Soldiers Call for Engineering Tech Support

chuckfucter writes "Wired news writes that soldiers in the battlefield now have their own army of geek advisers whom they can contact whenever they need technical support. The stakes are much higher here, with troops asking about the structural integrity of bridges, roads, dams and airfields: Can this structure be safely used after sustaining damage from bombings?"

Comments

Just wait...

[ulpb]

Give it a few months and they'll outsource it to India like all the other tech support jobs.

Wager?

[Lord_Dweomer]

Ah, techies rejoice. Just join the military tech support and never again worry that your job might be outsourced to India.

Re:Wager?

[BinBoy]

Tech support: Tech support line -- Falluja office. Can I help you?

Solider: Um... never mind.

Re:Wager?

[mouseyMousey]

Or:

support: Hello, tech support; how can I help you?

soldier: Our tank is down - the radar's out, the tracking and targetting is out and the engine won't start - we're surrounded and the enemy are closing in on us.

support: I'll just create a ticket for you. you need to use this number every time you contact us about this problem. but only this problem.

soldier: jeez!

support: have you tried rebooting your tank?

soldier: of course we have. It still won't move.

support: could you try again for me?

soldier: no, this urgent and it won't make a difference.

support: okay, ... go to your tank's control panel (you can find it in My Tank(TM)) and double click 'MS KillForeigners Pro' (hopefully you've had the friendly-fire patch applied).

soldier: it's not there!

support: are you sure? it should be; it's a standard application. we include it in all builds.

soldier: it aint there. quick they're getting closer and they have armour peircing weapons.

support: okay, i'll have to call a contractor because we don't actually support MS KF Pro. He'll be about two hours; he's stuck in traffic near a pub.

soldier: [blood curdling screams followed by explosion and white noise]

support: [to self] I hate it when that happens, we've got no way of getting those tickets off the system and it really distorts our performance under the service level agreement.

[heard from the next cubicle] the person who deals with nuclear weapons is on his lunch break. Have you tried rebooting your intercontinental ballistic missile?

oh.my.god.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for calling the USMC technical support line.
If you have been shot, press "1".
If you have been bayoneted, press "2".
If you want to shoot someone else, press "3".
If you want to talk to a human being, a real nerdy type, the type you jock military type assholes used to bully in high school then you can kiss my safe, bunkered, hairy corn-fed ass. Yeah, not so clever now are you? Right, now Ive got your attention, lets talk about that wedgy you gave me in sixth grade...

Re:Responses

[Cymsdale]

It may make the difference between life and death.

Then I'm glad they decided to use this method instead of AskSlashdot.

Re:Oh Goodie

[Canberra Bob]

Youre ignoring the main point - Saddam was behind Sept 11 ;)

Re:ACE.

[Anonymous Coward]

Examples given were load-bearing estimates, structural damage estimates, trajectory calculations, etc. Absolutely none of the stuff your average PC geek would do.

solider> *talking into a radio* my M16 is jammed and the enemy is closing in, what do I do?!
nerd 1> have you tried installing GNU/linux on it? it never jams.
nerd 2> Mister, install gentoo. It's the only way to be sure it wont jam again. You have to throw each bullet yourself but-
nerd 3> *sigh* why would anyone install linux on an M16 while OSX is available for the AK47?

and so on...