Thinking back to the "IT People Suck" blog post I made recently, the last paragraph of that post reminded me of something that happened to me.(pull) "Theres nothing I hate more than someone not being able to fix something and throw out some outrageous, unnecessary suggestion because they are stumped" (/pull)

Before I bought a house back in 2003 I use to move every year and a half or so. Didnt like to stay in one place too long. Every time I moved, I had to go through the process of transfering all of my utilities, cable and internet from the old apt to the new apt.

One time in particular, I had everything set up so that there wouldnt be any gap in my Internet service (cable internet). It was scheduled to be turned off at the old place in the morning and the technician was suppose to show up at the new place at 2 the same day to get me all set up. By 2 I had all of my PC equipment all set up at the new place. All he would have to do is remove the block on the cable line outside, and call in to have it turned on at the new address.

The cable guy came, removed the block outside, then sat in front of the computer and started to make the call. I had to leave the room for a few minutes…figured he’d be finished by the time I returned. About 10 mins later I went in to check on him and noticed he had an installation CD going through the process of installing something. While watching, I noticed he had installed a second ethernet card in my PC.  He finished up the installation cd and attempts to go to a webpage and it doesnt work. I told him that the ethernet cable is still running to the old card and not the card he installed. He kindof ignored me and called his "dispacher" for help.

The dispacher…or level 2 technician sent him through a few troubleshooting items, I watched the whole thing.  By the time he got off the phone, he had removed the drivers for both ethernet cards, removed my ethernet card, then reinstalled the drivers for my ethernet card (not the one that was left in the machine). So he had the wrong drivers installed for the ethernet card that was in left in the PC

I tried to tell him that he needs to install the correct drivers, but he held up his hand…sortof "shhh-ing" me while he called his technician back.

They went back and forth then he got off the phone and told me that I needed a new motherboard, this one was shot. He got up and left, telling me to call the cable company back when I got a new motherboard. I went to the pc, pulled out his card, put mine back in and the internet was working just fine, before he even left the parking lot.

Of coarse I called the cable company and made a complaint (dont know how much good that did)