Before calling the help center, be sure not to use common sense,
making sure that things are plugged in and that you have electricity,
etc. Also, don’t try simple things like rebooting your computer. It’s
better to waste the time of the agent and of other callers while your
ancient machine slowly shuts down and restarts.

Never consult your products paper or electronic manual, or search for
solutions on the company’s website or elsewhere on the Internet. That
kind of pro-active self help is just plain stupid. Why bother, right?

If the person taking your call has an accent different from yours,
instead of listening carefully to understand them, and appreciate
their help, instead immediately decide that they are less intelligent
than yourself, and are a “rude foreigner”. If the call center taking
your call is in your own country and speaks your own language,
don’t worry, it probably won’t be for long, as mega companies
exploit cheap labor at the expense of their own countries workers
and customers. Thank your political representative for ensuring
that is stays this way.

If you have to wait on hold for longer than you like, or be transferred,
waste even more of your valuable time telling the representative
how much of your valuable time has already been wasted. Make
sure they understand, even if it takes 30 to 45 minutes, that you
are very angry about having had to wait for 30 to 45 minutes. If
you waste as much of their time as you already waited, perhaps
then they will truly understand your situation, and will champion
your cause, all the way to the corporate executive, and get more
reps hired to decrease call times. Or perhaps they will just be
less likely to want to help or understand you. Either way, you can
be consoled by the fact that you have just contributed to the hold
time of the people after you in the queue.

If you are informed, after explaining your issue, that you have
either reached the wrong department, or that due to the info
that you have provided, it has been realized that another
department might better help you, become agitated and
unreasonable, and insist that whomever you are speaking to,
regardless of training, experience, qualification, or authorization,
be the one who helps you. This will immediately ingratiate you
to the representative, letting them know that you are willing to
help yourself to fix this problem. If the rep still insists on escalating
or transferring the call, waste more of your time (and everyone
else’s) by holding for a supervisor, so they can tell you the same
thing and then transfer you anyway, or waste more of your time
by trying to help you, when they have less experience than the
agent who was originally trying to help you.

When a representative is attempting to assist you with your issue,
by all means, do not listen or follow instructions. Skip ahead to
what you think they are going to have you try, start trying random
things, and/or do what the last person you talked to had you try.
This will ensure that your problem becomes worse, strengthening
the desperate bond between customer and agent. Then, while the
rep is explaining what you should be seeing, instructing you where
to look, look elsewhere and repeatedly insist that they are wrong or
that is not on your screen. Then finally, realizing that you are stupid,
say “that’s weird; now it’s there”

While on the phone with a representative, yell at your pets, kids,
spouse or roommates, or alternatively, tell an interesting story about
your life. Technical support is widely known to be a synonym for
“emotional support”. Don’t waste the time of the people at the
dating service or the suicide hotline.

If the agent is of the opposite sex (or the same, if that be your
fancy), then, by all means, make suggestive comments, ask
embarrassing personal questions, and finally, engage in awkward
sexual advances, offers, or boastful claims. If this doesn’t get
you hung up on or transferred, and the rep helps you anyway,
then, regardless of their tone, assume that they are into you,
and ask for them by name next time, naively assuming that the
next time you call, you are speaking to a person sitting next to
them, rather than someone in another building possibly in
another country.

If the agent is of a gender or race or culture that you consider to
be incompetent or otherwise inferior, be condescending and abusive,
or even ask to be helped by someone of your own kind. If the agent
sounds younger than yourself, assume that they are inexperienced
and won’t be able to help you, and be insulting or ask to be helped
by someone else. If the agent sounds older than yourself, assume
that they are antiquated and out of touch with current issues,
products, and techniques, and be abusive or ask to be helped by
someone else. This kind of self righteousness is the kind of classy
that never goes out of style, and when the agent transfers you,
explaining what an ass you are, you can be sure that their friend
will do everything possible to help you!