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Tech Support to the Stars
Carl Bialik writes "The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Prince, Snoop Dogg, Ludacris, Bon Jovi, and U2 all have used technical support when on the road, when their Wi-Fi or Xbox or Sidekick needs servicing. The Journal takes a look at the lives of the essential, if overlooked, members of the entourage, the support tech. Joshua Kapellen, of Best Buy's Geek Squad, has been on the road with U2 since 2004. From the article: 'Last March, lead singer Bono needed his Xbox connected while the band rehearsed in Canada. Mr. Kapellen got a call. He hooked up the contraption and a few minutes later was playing videogames with Bono. "It was one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me," says Mr. Kapellen.'"
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And yet, most people are fascinated by it.
There's many reasons why, popularity by association, hero worship, rarity, etc.
One time I fought over Goldberg's (of WCW/WWE fame) receipt after he came through the drivethrough. I didn't even like prowrestling.
Lots of people's lives are dull and unhappy. Its nice to hear about rich and wonder what its like.
I'm not sure I'd want to be doing tech support for this guy.
... turning to the 3-D map, we see an unmistakable con
I've had the 'pleasure' of providing technical support to several high-profile personalities. In some cases, I dealt with an assistant and in others, with the actual 'star'. In both scenarios, I was promised payment by submitting an invoice to the appropriate person or agency. Good luck trying to collect on those invoices; while I billed at an hourly rate that I would any other client, it has been close to impossible to collect payment. I'm tempted to chalk it up to typical 'star' arrogance, but I'm just plain pissed that they feel they deserve free services simply because they are well known. If they asked for a favor, I would have done so, but in every case, I was promised payment. You just gotta wonder...
Prince was on SNL last night playing the guitar like Jimi Hendrix back from the grave. Certainly not crap.
for the time I spent working tech support at a college, all I know is that some of the faculty teaching computers was more computer illiterate than a lot of the students. All the faculty knew how to do was teach from a book, nothing more.
For example, one graphics arts teacher who taught photoshop thought that our server was just a group of files that we copied to each computer and assigned that group of files a drive letter.
Another ( I am not joking ) Assumed that email was printed out and delivered to various faculty on campus by the recipients secretaries. (His, actually did that from time to time.)
Then the Dean of Information Technology would tell one person to do something, turn around and tell another person to assist but what they told the person who was supposed to be assisting was two completely different things, and latter one of the two would get asked why they didn't do what was asked of them.
With as much moolah as some of these stars rake in, I am seriously surprised that they dont retain their own tech support to go with them and live with them.
Who needs technology when you have someone to do it for you.
Am I the only one that thinks that seems a bit strange? IT is really all you need for standard technical assistance. CS tends to deal more with the code and mathematics/science behind the code (not pretty), and unless he's writing special software for Ludacris, it would seem unnecessary. Although a CS person can do stuff like that (and IT can do basic programming a lot of the time), I would think he learned more then he needed to know. Oh well. Maybe it was just a general word, and he meant IT courses (I've seen very few if any courses that would help him with basic tech support in my uni's CS curriculum (fairly large)).
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Sorry, but in a similar situation, something tells me you'd be feeling the same way as him.
Having spent time with celebrities there's that split second at the start where you do an internal Keanu Reeves (woah, dude!) but then the rest of the time, they're a normal person, with normal things to do (eat, go to the toilet). It really is just an everyday sort of experience. Really, the time spent reading/watching their work is much better, and much more intimate with their psych. And a second spent with my girlfriend, watching the sun set, is much more significant than any amount of time spent with a celebrity.
I used to work at a big BIG computer store right next to all the LA studios, back in the late 1980s, we were known as "the Computer Store to the Stars." But that was mostly because we had a good reputation for treating the stars like regular people (there is a fine line between being polite and being obsequious). Plus we were discreet, we kept everything strictly confidential, no matter how outrageous (like for example when I attempted to recover data from a famous scriptwriter's floppy disk that had a hole burned through it from a piece of crack that flew out of the pipe's bowl).
But, you have to draw the line sometimes. Anyone below the level of Producer was almost guaranteed to be a nice, normal person that you could work with easily, but above that, egos are totally out of hand, and I wouldn't hesitate to tell them to get out of my face. I call this problem "Producer Syndrome." Producers that have the power to order people to set up $2 million in equipment in a corner of a building, and who lose tens of thousands of dollars per minute for production delays, tend to lose perspective.
