Yep, it’s a doozy just like the title reads. For those unaware of the “90-day” moniker, it is the stock market, more specifically earnings reports from corporations. They occur every 90 days, as such there is no longer term planning, only a short term “juice the results” focus. The focus of this blog is on the “reduce expenses” part of the earnings reports. Specifically sending jobs overseas to save money.
In this case, the company he works for is privately owned so they do not report earnings; however, when they talk about financial results, they always mention getting expenses under control. As such they outsourced the IT department at the beginning of last year.
Enter 2026. 90-day Guy needs a new laptop. He claims his was “compromised.” As someone who worked the IT help desk in college, I think those are the annoying pop-ups originating in the lower right corner of your screen which are essentially are click bait to “buy anti-virus” that a) doesn’t work, or b) that you do not need. (see Jason Stathan’s Beekeeper movie).
In my experience, these pop-ups generally seemed to show up if you were visiting … um, … let’s just call them “websites you shouldn’t be on.” This issue is correctable, but he would rather get a new computer because he likely didn’t want the friendly folks in IT looking through his browsing history!
The new computer shows up, and even though it has a large and very red sticker on it proclaiming: Warning do not touch or open until directed to by ISC. ISC is our IT department. Of course, as paranoid as he is, he decides to open it right away, pull out the laptop and put the old one in said box and affixed the return label on to it. He waited about a week, (this is key), without starting it and didn’t call IT until 10 days after he received it.
When he got around to calling, the computer would not turn on. When asked to plug the computer in, he could not locate the charger cord. When asked if he could locate the instructions, I saw his face turn the color of a white sheet. Yep, this genius did not even look for the charger cord nor the instructions because, like a kid on Christmas opening the gift, he wanted so bad, neither of those things mattered. Oh yeah, he claimed they were never sent, because his motto in life is never admit wrongdoing. When the IT person said they were in the box, 90-day Guy went to his old standby; many losers who call for help go to “I can’t understand you.” Not only is that behavior borderline racist, but it also shows how big of a scumbag you are when you treat people at the lowest levels of the customer service chain like garbage. Full disclosure, he had this call on speakerphone, the accent while existing was not very heavy, let’s just say I have heard far deeper accents and still could understand. He just didn’t want to admit that he sent the instructions, the old laptop, the old charger, and the new charger back in the box without looking for them. He had to call back the following day when he got a charger from a fellow associate.
With a charged-up laptop, now it was time to log in. The IT person helping him this time had a deeper accent but was very much understandable. After playing what’s your log in and password, and unique identifier number for a solid 45 minutes, he quit. He decided to turn around to me and have me finish the process.
Hard NO. Full STOP.
Folks one little piece of unsolicited advice, never touch a computer that is not yours; especially, if it’s “owned” by a corporation. Additionally, if it was not intended for you, do not touch it. That’s a pretty easy way to get terminated. Again, remember the 90-day Guy ignoring the instructions on the do not open label. Which brings me to my next point. His MO is to blame others when things go wrong. Had I assisted, then under the bus I would have gone.
The call was even funnier. He kept openly declaring “I am very computer literate” while clearly demonstrating the opposite. I am unsure why he kept insisting that.
(I always call hat in hand, essentially saying, can you walk me through it?)
Stil unable to log on after 35 minutes and exhausting all plays in the IT guy’s playbook, 90-day Guy declared someone needed to be sent out to look at it. Again, his ignorance showed. Sending someone out costs $$$ and lots of it so they want to make sure the issue is one that a) can be fixed by said contractor or b) is most cost effective. The IT guy declined to have someone come out. You see, when you outsource, you are really just paying a lump sum each month to a third party each month/year, then they get to administer what benefits are passed along. In this case, sending someone out was going to cost a lot of money (you pay by the service call). So, 90-day Guy called the IT guy incompetent (always a smart move) and then hung up.
A third call happened the following day.
Again, he went for 45 minutes trying to log in to the computer, it didn’t work. While on speaker, toward the end of call, he proclaimed “doesn’t anyone speak English anymore?” The voice on the other end said “I heard you, sorry English is my second language. I am working here to feed my family.” Ouch. He thought he muted the call but left the speaker on. Smooth move. The IT guys said the computer was “deactivated remotely.” Of course, our resident, very computer literate person, had no clue what that meant.
The IT guy asked what kind of laptop he was using. Right on cue the words “my work one” came out of 90-day Guy’s mouth. Yep. He’s really computer literate. Top of his class. A legend in his own mind. He had no clue how to find out what type of laptop he had. Oh, it’s an HP Pavilion, but I digress. I had to help him find that info conveniently located on the top of the laptop when closed. “HP” was emblazoned there in large letters and on the left below the keyboard when opened.
Also, this information appears on a sticker under the laptop, but I didn’t want to further erode his mental health plagued brain. The IT guy said he would order a new one to be shipped out and it would take a day or two. This was at 2pm west coast time, mind you. This was also Tuesday.
Fast forward to Thursday. Still no laptop, and he is growing quite angry. I guess he submitted a survey saying the IT guy was incompetent and stupid and should be fired. Nice! He was venting in my direction saying it should have been here Wednesday. Nope, it’s right on schedule. See what his generation refuses to understand is 1 day shipping, means one day from when it gets to the plane/truck to ship it.
What he also fails to understand is it is not like McDonalds (a favorite of his btw) where you click a button and pull forward to the window for payment and you collect your meal. It has to go through multiple chains of command.
I can personally guarantee you the guy he spoke with has no authority to order a new computer shipped out. If it’s like when I was in college at the help desk, I created a ticket, another person had to sign off, then a supervisor of his did the work order. After those steps (I am sure it’s still similar), the laptop gets shipped. Had the call had been made at, say 9 AM, he would have had said laptop a day sooner. Instead, he waited until most folks who are decision makers were either gone for the day or fixing to leave. Hence the delay.
As far as the “deactivated remotely” goes, this is a thing that we had it back when I was in college. In essence, you have so many days to plug in/turn on/log in to said work laptop or it gets remotely disabled. Think of it like a kill switch. This is very necessary because with the systems my work uses and info that is stored on said systems, they cannot take a chance it gets into the wrong hands. As such, after so many days, they deactivate it. Hence, no one will be able to log in. Simple fact, but it escapes you when you didn’t see it on Fox News last night.
In closing, the 90-day calendar he lives by bit him. The company, like many others, outsourced American jobs to save money. Hiring a contractor or vendor lowers expenses. He has zero interest in this practice when it helps his earnings on stocks he owns, but when it’s a hindrance, he gets frustrated. He isn’t smart enough to know the difference.
There is an old proverb that goes something like this “do not spit in the well because later you may want a drink.” Boy does that ring true here. It’s been a fun 10 days here watching a grown man have a meltdown because he is realizing life has past him by and he never tried to keep up.
By Chief
Editor’s Note: If you want a different take on computer tech support then check out this song by Tim Hawkins.