Small, Light, and Breakable

By Lincoln Spector

August 4, 2003

(Small, Light, and Breakable :  Page 1 of 1 )

Small, Light, and Breakable

(Small, Light, and Breakable:  Page 1 of 1 )

August 4, 2003

I love a good cup of tea in the morning, but then I'm not a keyboard. So when an accident involving an overgrown puppy, a stray roller skate, and a loose printer cable sent my morning cup flying towards the primary input device on my freshly booted PC, neither of us were happy.

But no big deal. I simply ran down to the local UltraOverLord Computer SuperStore and Coconut Emporium in search of a new keyboard. The search took an extra 40 minutes of wandering the aisles (at one point I managed to tackle an employee, but he thought keyboards came only on accordions).

I eventually realized that I couldn't just buy a keyboard. My computer, a Seppuku 12345, was a notebook.

So I returned home and prepared for a long day devoted to calling tech support. The experience started out, as always, with a recorded message: "Welcome to Seppuku Systems Technical Support. For home desktops, press 1. For home notebooks, press 2. For large corporations actually worth our time, press…"

I pressed 2. "If Windows won't boot, press 1. If you spilled coffee on your keyboard, press 2. If it was tea, press…"

I pressed 3. "Thank you for selecting the 'If you spilled tea over your keyboard' option. Please hold and someone will be with you eventually." After 15 minutes on hold, Seppuku Systems hung up.

Numbers Racket

So I called again. This time I didn't press any keys, but waited through the first round of voice mail 18 times before a human finally picked up the phone. "Seppuku Technical Support.

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