Fair enough. But at the same time, wanting to help Bono plug in his Xbox is a pretty weird life goal.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
I think one valid point is that if you are the geek a celebrity calls for help, and you play your cards right, it could lead to much more interesting and higher paying work.
Hanging out with celebrities is potentially much more valuable than hanging out with the Mom-and=Pop store down the street that just needs their DSL modem rebooted.
Why do you think Adnan Koshoggi always kept celebrities and babes hanging around? Because it made business people want to do business with him, that's why. He made hundreds of millions of dollars off that celebrity crap. He's no dummy.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Actually bands have a tremendous amount of high-tech crap they drag around with them in their semis. But that stuff is set up by techs who work with it daily and know every bit by heart. And probably none of it is comprehensible to the average PC tech support guy.
I once read an article about all the electronic crap the Corrs drag around. It sounded like they had a dozen different systems: sound, lighting, mixing, computers, all sorts of stuff. They probably needed a semi to carry it.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I've first-hand delivered bad news to these people (outages out of my control, dead hard drives, requests that can't be met due to policies in place, etc, etc) and 95% of the time its the same situation. First you tell the assistant who immediately freaks out and makes you feel like you're a piece of shit. Then you tell the executive/VIP the same information (because an assistant can never properly convey any issue without self-serving FUD) and they are cool about it and figure out alternatives and move on with their day. That is why they are at the top, because they can formulate a plan B and don't let any problem cloud their focus, not because people cater to their needs.
Sound waves should be free!
I work as a techie in NYC. Since the late nineties the starting salaries in NY were $55k a year! My last job lasted 5 years and I ended up making $65 a year.
"Technicians like Mr. Kapellen are paid about $32,000 a year, the industry average for computer technicians, according to the Association of Support Professionals.
Could this be a regional issue? Or is $55 the norm for computer lackeys in the Big Apple because soda in 20oz bottles go for $1.50 a pop and generally that's an analogue to how expensive everyithing else is making the same work provide the same quality of life (virtually speaking) in NYC as it does for the Geek Squads in Demoins Iowa? Or are the Geek Squads just generally extremely underpaid.
I'm on the job hunt now and have had some balk at $65, but just recently dropped my price by $10gs just get hired. At the $55 level, people don't even blink. The only reason my my compensation rose so high was because I'd mastered an arcane level of Ghost on the Enterprise level which streamlined efficiency to a high degree. But try explaining that to a shop that has never used Ghost and they just go..."Uh huh".
But what puzzles me is that $55k seemed the norm in 1998???!!! So, how can it STILL be the norm starting price, in addition to all the experience I've gotten since then be priced at that level? That doesn't even keep up with inflation!
And added to that, wouldn't anyone feel underpaid for this stressful job at merely $32 a year? I understand there are different costs of living around the country but this seems like a dramatic difference!
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
From a former Geek Squad agent, I feel the urge to comment. If you have never made a mistake when diagnosing/fixing a computer, by all means please continue to criticize. If not, please think about the statistics... Best Buy is nearing (or has already surpassed) 1000 stores. Each store has from 5 to 15 Geek Squad agents. My Geek Squad Precinct dealt with about 20 computers per day and also dealt with an additional # of products that had to be sent and received to/from the BBY and manufacturer's service centers. If we just average that out, over 5,000 Geek Squad agents 'touch' somewhere around 20,000 computers a day. Our store had a re-do rate just around 2%... which, for us, was too high. Though we couldn't always succeed, we did our best to provide a top notch experience for our customers. This included NEVER pushing product and not even recommending products the customer didn't need. Yes, we recommended some things (e.g., oh, you have a virus and your antivirus expired in '99, please buy antivirus and keep this problem from happening again). Before you criticize, just realize that for every bad experience you hear about from the Geek Squad, there are 1000s of great experiences you don't. We had customers bake cookies for the agents they dealt with in my precinct. Yes, I am positive that there are some misguided Geek Squad agents pushing products that people don't need; I'm also sure that they are in the vast minority. For anyone who has had a bad experience, call 1888BestBuy and complain. That is why the customer care line exists.