In Praise of Support Workers

Last night, my entire system crashed. Windows 10 reinstalled without issue, and all of my data is held elsewhere. However, all of my apps were lost, including all the MS Office apps and email. In an apparent coincidence, my internet provider, Shaw, also had an outage last night, making their email systems inoperative (meaning that I couldn’t even access email through the web).

My immediate worry was that my extensive email history and vast numbers of bookmarks would also be lost — the email history, in particular, was vital.

I began my recovery by using the Windows 10 browser to download Chrome, which I prefer. Firing it up, I was delighted to find that Win 10 had saved my bookmarks in an easily accessible folder. Score one for technology.

I then bought a new suite of Office apps — or at least I tried. MS store told me I already had an account with them but, of course, I couldn’t remember the password and couldn’t get it changed because I had no email. I called support and my problem was handled by a delightful lady with an indefinable accent who spent perhaps thirty minutes walking me through the recovery, purchase, and installation process. She was courteous and funny and worked her way through several problems that we faced.

When that was done, I now had a new version of Outlook and I could try to get my emails.  Not so fast — it appears that I had forgotten both my Shaw username and password!  (Having the machine “remember” one’s passwords clearly has its limitations).

So I called Shaw support.  Luckily they had just managed to fix their own email problems and their support fellow was another wonder worker. We spent a jolly fifteen minutes together and he left me entirely satisfied with his performance.  I was even happier to discover that Win 10 had also saved my email datafile, so none of the history was lost.  Phew!

Anyway, the point of all this is to praise the support staff who are so often lambasted and shouted at and cursed roundly, generally for stuff that is none of their fault. I am sure they are not overpaid and probably work in less than ideal conditions; but the two I dealt with were kind and skilled and were superb representatives of all their brothers and sisters out there. Bravo to them!