beyond warranty. So ditch it.

Now, I am not only part Scot, which makes £87.50 a lot of money, but this was not in the spirit of Junkk.com.

So I picked up the phone to our local PC-repairers and told them the problem, and they said pop it round. So I walked it up the hill. By the time I got back, there was a call to come and pick it up.

With much joshing about the worth in terms of expertise and cost of a new printer, I was shown the culprit: a Christmas tree bulb that somehow got in there and was blocking the feed. They'd turned it upside down and fixed it.

So,  as what goes around comes around, if you are in the Monmouth/Ross area, I am happy to give them a big up right here and now: 

http://www.theitcentre.co.uk (you may also one day find them in the Junkk.com HR/NP area diRE:ctory when the dozy sods get around to putting themselves on there).

But the most important bit was that they knew what it was. Apparently it happens a lot. So that makes it a tip that could save a thousand WEEEEeeee..kerplunk IT landfill contributions that need not be. Plus saved customer money, etc, etc.

So I'm figuring out how to get such things on the relevant category pages on Junkk.com, but not in a way that overwhelms the reader, and archived to be searchable. Not just for IT issues, but from a core of gurus that must have similar such experience to share, and don't mind sharing it to get a big up and a logo link - we're mutual re-ward-based, see:)

I think we'll call it FOC's, which is kind of an homage to FAQ's and until something better pops into my head, stands for Frequently Observed Cock-ups. And when you think about it, also can stand for Free Of Charge, which in this case it was. Thanks Ian.