Help Desks. When they're good, they're very, very good, and when they're bad you want to reach down that phone and throttle that smiling idiot who is laughing at your misfortunes. Sometimes you just know that they have an enormous checklist of one thousand six hundred and twenty seven questions, and they're going to go through them one by one.
Q. Have you turned your computer off and on?
A. Yes. The Modem exploded when I did that.
Q. Have you turned it off and left it off for ten seconds, unplugged from the wall?
A. Yes, I crawled along the small rathole of space available behind the desk, ripping skin off my knuckles and unplugged it. Ten seconds? It was impossible to plug it back in that socket without dismantling the damn wall, so I drove to Bunnings and bought an extension cord to reach another socket. This took more than ten seconds.
Q. Our data tells us you're not currently connected to the internet.
A. This could be because of the exploding modem you supplied me with.
That was a typical, friendly conversation. I can't print one of the unfriendly ones, because I'm afraid the language might make your modem explode.
Are you starting to catch my drift? I've been having a few problems with a Help Desk and this infuriating woman who does everything by rote every time I call back.
What was worse, I knew that voice. It had finally dawned on me that the new help centre in my own damned town was the centre I was reaching, and the woman who was 'helping' me was someone I knew. But who?
Seeing I was going be without the internet for a few days while I waited for a new modem, preferably a non-explosive one, I thought I'd drop by the nice new help centre and admire the nice new building and check out all those nice people who are so willing to help.
Now I fully understand that help desks have to have a protocol and a series of standard questions. This aids them to fast track towards the real problem and also tends to quickly eliminate all ID-10-T errors. But this woman, for some reason, was giving me a deliberate run around. I was determined to find out who and why.
So here I was, hanging around the call centre while staff arrived, my ears flapping in the wind, trying to catch that one voice. Again at lunch time and again at change of shift, with no luck. But at lunch time of the second day I struck lucky.
I heard a laugh and a wisecrack from a voice I recognised in two ways. It was the anonymous help desk woman and it was Kate. Kate had never been a girlfriend of mine. The closest we had come to being casual acquaintances was when I was going out with Patty. She was Patty's best friend.
Patty had only been a casual girlfriend. It might have gone on to something more meaningful but she dumped me one day with a casual statement that she was pregnant and getting married. I hadn't seen her since. (And no, it wasn't my kid. Like I said, casual, and we hadn't gotten quite that far along, not that I hadn't tried.)
So the big question in my mind was why was Kate shafting me through the Help Desk?
With the attitude Kate had display over the phone, asking her flat out was a non-starter. I'd have to catch her somewhere where I could lean on her a little. My understanding from Patty was that she and Kate were house-mates, and with Patty gone and married I suspected that maybe Kate now lived alone.
Digging up Patty's old address I made a few discrete inquiries and found that Kate did still live at the same address, but not alone. She had a friend living with her, a single mother. If that was Patty, then it would seem her wedding plans fell through, which was a pity. Patty had seemed a nice girl. Another little bit of information I picked up was that the single mother was currently visiting her mother, and would be gone for several days. I find it quite amazing the things that you can pick up on Facebook and Twitter. Doesn't anyone have a sense of privacy?
That evening I dropped around and called on Kate. Her immediate reaction on seeing me was not exactly welcoming. She took one look at me and started.
"You've got a hell of a nerve coming around here. Piss off."
Like I said, not exactly welcoming. This didn't worry me too much as I had assumed a reaction something like that, so I was already pushing her into the house and kicking the door shut behind me as she spoke.
That, of course, didn't go over too well, and Kate started yelling at me, telling me to get out. Being a considerate type, and not wanting to disturb the neighbours, I firmly told Kate to shut up, or else.
She didn't shut up, but spoke in a lower voice, threatening horrible consequences if I laid even one finger on her and I'd better get out now before she called the cops.
It was a case of she was slow and I was not. I plucked her phone from her fingers almost as soon as she produced it, then I took Kate by the arm and bustled her into the front room.
I think that at this stage my mood was could be described as wrathful, and that wrath was heading in Kate's direction. Promptly sitting on the couch in the front room, I dragged Kate across my lap. She was wearing the uniform that the Help Centre seemed to require, which I found helpful. Someone in the place considered short tunics the proper wear for young ladies, so when Kate fell across my lap a simple flip of the tunic exposed her bottom to me.
"I'm not touching you with one finger," I snapped at her, "but one hand."
With that, my hand bounced of her panties, bringing a yelp from Kate.
"Now I am going to ask you a few questions, and you are going to answer them. To encourage you, I will give you some little prompts along the way. And you won't need these. They interfere with the scenery," I tacked on, taking her panties and yanking the down.
Kate, you will understand, didn't take this lying down. Well, she did actually, because I held her there, but she did protest.
"Now please explain to me why you have been giving me the run a round at the Help Desk," I demanded.
Kate hesitated, so I gave her a reminded with a good spank to her bottom. Her bare bottom, and I hoped it hurt.
Kate squeaked with fury and then snarled at me. "Because you deserve it, you swine."
I spanked her again. "Wrong answer. Explain why you think I deserve it."
"Patty, of course," came the astonishing answer. "Why did you think?"
"I had no idea and I still don't," I told her. "The last I saw of Patty was when she told me she was pregnant and getting married and goodbye."
"Are you trying to tell me you're not the father," Kate sneered. "Patty said you were."
"Either you misunderstood or Patty lied," I said. "It is not possible for me to have fathered her child. I suggest you ask her again."
