Monthly Archive for April, 2008

Not Knowing You Know What Needs To Be Known

I feel like a doofus.  It turns out that, for the past week, I have known the solution to Pedant’s DSL problem.  I assumed that he had to wait for some fix deep within the ISP.

That may have been the case, but by today, his issue was just like one I had a few years ago.  More importantly, I remembered the solution that Technical Support led me through^[1].

Him:  (On the phone)  Can you believe that their call volume is so high that they can’t keep me on hold?  I have to call back later.

Me: Man, that’s pretty busy.  I wonder what they have to do to fix your service.  If only your modem’s DSL light was lit, I could help you.

Him:  Actually, my DSL light has been lit for days.

Me:  …OK, buckle up.  We’re doing this.

I’m glad I was able to help a friend get back online, especially since being offline vexed him so.  I’m even glad to be able to ease the load on our provider’s overloaded call centers.  I just feel kind of dumb that I didn’t help to diagnose the problem sooner.

1. And I remembered at enough to be able to find the particulars of the solution. [↩]