att-uverse new, can't access internet

[Joe Zeff]

On 10/01/2012 06:09 PM, Tim wrote:
> Sometimes it's best to lie to tech support.  Say you are using Windows
> when you're not, that you just need the information to manually
> configure it.

I do even better.  I start off by telling the droid on the other side of 
the phone or chat client that I was "on their side of the phone for 
almost ten years."  (True)  If they treat me the way they'd like to be 
treated during a call, this will be the easiest call they'll have all 
day; if they try to baby-step me or assume that I don't know what I'm 
doing, I'll be their worst nightmare.  Then I'll tell them that I'm 
running Linux, not Windows, and that all I need from them is specific 
information.  If they'll tell me what info they need, I'll know where to 
find it and tell them what I see.  (Sometimes the only way to get a chat 
session started is to pretend I'm using Windows, but I'm careful to 
correct that as quickly as possible.)

More often than you'd expect, things go smoothly after that.  Once in a 
while, I run across somebody who either can't or won't do anything 
except parrot Windows-specific cheat-sheets even when they're 
irrelevant, and I end up discussing my issue with their supervisor.