No, I’m really not. I don’t work for Adobe/Macromedia, BradyGames, Comcast, Cafepress, DirecTV, Dreamhost, EBGamestop, Gamefaqs, Gateway, Google, HP, Microsoft, Myspace, Prima, Qwest, Sony, Toshiba or any other company that makes things that you might be having trouble with.

I am not the HelpDesk. The HelpDesk is not here. The HelpDesk never was here. I don’t even have a fucking desk, okay? See? NO DESK HERE. My monitor is currently sitting on top of my tower, and my keyboard is on the floor. Sorta. It’s more like…on this funny angle at the side of this big comfy chair, but it’s partly on the floor. NO DESK. Ergo, no HELPDESK. The HelpDesk is on the other side of the planet somewhere, where they do not speak American anywhere near as fluently as I do.

I suppose that’s why people keep coming to me. That, and I keep letting people get away with ‘hey, thanks,’ and ‘I owe you.’ The great, worthless and intangible gratitude.

Also, I keep trying. And for some people, I don’t really mind helping. Some people, I point them in a certain direction and they get it. “If you want to make this stop, then go to [somewhere in some menu].” It’s usually very vague, but people get it, they go there, they do it, and it’s done.

I sometimes don’t even mind some of the bigger things, like fixing Danny’s computer, even though it was a bitch and tried to eat my fingers, and the copy of XP he gave me was an upgrade copy. These things happen; XP is annoying that way. And after that, with the broken monitor, it didn’t take days to figure it out because communicating the problem and what might fix it were both very easy. “This monitor isn’t working.” “Weird. Is there another monitor?” “Yeah. Oh look, that one works.” “I wonder what’s wrong with the other one. Hey, try setting the resolution to 800×600.” “It works now, but the colours are all funny, and [something else].” “Um, try degaussing? I don’t know if that’ll do anything, but it’s too fun not to do.” “There’s no way to do that on this monitor.” “That’s no good.”

There’ve been a few fun technical problems that I’ve helped my mom with, too, but…well, and here’s the issue I don’t have with her that I have with so many others: DETAILS.

When I ask my mom for something — a model number, an error message, whatever — she gives it to me. She gives me the details I need to at least try to figure things out. Funny how that works.

See, I’m only human. A pathetic, dirty little human female who can, miraculously, tell that the clearly marked and colour-coded cables coming from the cable box go into the matching clearly marked and colour coded holes on the TV. That’s not amazing, though. It doesn’t make me some sort of freaky Technology Whisperer. I do not have a special psychic link with all things electrical.

What does that mean? It means that I can’t fix things without details. “It’s broke, fix it.” isn’t anywhere near enough. What were you doing with it when it broke? Were you hitting it with a hammer? Dragging it behind your car? Trying to use it in the shower? Or was it something less stupid, like reformatting, or downloading lots and lots of picture.jpg.exe files? If it’s not a hardware-type-issue-thing, then there are other things that need to be mentioned. What are you saying is broken? A link somewhere, or an image, or a whole page maybe? Well, that sucks. Why don’t you show me? Show me the page where it’s broken, or what you’ve typed to make the link/image/whatever happen.

I think everyone can see where I’m going with this.

If you can’t, well, the HelpDesk is closed. Please call back during our office hours. Our office hours are –:– to –:–.