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| Joyce Hoffman The Tales of a Stroke Patient |
I was desperate. The whole building had a wi-fi outage, meaning that FIOS knocked out my triple play: the television, the Internet, and the phone. And when it came back on, the television, the Internet, and the phone all worked, but the printer was off the network, aka offline. I knew because the blue light was blinking. I had a speech to give in 3 days at a local hospital and I had to key-in my notes and, consequently, print them. So I, in the current vernacular, was fucked.
I texted my son in Boston who works for Google as a network admin.
"How do I get printer back online," I whined.
"Um, who is this?" my son inquired. I thought he was joking. He was not.
"It's your mother, damn it. How could I get my printer to work? It went offline in the wi-fi outage." Frustration comes to me so easily, now that I'm a stroke survivor.
"Nothing I can do. Call your Internet provider. Or Google it." Google it. He always ends the conversation that way.
So I texted my other son who works for IBM, here in my city, as a programmer with the same question.
"Everybody thinks [and by everybody he meant me] that I'm supposed to know everything about computers," he lamented.
"I just thought--." I couldn't even finish the sentence.
"I'll take a look when I come over on Sunday," he said because he knew that I really, really needed that printout for my speech.
One son in Google. One son at IBM. All 3 of us in IT, and nobody knew how to fix the wireless printer. Huh.
So Sunday rolled around and he took a look at the printer, sitting himself down on the rocking chair placed strategically, for my benefit, in front of the printer that was 30 feet away from the laptop. He got the password from the router, yet no luck. He left and I called the Geek Squad.
So I elected for the phone support. I mean, how hard would it be to get the printer online, you know? I called, and just so I wouldn't get anyone in trouble who's probably making close to minimum wage, the names I'm using have no connection to reality. Having said that, Richard was my agent.
"Hello. My name is Agent Richard. I know that problems with technology can be frustrating. [C'mon. He was reading off the script]. What kind of problems are you having?" the agent said in a monotonous tone, as if one problem a day was all that he could handle. I told him the story.
"I'll have to charge you a fee first." [Of course].
"You need to get a secret code," he said, adding a little intrigue to the mix, "and I'll type it in for you." A bunch more windows opened, and by now, we were thirty minutes in. "I'll transfer you to an engineer who knows about printers."
"Wait a minute! I thought you were going to fix my printer," I implored, ready to explode from the passive voice.
"You'll have to wait for the engineer," he said. So besides agents, they now had engineers, too. "You really shouldn't wait more than 40 minutes."
"Forty minutes," I screamed and I was exploding. "Do I have to be on the phone or can he call me back? Do I sit at the printer or the computer?" I was running out of power, on my cell phone, I mean. Two bars. But he had already gone and left me asking the questions to myself and listening to promos for the Geek Squad, over and over, that were playing in the background.
Richard returned 15 minutes later. "It should take a little longer."
"How much is a little?" I asked.
"Well, you don't need to be on the phone. He'll call you back."
I gritted my teeth and hung up. Three hours passed and I needed to get my mail in the lobby. So I stood up, left, and in the distance as I was halfway down the hall, my phone rang in my apartment. When I returned, I got the message the engineer left.
"Hello. This is Myron. I heard you wanted your printer fixed. I won't be here any longer today, but I'll pass the message on." I never got a return call. So the next day, I decided to write to the Geek Squad about the blue, blinking light. Here is the response I got from Phil:
"Sorry to hear that. The blinking light indicates that the printer is no longer connected to the network – this can be due to a change in the network (a new router or Wi-Fi password), or increased network traffic causing a conflict with the printer’s IP. Generally, the easiest way of getting a printer back on the network is through a temporary USB connection. If you don’t have a USB cable, there should be other options for getting the printer online if the printer has a screen with menu options. If you are available, please let me know so we can create a new session to get your printer back on the network and working with your computer."I understood the message, but I just couldn't do a new session. Now, I was out of power, but I agreed to the session anyway because I am tenacious. My speech is tomorrow, but I haven't heard from Phil yet. I sent the text of the speech to my son and he's going to print it for me.
The Geek Squad didn't come through, but geeks are like everybody else. It doesn't take much to just fuck up. And my printer? Don't ask.
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