Life on the Other End of the Tech Support Line

Ant writes to mention a PC World article about life on the other end of the tech support line. From the article: "According to interviewees, entry-level jobs at U.S. tech support firms pay about $7 an hour. Workers for a third-party tech support firm in New Delhi, India, make less than half that. Akanksha Chaand, who holds an advanced degree in computer science and had a job fielding calls for Hewlett-Packard at Business Processing Outsourcing in New Delhi, India, made the equivalent of $13,000 a year working in tech support--significantly more money than many less fortunate people in India earn. In contrast, a tech support pro who now lives in Arizona says she was barely scraping by on her $7-an-hour salary with no benefits. The rep, who asked that her name not be used, said it was only a bit better than her previous job--delivering pizzas. She said she received two weeks of training before taking calls from the public. "

Comments

The solution to the tech support help desk

[Nanpa]

Simply befriend a nerd. They are a common species of parasite and can be found in nearly all urban centres. They charge little for their advice or knowhow, and usually can be bartered with using goods such as 'Coca-cola' and 'Chocolate'.

Eight what?

[Hamster Lover]

Paid eight what? Grecks? Beers? Shillings? Drachmas? Space Hookers?

It only took me 20 to write this when it could taken me 5, but that's the convenience of having a 1.2 vs an 800.

Re:Like omg and stuff

[shreevatsa]

Have some pity for the tech support people — "life on the other end of the tech support line" usually consists of calls from people to whom nothing is obvious, and often won't listen. Several calls seem to be from hell, and some even try to cheat. Once in a while, the support people might hit back, but they're usually not allowed to.
(It's funny, laugh.)

Re:Hmmph

[the_duke_of_hazzard]

Conversation between me and an Indian developer: "Do you know FTP?" "Yes." "OK, well, ftp the zip file over to the server." "Ah, I'm sorry, I have studied FTP, I have never used it! Can you show me?"

Re:Like omg and stuff

[moresheth]

your grandma does not need a computer, she needs an appliance that can not get a virus or trojan or spyware and she cant accidently delete all the dll's on. same for over 90% of the other people you know and meet.

So... what? Like a Macintosh?

Re:Like omg and stuff

[despisethesun]

You've obviously never worked in tech support. Trust me, Mac users can fuck up just as bad if not worse than Windows users, which is a little mind-boggling considering how much simpler the UI is. I've been saying it for a while now, Mac users aren't any smarter than Windows users, they just have better taste.