Friends,
Sometimes the place of my employ is filled with such a high degree of dumbness that I find I’ve become immune. There’s perversity and insane blather on a daily basis, so this one from my folks is intriguing for its over-the-top nature.
The folks arrived home to be greeted by a man sitting in his, um, Horizon service truck in front of the house. Follows is the third party conversation:
- Tech: “You’re late.”
- Mom: “Well, not really.”
- “You called for repair.”
- “Um, no. My son (that’s me. – bob) has been calling about the DSL.”
- “Well, I’m here and I need to look at your equipment.”
- “You don’t need to. Everything’s okay.”
- “I have a work order…”
And so there it was. A short, muscular swarthy fellow, insisting on working in the house. He invited himself into the house and started with tearing down the wall-mount phone in the kitchen.
- Tech: “What’s this? It’s all wrong…”
- Mom: “It’s working fine. Everything’s fine.”
- “This is all wrong, who hooked this up?”
- “My son did. He knows what he’s doing…”
- “Well, this is all backwards.”
He then pulled all the wiring from the wall, much to Mom’s horror. Then there’s this comment…
- Tech: “You know, I’m the best technician in the United States. They sent me out here from the East Coast.”
- “Um, really? Your mother must be very proud.”
- “Oh yeah, she’s very proud. So, where are your other phones?”
He’s now going down the hallway, looking for any other phone with my Mom following…
- Mom: “There’s just this one, in our bedroom.”
He took a quick look at the jack, the DSL filter I installed, and moved on…
- Tech: “Where’s your DSL?”
- Mom: “In this bedroom.”
He gazed upon the new DSL modem, the last generation Airport base station, and the Blueberry iMac in the corner.
- Tech: “Gawd, how old is this piece of junk?”
- Mom: “I’m sorry? It’s perfectly fine. Like I’ve been telling you, everything is fine.”
- “No problems?”
- “No, it’s all working.”
At this point, the finest Horizon technician starts to wonder….
- Tech: “Um, hold on a minute.”
This is when Mr. Important calls his dispatcher.
- Tech: “Ma’am, what are the last four digits of your phone number?”
She tells him and he starts to rush out of the house with this:
- “The service call is no charge…….”
- Mom: “Hey, wait, are you going to put this back together?”
…but he was gone. Off to the real job. The guy at, er, Horizon service was intrigued…
- Service: “Oh, please tell me you got his name.”
- Mom: “Surely you’ll know him. He’s the best tech in the United States.”
- “Oh! Really!”
Hopefully, the new tech fixed it today. I’ll update this for some sort of satisfying end when I know more.
Your pal,
bob