[[Person is on the phone, and holding up some networking hardware.]] Person: ... restart my computer? I know you have a script to follow, but the uplink light on the modem is going off every few hours. The problem is between your office and the modem. Person: My computer has nothing to do with ... okay, whatever, I "restarted my computer." Person: It's still down, and even if it comes back, it's going to die again in a few hours, because your-- Person: I don't HAVE a start menu. This is a Haiku install, but that's not import-- Person: Haiku? It's an experimental OS that I ... oh, never mind. Person: I'm sorry, but this won't get fixed until I talk to an engineer. Can you look around for someone wearing cargo pants, maybe a subway map on their wall? [[The tech support person on the other end is wearing a headset, and looks around.]] Tech: There's a chick two phones over with a stuffed penguin doll and a poster of some bearded dudes with swords. Person: Perfect. Can you put her on? Tech: Sure. [[Person is now talking to the engineer.]] Person: Hey, so sorry to bother you, but my connection-- Engineer: Yeah, I see it. Lingering problems from a server move. <> Engineer: Should be fixed now. Person: Thank you SO MUCH. Engineer: No problem. Hey, in the future, if you're on any tech support call, you can say the code word "shibboleet" at any point and you'll be automatically transferred to someone who knows a minimum of two programming languages. Person: Seriously? Engineer: Yup. It's a backdoor put in by the geeks who built these phone support systems back in the 1990's. Engineer: Don't tell anyone. Person: Oh my god, this is the greatest-- [[Person wakes up.]] Person: Wha-- Person: ... DAMMIT. {{Title text: I recently had someone ask me to go get a computer and turn it on so I could restart it. He refused to move further in the script until I said I had done that.}}